Programmatic Advertising Benefits, Trends + Solutions [Infographic]

Today's programmatic advertising trends

Programmatic is growing, and it just makes sense that it would be.

After all, digital marketing is only made better with automation and ultra-specific targeting. Your ad spend is better utilized, your market is better defined and your results are just better. That’s why 62 percent of marketers are using programmatic advertising solutions for brand campaigns today and why it’s predicted the programmatic advertising industry will grow by 31 percent this year (that’s faster than social at 25 percent and video at 20 percent).

Here are some other interesting and relevant stats for you:

Types of Programmatic Ads In Use By Percent of Ad Spend:

• Display (98 percent)
• Video (73 percent)
• Mobile (64 percent)
• Social (55 percent)
• OTT/Connected Television (16 percent)

Ad Completion Rates By Device Type:

• OTT/Connected Television (98 percent)
• Tablet (91 percent)
• Smartphone (86 percent)
• Desktop (84 percent)

The reduced advertising costs and better targeting are among the many benefits of programmatic advertising for marketers and businesses, especially if they can find a way to leverage those connected TV and tablet users who are more likely to complete ads than anyone.

But, for all its good points, programmatic still has a few bugs to work out.

Solutions for programmatic advertising weaknesses

Sure, you can often target your audience down to favorite television shows and snacks using programmatic advertising, but that doesn’t mean it’s without flaws. The automated nature of this technology means that there’s always an opportunity for exploitation and there can be bugs that crop up even as the system grows and improves overall.

These issues should always be considered when buying programmatic advertising:

• Advertising fraud. In 2015, the U.S. ad industry alone lost a total of $8.2 billion from ad fraud, including fake traffic generated by site owners running pay-per-click ads. The good news is that advances in programmatic sales tech and new agreements with sellers like Google are making the process safer and more transparent for marketers. Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Sizmek also help marketers prevent ad fraud through managed ad delivery solutions.

• Brand safety. There was some ruckus this year when big name advertisers discovered their brand campaigns were being served up next to hate speech on YouTube. That didn’t sit well with them, nor should it with you. Google went back to the drawing board and says it has fixed this problem, but it would still pay to keep an eye on where your ads end up. IAS and Grapeshot provide risk analysis and management for your brand safety.

• Ad viewability. Did you know that more than half of online ads are never viewed, especially if they’re video ads? You can increase the likelihood your ad gets seen with programmatic buying optimizing for speed, responsiveness, ad layout and loading time. Programmatic advertising solutions such as IAS or DoubleVerify can help to evaluate and optimize your ad viewability.

Porgrammatic is the future of digital advertising

Despite a few minor hurdles with the way programmatic is currently implemented, it is on a course to be the future of digital advertising.

As the technology gets better at detecting and preventing fraud, we’ll find that it’s also better at reducing human error and, again, the cost associated with digital media buying. Omnichannel and cross-device buying will also get easier and there will be increased opportunities for real-time optimization of ad campaigns, so you can change up marketing that simply isn’t working on the fly.

Programmatic is already being widely adopted in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. It’s everywhere and it’s only getting better.