Rising Trends in Programmatic Digital Marketing

Programmatic has been shaping the landscape of the advertising industry for the last ten years. It wasn’t, however, until late 2017 when marketers noticed its growth and new potential. This year you should be staying on your toes as new trends are constantly emerging and the old ones are strengthening their position in digital marketing.

A Handfull of Facts about Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic channels have become a standard when it comes to ad buying. A report created by eMarketer shows that in 2015 in the US only mobile programmatic ad spending equaled to $10.68 billion. By the end of 2018, the total was $30.09 billion and the analysts predict this number will be even bigger in 2019.

The same research discovered a similar trend with programmatic digital display ad spending. In 2015 $17.5 billion was spent, and three years later it increased to $39.46 billion. That’s more than a 55% raise! We don’t know what number will be hit by the end of this year but it is estimated that it should be around $46 billion.

We can come to the conclusion that with such a rapid shift towards programmatic, digital marketing is about to face huge changes. Of course, they’re driven by several challenges but programmatic has proven, and still seems to be the answer. Let us examine what key trends we are likely to see this year.

A Shift from Multi-Channel to Omnichannel

We are witnessing a trend of going from multi-channel to omnichannel marketing. It is mainly caused by the growing number of digital devices owned by an average person. Currently, every consumer has about 3 connected devices. That’s why the focus in advertising has shifted towards smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, computers. Many advertisers, however, are looking forward to seeing how offline channels such as OOH can be involved as well.

Personalization

No one likes to be presented with irrelevant ads. Unfortunately, this is still happening which indicates poor-targeted campaigns and a waste of money. Personalized ads should be a crucial element of all marketing efforts and this trend is becoming more visible this year. With advanced tools, marketers are able to adapt ads in terms of location, gender, age, device, time, etc. A programmatic personalized campaign provides numerous benefits but perhaps the most prominent one is real-time feedback, which allows advertisers to adjust the ad accordingly.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is not a new trend at all. In fact, it has been slowly developing since 2016, and this year it continues to gain popularity. In 2019 we will experience its dominance in fields such as ad sales management, reduced CPC, and dynamic creative optimization. AI influences the media-related decisions as it provides very accurate and detailed data directly impacting the effectiveness of marketing efforts. Because AI needs time to learn and develop, it is likely it will only advance in the future.

In-Housing

This trend continues to grow as more and more companies value transparency and brand safety. Why? They want to own their data and be able to utilize efforts more effectively. However, unless you are aware of the challenges and the scope of your new duties, you should stick to your agency. In-housing also involves vast knowledge of your clients’ needs, so think twice before jumping into this trend blindly.

In-App Advertising

It’s highly doubtful anyone has missed seeing an ad while using various apps. In fact, most mobile marketing efforts are spent on in-app advertising. War Room shares that “with a captive audience and better targeting, the right consumers in-application advertising has impressive results”. And it turns out the majority of these ads are served programmatically.

Programmatic TV

Traditional TV advertising is slowly being tossed on the scrap heap. The future is shifting towards programmatic TV. We can call it a bridge between traditional and online marketing. It is estimated that by 2021 programmatic TV will represent one-third of overall ad spendings worldwide. Smart TVs have allowed this trend to emerge and programmatic campaigns that are displayed on the big screen are able to generate bigger sales. We can surely state that programmatic TV has entered the mainstream.

Dynamic Spendings

Programmatic advertising model has increased overall marketing spendings. No wonder! The benefits of such a solution are countless and access to real-time data allows marketers to tweak campaigns as many times as it is required to hit certain results. According to eMarketer by 2020 more than $65 billion will be spent on programmatic digital display advertising. Along with bigger spendings, the pricing will change as well. There will be greater flexibility and transparency, and the cost will be based on either CPM, CPC or CPA.

Digital out of Home

Digital out of home (DOOH) proves that we are moving from flat messages towards automated ones. In all big cities around the globe, ads are being displayed on giant screens where millions of passersby can see them. Live data feed placed in mass transit areas allows marketers to target greater audience and programmatic enables them to tweak every tiny bit of it real-time.

GDPR and ePrivacy

In 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation became effective in the EU countries. Marketers were quite confused about what it meant for their advertising efforts. After all, programmatic uses a lot of personal data about Internet users and in order to avoid penalties, a lot of agencies have slowed down on this solution. This year, however, a new law is meant to emerge and it will concern cookies used on websites. ePrivacy Regulation will be protecting personal privacy across the web. We are not sure how it will impact advertising campaigns in 2019 but it’s something to look out for this year.

Conclusion

As exciting as digital advertising may be, it is programmatic that’s shaping the future of marketing. Its popularity has been constantly growing since last year and the tendency of implementing programmatic into general marketing efforts seems to be rather increasing. Make use of the rising trends of 2019 and adjust your future campaigns accordingly to experience greater performance, engagement, and bigger sale.