Study Finds Rise In DSPs Not A Death Knell For Ad Nets

The Rubicon Project this morning released a report conducted with Econsultancy on programmatic advertising across the U.S., UK, France, Germany, and APAC. The report was released in the UK earlier today, and Rubicon gave RTM Daily a look inside the study.

"The research explores online advertising trends, including budgets, use of different channels, real-time bidding (RTB), demand-side platforms (DSPs), and private marketplaces," the executive summary of the report reads.

While much of the talk around RTB and DSPs involves an assumed fall of ad networks, the findings suggest otherwise. While the use of DSPs has increased in the past two years -- 23% of display advertisements were bought via DSPs in 2011, compared to 39% in 2013 -- it has not coincided with a decreased use of ad nets. In 2011, 63% of respondents said they bought display advertising via ad nets, and, contrary to assumptions, that figure has risen to 74% in 2013.

On budget allocation, one in five advertisers allocate 91-100% for agency trading desks. On the other end of the spectrum, the same amount of advertisers (one in five) use 0% of their budget for trading desks. The majority of trading desks -- or the advertisers themselves -- use two or three DSPs (32% use two, 23% use three).

In display advertising, 48% responded that they have noticed a hike in prices. Just 22% have seen a decrease in price, and 41% feel prices have remained the same. When breaking that figure down by region, the report shows that the price of display advertising was least likely to have increased in the U.S. in the past year (35% said it increased) and most likely to have increased in the APAC region (62% said it increased).

Much has been made recently of buying based on first- and/or third-party data. The report shows that 42% of global ad planning and buying is done based on first-party data, while 31% is based on third-party data. In the U.S., 48% of buys are based on first-party data, and 41% are based on third. A full 25% of buys in the U.S. are based on no data, while the global average for no data-based buys is 17%.

Econsultancy's "Online Advertisers Survey Report 2013" is the third such report of a bi-annual series. In total, over 1,000 advertising professionals were surveyed in August 2013 for the report. The data in this specific report comes from the 650-plus advertisers and agencies surveyed out of the 1,000-plus total. An "Online Publishers Survey Report 2013" containing the data from the publishers point of view is expected in October.

You can download the report at Econsultancy here.

1 comment about "Study Finds Rise In DSPs Not A Death Knell For Ad Nets".
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  1. DG T from Viewthrough Measurement Consortium, September 25, 2013 at 8:25 a.m.

    Sounds counter-intuitive...any insight as to why? DSPs may have taken revenue from retargeting which may not have been the domain of the survey target (agencies/advertising execs) and more the domain of performance ad networks (often direct buy w/ecommerce)...just a theory.

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