Programmatic RTB Now Half of the Online Advertising Marketplace

A new report by Interpublic Group’s Magna claims programmatic buying now represents more than 50% of the online advertising marketplace…. and growing.

“We forecast robust growth as more publishers, advertisers and agencies embrace programmatic technologies,” reads the agency’s report. Real-time bidding (RTB) accounts more than half, or $3.5 billion, of total programmatic buying.

If transactions which are conducted through automated platforms but not necessarily through “real-time” bidding are included, than programmatic (RTB and non-RTB but automated) will be expanding from $4.7 billion in 2012 to $7.4 billion this year, a growth rate of 56%. This breaks down as: RTB representing $3.9 billion and non-RTB (NRTB) representing $3.5 billion.

Looking forward, the report projects that the volume of all forms of programmatic trading will continue to expand dramatically — rising to $17 billion by 2017, representing 83% of all digital media buys that year. The machines have officially taken over.

Medical publishers, if they are to tap into this 83% of the “new” programmatic market, have to “re-think” their need for approving every ad that appears on their site. In a programmatic world that moves very quickly and taps into ad inventory pools with millions of possible impressions, the process of approving every one becomes an impossibility.