Programmatic advertising is projected to account for 51% of digital display expenditure worldwide this year, before growing to 57% share next year on the back of a 31% increase in spending. That’s according to Zenith’s Programmatic Marketing Forecasts, which show programmatic growing faster than both social media (25%) and online video (20%).
Programmatic ad spending has soared in recent years, from just US$5 billion in 2012 to $39 billion this year, averaging a growth rate of 71% per year. During that period, programmatic has quadrupled from just 13% of display ad spending to 51%.
While growth is expected to slow, programmatic advertising is still projected to climb by 28% per year through 2018, when it will reach $64 billion.
The US is the world’s largest programmatic advertising market, with its $24 billion worth comprising roughly 62% of the global total. The UK trails distantly in second ($3.3 billion), followed relatively closely by China ($2.6 billion). There’s much more room for growth in China, though, where programmatic accounts for just 23% of display, as opposed to 70% in the US and UK.
In a separate forecast, eMarketer projects a similar 73% of US digital display ad spending to be traded programmatically this year, rising to 78% next year and 82% in 2018. Market size estimates are also similar to Zenith, with eMarketer predicting that programmatic display ad spending will slightly exceed $25 billion in the US this year.
Programmatic has also surged in the digital video market, per eMarketer’s tallies. This year, a majority 60% of digital video ad spending in the US is expected to be transacted programmatically, representing a marked increase from 39% last year and 12% the year before. The dollar spend on programmatically traded video is expected to more than double this year (up 106.3%) before slowing to growth rates of 40.1% next year and 23% the following year, as programmatic’s share climbs to almost 3 in 4 digital video ad dollars in 2018.
