• by Ray Schultz , June 3, 2020

Roughly two-thirds of marketers will increase their programmatic ad budgets in the months ahead and the remaining third will reduce them, according to Programmatic Advertising-Strategies, Tactics And Trends, a study by Ascend2.

Of those polled, 37% expect an increase of 10% or less. But 15% foresee a hike of 11-24%, and 14% anticipate an increase of 25% or more.

At the same time, 70% see themselves as somewhat successful at achieving their strategic objectives, 23% as very successful or best-in-class, and 7% as unsuccessful.

Their major challenges at this moment in time are: 

• Audience targeting — 46%
• Budget allocation — 37%
• Personalization — 32%
• Achieving ROI — 30%
• Data quality — 30%
• Ad creative — 22% 
• Program and channel management — 21% 
• AI/machine learning — 8%

Their main objectives for programmatic ad campaigns are: 

• Driving sales — 53% 
• Lead generation — 47%
• Build awareness — 47%
• Customer retention — 36%
• Social engagement — 22%
• Lead nurturing — 18% 
• Community building — 16%
• Message/offer testing — 14%

Their most effective tactics include: 

• Audience targeting — 73%
• Keyword targeting — 41% 
• Retargeting — 27% 
• Contextual/targeting — 26%
• Geotargeting — 25% 
• Testing creative — 22% 
• Increasing automation — 20% 

To conduct programmatic ad buying, 53% use both outsourced and in-house resources, while 29% rely on in-house staff only and 18% use outside specialists.

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed a panel of marketing professionals and research subscribers.