The Programmatic Pulse: What Marketers REALLY Think About Programmatic

Editor's Notes

• #8: - Three of every four marketers are using Programmatic today. While approximately 70% of marketers we surveyed are currently using Programmatic, almost a third of them have been doing so less than a year. Additionally, over 30% of marketers surveyed are currently NOT using Programmatic, although about half of these respondents indicated that they intend to do so in the near future. - Targeting & performance are key drivers of adoption today, competitive dynamics (i.e. pressure from competitors) less so. Ranking the importance of the various factors driving their use of Programmatic Advertising today, respondents revealed a clear, consistent hierarchy. Targeting across devices, improved performance, data/insights, and cost efficiencies emerged as the most important factors. Interestingly, competitive dynamics ranked at the bottom of potential issues. - Measurement of results, data integration, site quality/brand safety, and resource limits top issues inhibiting Programmatic today. Respondents had a lot to say about things that make them think twice about shifting more dollars over to Programmatic. Measurement of results and data integration emerged as two the most important factors inhibiting usage of Programmatic today, followed closely by site quality/brand safety and lack of internal resources to manage. -How Programmatic is managed today varies immensely. Best practices have yet to emerge in the management of Programmatic efforts. Among respondents, there is a relatively equal distribution between dependency on agencies, and in-house efforts. - But (internal) resource allocations seem destined to evolve. While the use of Programmatic Advertising has had minimal impact on staffing to date, this seems likely to change: over 30% of respondents are evaluating resources to better support their efforts, 7% have reallocated internal resources to the effort, and 36% felt there would be internal organization and staffing changes due to Programmatic in 2014-15. - Tactical issues keeping marketers up at night. The majority of marketers’ issues going forward are focused on the tactical application and evaluation of individual Programmatic marketing campaigns. Issues like transparency, fraud, availability of quality inventory, cost, and ROI were noted as key areas of concern. - Spend to grow. The vast majority of respondents predict that their spend on Programmatic will increase next year; 19% expect significant positive change. - Living in a Programmatic world. Respondents widely agreed that a majority of digital media buying would be done Programmatically in the future and that Programmatic would expand into areas beyond online display advertising. More interesting still is that many of the executives we surveyed widely supported the notion that Programmatic would expand beyond digital media to TV in the near future.
• #9: - We held a series of in-depth, one-on-one interviews with key marketing executives at several Fortune 500 brands to supplement our quantitative findings with qualitative perspectives that the survey couldn’t have captured. Our survey respondents are a diverse group of professionals from a wide range of companies and industries. In total, 232 respondents from multiple industries in the US, Canada and UK markets completed the entire survey - 68% of respondents are at the level of VP/Director/Manager, and 15% are in senior management. Almost 80% of respondents have marketing as their key area of responsibility. - Over seventeen industries were represented in our survey, from media (12%) and software (11%) to automotive (3%) and real estate (1%) (Q1). [Not shown on the slide] - Almost 70% of respondents have been in the digital media business at least five years; 30% have been in the business a decade or longer. - 46% of respondents spend at least 30% of their marketing budget on digital; 27% spend 50% or more. 56% of respondents spend 30% or less of their marketing budget in digital, but only 7% of respondents spend 10% or less of their marketing budget on digital - Spend by respondents ran the gamut from small ($1 million or less) to large (over $500 million). 44% of respondents spend $10 million or more annually on media, and 24% spend $10 million or more
• #12: Adoption is widespread if uneven. While approximately 70% of marketers we surveyed are currently using Programmatic, almost a third of them have been doing so less than a year. Additionally, over 30% of marketers surveyed are currently NOT using Programmatic, although about half of these respondents indicated that they intend to do so in the near future [Not shown on the slide] Room to learn, even among practitioners. Among those who use Programmatic Advertising, we saw an interesting 75/25 split: three in four are firmly grounded in the ins and outs of Programmatic, either as practitioners or strategists, while one in four indicated that they need continued education on its use.
• #13: We segmented our respondents into groups based on their current usage of Programmatic and a self-assessment of their own understanding. It is interesting to note that top line goals broadly align for both savvy and unsavvy users: retargeting (75% overall) and branding (72% overall) being indicated as primary by both. Interesting still is that many of the executives we surveyed widely supported the notion that Programmatic would expand beyond digital media to TV in the near future [Not shown on the slide] Two underlying issues with unsavvy marketers may be related to tenure: of those unsavvy about Programmatic, 46% have been in the industry fewer than five years (Q11) , and 40% have been with their current companies for two years or fewer (Q12).
• #16: Ranking the importance of the various factors driving their use of Programmatic Advertising today, respondents revealed a clear, consistent hierarchy. Targeting across devices (80% overall), improved performance (78% overall), data/insights (72% overall), and cost efficiencies (72% overall) emerged as the most important factors. Interestingly, competitive dynamics (28% overall) ranked at the bottom of potential issues. Perhaps not surprisingly, savvy users put more importance on the main factors driving usage of Programmatic Advertising than did their unsavvy colleagues
• #18: Respondents had a lot to say about things that make them think twice about shifting more dollars over to Programmatic. Measurement of results (67% ranked very/extremely important) and data integration (57% ranked very/extremely important) emerged as the most important factors inhibiting usage of Programmatic Advertising today. A majority of respondents also indicated that issues like site quality/brand safety (51% ranked very/extremely important) and lack of internal resources to manage (50% ranked very/extremely important) are also significant barriers. Less pressing but still important were issues such as fraud and creative execution (47% & 37% ranked very/extremely important, respectively). Unsavvy users also rank lack of internal resources and education as an inhibiting factor to Programmatic usage
• #19: It’s not surprise that marketers have understood how valuable is their first party data. After all, they have been collecting CRM and 1st party data collected for some time and more often than not, this data hasn’t been used beyond email marketing. DEFINITIONS First-party data is YOUR data. This can include data from behaviors, actions or interests demonstrated across your website(s); data you have in your CRM; subscription data; social data; or cross-platform data from mobile web or apps. Third-party data, on the other hand, is generated on other platforms and often aggregated from other websites. There are many companies out there that sell third-party data, and it is accessible through many different avenues.
• #21: The most popular approach (not a majority, though, at 39%) for managing Programmatic efforts today is via agencies. Almost 50% of savvy users execute through their agency, while 51% of unsavvy users execute all in-house. One of the reasons why unsavvy marketers are executing programmatic efforts in house, is that because of SEM being considered as programmatic by many respondents.
• #22: Among our respondents, there seems to be some correlation between spends and how a company manages Programmatic. Companies that spend less on digital media are more likely to execute Programmatic in-house
• #23: In general, agencies are doing a solid job here: 54% of users overall who execute Programmatic exclusively through their agency are satisfied with their agency’s performance. [Not shown on the slide] However, this satisfaction is markedly different between savvy and unsavvy users: in contrast to 63% satisfaction with agency performance among savvy users, 74% of unsavvy users are unsure of their agency’s performance.
• #24: Taking a hybrid approach 28% of respondents split efforts between agency and in-house resources. Interestingly, most who take this hybrid approach keep key areas like Google search (63%), Facebook Audiences (60%), and Display Media (49%) in-house [Not shown on the slide] While the use of Programmatic Advertising has had minimal impact on staffing to date, this seems likely to change: over 30% of respondents are evaluating resources to better support their efforts; 7% have reallocated internal resources to the effort
• #25: 55% of respondents have built in-house or partnered with a third party for a Data Management Platform (DMP). Of those who are unsavvy, 58% have not considered using a DMP. 45% of total respondents have built in-house or partnered with a third party for a Demand-Side Platform (DSP). Of those who are unsavvy, 61% have not considered using a DSP
• #27: The vast majority of respondents (74%) see their spend on Programmatic increasing next year; 19% expect significant positive change. While only 2% think spending may decrease, 13% of respondents were unsure how spend would change. Not surprisingly, this number was higher (23%) among unsavvy respondents.
• #28: The majority (64%) of respondents overall felt there would be no internal organization or staffing changes due to Programmatic. However, 26% of total respondents believe more staff will be reallocated to Programmatic, and 10% believe more staff will be hired. It is important to note that in all cases, savvy users’ answers exceed the overall average
• #29: Respondents are split fairly evenly on whether they will outsource Programmatic Advertising or bring it in-house in the future. When asked how they see Programmatic Advertising impacting internal organizations and staffing overall in 2015, a slim majority (52%) indicated they will be outsourcing more and more of Programmatic to agencies and partners; the remaining 48% plan to bring more and more of Programmatic in-house. [Not shown on the slide] Interestingly, these respective views seem to be driven by different priorities. For those who think they will bring Programmatic in-house in the future, cost efficiencies (63%) and complete data sets (51%) are the key drivers. For those who think they will outsource Programmatic in the future, cost (61%), competencies with Programmatic (55%), and ad tech (55%) are the primary factors.
• #30: Although most markets have an “all in” belief in the future of Programmatic, significant issues remain. When asked the open-ended question “What Programmatic marketing issues keep you up at night?” most of the top issues – including transparency, fraud, availability of quality inventory, cost, and ROI – indicate numerous concerns in terms of the tactical application and evaluation of individual Programmatic marketing campaigns.
• #31: Respondents widely agreed (70% agree/strongly agree) that a majority of digital media buying would be done Programmatically in the future. 75% agree/ strongly agree that in the near future, Programmatic will expand into areas beyond display advertising. More interesting still is that many of executives we surveyed widely supported the notion that Programmatic would expand beyond digital media to TV (67% agree/strongly agree)