Report: Mobile To Dominate Programmatic Advertising, Leave Desktop In The Dust

Digital ad forecaster eMarketer is asserting that the majority of US display advertising dollars will be bought through programmatic channels by 2017. Furthermore, most of that will be mobile.

A new report from the company estimates that mobile programmatic advertising will be worth roughly $9.33 billion in 2015, capturing 61 percent of all programmatic display ad spending in the US. By 2017, eMarketer says, mobile programmatic will be worth $20.4 billion vs. $6.34 billion on the PC.

Programmatic is a broad and somewhat ill-defined category that has as its core attribute the automated buying, selling and fulfillment of ads. The programmatic infrastructure is already in place, and its momentum is accelerating.

There remain questions, however, about “brand safety,” fulfillment and the accuracy of data inputs into the ecosystem. The viewability debate is part of this cluster of issues.

Video and so-called native advertising are seen in the report as big drivers of programmatic growth in mobile. Facebook is also defined as a programmatic platform, and the majority of its revenues are from mobile now. Accordingly, Google can also be defined as a programmatic platform.