• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 4, 2013

Putting the programmatic phenomenon in perspective, new research finds that a full 85% of advertisers use such automated buying strategies, while 91% expect to do so within the next two years.
 
That’s according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the consultants at Winterberry Group, which surveyed some 250 executive-level “thought leaders” from across the digital marketing landscape.
 
Slightly less gung ho on the idea of automated ad buying, 72% of publishers now have programmatic strategies -- while 83% expect that they will within two years.
 
As for industry concerns, a third (33%) of advertiser panelists said brand safety issues -- and a sense of decreased control over where their advertising may be viewed -- were scaring them away from larger programmatic investments.
 
Patrick Dolan, executive vice president/COO of the IAB, stated that the organization has already taken steps to address the issue of brand safety through its Quality Assurance Guidelines program.
 
Advertisers and publishers are also being lured by different promises with respect to programmatic adoption, the research shows.
 
More than half of advertiser respondents (55%) said they value the ability of programmatic to effectively engage with target audiences across various digital properties, while 63% of publisher panelists said they are driven by the need to achieve operational efficiencies in media transactions.
 
When asked to select their associations with the term “programmatic,” 68% of all panelists included marketing and media work flow automation in their choices -- more so than any other definition. Close behind, two-thirds (66%) correlated “programmatic” with auction-based media buying.
 
Respondents noted that their use of programmatic technologies may broaden over the next two years, as programmatic could have a wider range of strategic uses.
 
The two areas at the top of the list were audience segmentation and actionable insight development.