Programmatic to account for more than half of display advertising this year

As the debate on combining creativity and programmatic rages on, British marketers are expected to triple their spending on digital display advertising in 2015, with programmatic accounting for more than half of that, according to new research by eMarketer.

The report states that UK programmatic digital display ad spending will grow by 66.2% to reach £1.80bn this year, accounting for 59% of the UK display advertising market. By 2016, spending is predicted to reach £2.5bn.

“The balance of UK digital display ad spend will tip toward programmatic this year, and that strong growth is set to continue into 2016,” says Bill Fisher, analyst at eMarketer.

“It hasn’t been an easy journey, but initial trepidation is being replaced with a realisation that programmatic can deliver the inventory, partners and prices that marketers want.”

Mobile spending to overtake desktop

Programmatic is becoming increasingly influenced by mobile. In 2015, the proportion of total UK programmatic display ad spending on mobile platforms is predicted to surpass desktop’s share for the first time.

The report predicts that 56.1% of UK programmatic display ad spending will go toward mobile this year, with desktop responsible for the remaining 43.9%. Programmatic is also set to become steadily more important within mobile display ad spending, with the amount of programmatic mobile ad expenditure set to reach 68% in 2015 and rise to 75.5% the year after.

Embracing programmatic

There have been various brands that have decided to adopt programmatic within their overall business strategy.

Samsung has been exploring programmatic since 2012 with encouraging results, and expects it to be the majority of display spend by the end of 2016, while 02 recognises that programmatic has provided the opportunity to target specific groups around things it wants to shout about.

Equally, Pernod Ricard is currently looking at what programmatic is able to do in terms of real-time capacities to advertise, and how accurate it can be – through leveraging data – in targeting the people it wants to reach.

Speakers from O2 and Pernod Ricard will be joining Marketing Week and Econsultancy in London on 29 September for the second edition of Get with the Programmatic – an essential brand-led conference that promises lively debate, honest peer-to-peer learning, and content that covers the wholeprogrammatic ecosystem. Book now

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