Ad executives, on average, plan to spend 40% of their digital advertising budgets through programmatic audience-buying platforms over the next six months, according to the
most recent findings from an ongoing study of advertiser and agency executives conducted by Advertiser Perceptions Inc. While respondents said that 60% of their digital budgets would continue to be
bought “direct” through publishers on sales organizations, the 40% programmatic number is much higher than current industry norms.
According to Interpublic’s Magna global unit, about 23% of online display advertising currently is bought programmatically. While it is growing fast, Magna’s most recent forecast
didn’t call for programmatic to approach the 40% share of digital ad budgets until around 2016.
In conversations with some big agencies and trading
desks in recent weeks, some said they are now purchasing as much as 30% of their clients’ digital buys programmatically.