This article by Christopher Heine originally appeared on AdWeek.
Bots, fraud and particularly brand safety — given YouTube’s recent controversies — are among the reasons “programmatic advertising” has become a dirty term in some marketers’ minds. Yet, there appears to be an acceleration toward direct programmatic (or “premium” in the parlance of some industry players) that shows the marketplace may be adapting with more urgency than in the past.
Typically speaking, real-time bidding — an impressions-focused form of programmatic that can often lead to brands either appearing alongside questionable content or, worse, falling victim to ad fraud — is on the decline, eMarketer reported this week. The New York-based researcher said that in 2017, 44 percent of all programmatic advertising will be purchased via real-time bidding, or RTB, while programmatic direct will represent 56 percent of programmatic display spending. It’s the third year in a row that programmatic direct will make gains on RTB, per eMarketer; for instance, its 2016 estimates declared a 53 percent (direct)-to-47 percent (RTB) split. More specifically, for 2017, eMarketer said, 74.5 percent ($24.25 billion) of domestic digital display ads will run via private marketplaces and programmatic direct setups. These kinds of systems usually offer higher-quality placements and should avert ad-buying problems, and it sounds like they are growing in popularity by the day.
“Clients are moving their dollars to private marketplaces with intention of bringing transparency into the transaction, knowing from whom you are buying and what you are buying,” said Julia Welch, VP, Product, Curated Market of MediaMath. “Additionally, they are doing it in hopes of reaching more of their best customers in contextually relevant environments. Buying privately increases the chances of being in a brand-safe environment and serving to human traffic. Buying programmatically provides the opportunity to do that in a data-driven way, ensuring that you are reaching as many of your best customers as possible.”
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