• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, November 20, 2013

Measured by domestic impression volume, programmatic ad buying surpassed direct media buying for the first time, last month. So Gabe Gottlieb, CEO of ad firm Adomic, told attendees of OMMA RTB Seattle, on Wednesday. To be clear, direct still eats up the vast majority of online ad dollars -- because it commands higher CPMs -- Gottlieb noted. Stateside, eMarketer estimates that advertisers will spend $3.36 billion on RTB, this year, and $8.49 billion by 2017 -- or nearly 30% of all display display advertising.