Programmatic advertising threatens to kill off direct ad booking

20 Feb 2015

Shane Murphy, EMEA marketing chief at AdRoll

Real-time programmatic advertising, the online advertising methodology favoured by AOL, Facebook and Twitter, will overtake direct ad booking, the EMEA head of marketing at AdRoll has predicted.

According to a recent IAB report, programmatic technology has emerged as the driving force for a new vision of digital advertising that integrates paid media into real-time marketing.

In its recent financial results, AOL saw a 66pc jump in profit to US$59.6m, which it attributed to its emphasis on programmatic advertising.

A new State of the Industry report commissioned by AdRoll found retargeting – a programmatic tactic of displaying ads in real-time to consumers as they move to different sites – attracts up to half the online budget of 39pc of European marketers.

The report indicates 64pc of European marketers plan to increase their retargeting budget this year.

“There is a place for direct media buys but the way the world is transitioning to programmatic, it is more efficient in terms of people’s time and the executing of ad campaigns. Publishers no longer need a big sales team and brands no longer need a big marketing team,” said Shane Murphy, EMEA marketing chief at AdRoll.

“Programmatic is more targeted for getting the ad to the right person. The more targeted the entire ecosystem the more efficiencies and return on investment are gained.”

AdRoll, which considers itself the ‘Switzerland of online advertising’ employs more than 100 people in Dublin and works across the entire ecosystem of social and digital publishing platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Snapchat and more.

“We fully believe that programmatic will overtake direct selling,” Murphy said, pointing to how Time magazine recently populated an entire edition using the programmatic approach.

“Programmatic will improve the whole ecosystem, that’s the trend we are seeing. The idea of someone picking up a phone to buy media won’t happen in the future.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com