• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 31, 2015

This year was a good one for programmatic and mobile. Due to exceptional ad-buying efficiencies and shifting consumer tastes, the programmatic and mobile revolutions officially merged in 2015.

Indeed, the vast majority (89%) of marketers say they used demand-side platforms (DSPs) to purchase mobile display this year, according to fresh findings from Forrester Research.

That share is up dramatically from last year, when just 36% of marketers said they employed programmatic technology to buy mobile display ads.

In addition, more than 43% of marketers said they'd actually used multiple DSPs in 2015. That’s a big change from last year, when more than half of marketers surveyed said they were not even familiar enough with programmatic buying to use it.

The reason for the rise in programmatic buying is simple, says Jim Nail, a principal analyst at Forrester. “Marketers are following consumers’ mobile behaviors to do the basic function that marketing must fulfill: deliver messages where the target audiences are,” he explains in the new report.

“There is also the idea that, since devices are in consumers’ hands, mobile ads will receive high attention -- and thus be more effective than other strategies,” Nail suggests.

“For example, marketers are concerned with ‘banner blindness’ and even ineffective TV ads because of DVR fast-forward functionality, consumers’ constant channel switching, or simply their lack of attention during commercial breaks.”

This post is adapted from a Moblog published earlier in December.