• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, July 17, 2013

After Accordant Media released their Q1 report, MediaPost's Joe Mandese asked, "What capacity for opacity?" while referring to the bubbly transparency numbers of that first report. Accordant is expected to release their Q2 report this morning, and the big story in the new report is the industry's apparent new focus on quality.

To sum up their report, Accordant writes, "The programmatic media industry continues to evolve in a healthy manner. While the initial inventory growth spurt has flattened, there is arguably a more significant focus on quality and innovation across a broader range of advertising uses for programmatic media."

I like Accordant's word choice of "healthy," because it means those involved understand that forgetting about quality while piling on the quantity is not (forgive the buzzword) scalable.

According to Accordant's data, U.S. impressions grew 13% from 2012 but declined 6% compared to Q1 2013. On the global scale, total real-time bidding (RTB) impressions grew 0.4%. Going along with the quality over quantity theme of the report, Accordant reports that there was a 12% increase in click-through rates in the U.S. compared to Q1 2013.

One other interesting piece of data: just six countries represent two-thirds of the RTB market (U.S., UK, Brazil, Germany, France, and Canada). The U.S. alone represents just over 40% of the total volume.

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