Top Programmatic Advertising Trends Affecting Media Buying

The programmatic advertising industry continues to evolve drastically year by year. Zenith Media predicts that in 2020, advertisers will spend $98 billion on overall programmatic advertising. That would account for an incredible 68% of their total digital media ad expenditure. The consistent generation of fresh ideas leads to new marketing technology, which in turn directly affects media ad sales. That’s why we’ve collected the top current programmatic advertising trends impacting ad sales, and what makes them so influential.

The Effectiveness of Dynamic Creative Optimization

Programmatic customization offers endless opportunities for brands to improve their performance. Personalizing targeted advertisements provides a high level of relevancy to the intended audience, and therefore a greater overall possibility of engagement.

One of the most popular examples of successfully using dynamic creative optimization technology is Mindshare’s Indonesia AirAsia campaign. They served thousands of different ad versions based on the last destination travellers searched for on the site. According to the study, “they were able to create 5,500+ ad versions in three months, saving an estimated 276 days of production time.”

Technology like this continuously learns about your target customers as they make decisions online, allowing your brand to filter out the users who would not be best-suited for your product and marketing.

The best part is that the program is automated, so all of these decisions and dozens of alterations per consumer are done automatically. With the enormous amounts of data available to advertisers today, it’s possible to adapt with factors such as location, demographic, browsing behaviour, device type, and time, and more.

The Targeting Capabilities of Digital Out of Home

Programmatic technology has reached digital out of home (DOOH) advertising, and the advantages are substantial. Marketers are eager to make use of the amazing capabilities such as environmental triggers, retargeting using geofencing, and cross-channel amplification. After all, a reported 22% of consumers search, purchase, or take social action within 30 minutes of seeing an OOH ad.

Programmatic DOOH campaigns are able to deliver highly relevant content in a cost-effective way. This is likely why the worldwide DOOH market size alone is projected to grow to $15.9 billion by 2027. Compounding programmatic tactics with the vast capabilities of OOH creates many opportunities for campaign success.

The Intimacy of Programmatic Audio

According to a study by Digilant, 50% of all internet searches will be conducted via voice in 2020, which creates an enormous platform for audio ads. Speaking directly to the target without having to compete for their attention makes it easier to personalize your campaign message and connect to the consumer, which creates a more memorable impression.

Studies have even shown that listeners exposed to authentic, personalized ads are 2.4x more likely to convert, so it’s no wonder this advertising medium continues to impress.

Voice-Activated Tech

Over 56 million smart speakers shipped in 2018, which offers an excellent opportunity for brands to harness the power of voice-activated advertising and connect with users right in their homes. By doing this programmatically, feedback is instantaneous and therefore allows campaign creatives to adjust for optimization in real-time.

Audio ads are also resistant to ad-block extensions, which offers a high degree of transparency. And since it’s not possible to skip through audio ads, there is a much lower risk of ad fraud.

The Mass Adoption of Podcasts

Podcast sponsorships have proven to be an extremely valuable part of advertising strategies, and are estimated to generate the US over $1 billion in revenue in 2021. Advertisements delivered directly by a podcast host have proven to be a genuine-feeling way for brands to speak to their target audience.

According to IAB’s 2019 Podcast Ad Revenue Study, “podcast listeners continue to respond well to ads, scoring high marks in terms of engagement with ads as well as responsiveness.” Want to learn more? Read all about programmatic audio.

The Power of Programmatic TV

Programmatic video is served with Connected TV (CTV) using Over-the-Top (OTT) content. These methods have grown in demand as a result of the mass adoption of smart televisions and streaming boxes such as Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku. A great benefit to this movement is that it bridges the gap between online ads and television ads.

PWC predicts that by 2021, programmatic TV advertising will represent approximately one-third of global tv ad revenue. It’s no wonder, considering that these unskippable ads are becoming increasingly engaging, precisely targeted, and are readily available.

According to a prediction by eMarketer, US advertisers will purchase $3.8 billion in programmatic TV ads this year, which is a 58% increase from $2.09 billion in 2018. This substantial of an increase could lead to a considerable creation of online inventory for brands, and a host of new opportunities to engage with their target audience.

The Rise of AVoD

Advertisement-based video on demand (AVoD) has made its mark in 2019 as an increasingly popular advertising medium. According to Warc, AVoD spend is set to double to $47 billion worldwide in the next five years, which is no small achievement.

James McDonald, Data Editor at Warc, states, “consumers’ voracious appetite for video content anywhere, on any device, has been propelled by subscription-based video on demand (SVoD) services such as Netflix. But it is AVoD platforms which present the opportunity for advertisers to marry rich consumer data with pinpoint targeting during engaging content.” This is largely thanks to the fact that 78% of digital video viewers are willing to watch ads in exchange for free content.

To sum up this year’s programmatic trends thus far, it seems that advertisers are connecting closely with their consumers and taking advantage of the evolving variety of advertising technology.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of these emerging trends, create a free account and submit your media brief to find a tailor-matched vendors for your next campaign.