Looking back at the behavior of the online media world as we approach the end of 2015, it’s fascinating to see how the online media world has behaved so far. While some predictions were less accurate than others, nearly all predictions regarding Programmatic Media Buying turned out to be true. It has indeed become a mainstream standard and will soon be a necessity for advertisers. As expected by media experts, Programmatic has started to become a widespread sensation, and the entire industry has already started shifting towards that direction and making proper adjustments.

Here are a few interesting trends that stood out so far in 2015. These have only started gaining proper momentum, and should become even stronger in 2016. It is therefore good to keep them in mind: Here are a few interesting trends that stood out so far in 2015. These have only started gaining proper momentum, and should become even stronger in 2016. It is therefore good to keep them in mind:

Mobile Video Media Buying Goes Programmatic:

According to several researches, Video is the media format most sought after by users.

Demand for video is currently greater than supply, and it seems that as time passes, users seek to view more video content. There is a good reason behind YouTube’s popularity, and behind the emergence of platforms such as Vimeo, LiveLeak and Filmon.

Cisco claims that by year 2018, some one million minutes of video are expected to flow through the network every second.

They are not the only company to have similar claims, and with the trend proceeding in that direction, we can expect to see more companies investing additional funds in video content and programming.

We have already witnessed this in the past couple of years, with big players such as Amazon, Google and Yahoo, acknowledging this rise of the Video medium, and taking actions accordingly. It should be interesting to follow these major names in the industry, and to keep an eye open for the smaller names, to see how they adjust their game plan to match the growing video content and programming trends.

On the other side of the fence, we have the users. There has also been a great increase from their end, and we gradually see more user-generated video content: In fact, while brand-created videos make up some 17% of content on YouTube and less than 1% on Facebook and Vine – user-generated content makes up 32% of the top videos on YouTube, 17% on Vine and more than 50% on Facebook.

This increase is significant on both sides, and it implies that video ads, real-time video bidding, and programmatic video advertising are growing, and should continue in that direction.

Video is big in 2015, and only getting bigger. More and more companies are expected to jump on the bandwagon, and production cost will be driven down even further. To deal effectively with the large amount of video content and demand, programmatic media buying and real-time bidding (RTB) will further be implemented. These trends will make video buying more affordable, easy and efficient.

On the broader scale of things — With mobile already dominating the scene, and with all the video content consumed on mobile devices, we should definitely expect massive usage of Programmatic in that area.

“One-stop-shop” Advertising Platforms to Gain Popularity:

Along with Programmatic shifting into the mainstream, integrative solutions for simplifying media processes have begun emerging. Solutions for self-service real-time bidding and programmatic buying dashboards have become more popular, and are expected to develop even further. Technological developments and specific needs have sped up the development of such platforms. These solutions were required for dealing with several issues that hindered the marketplace’s fast pace, mostly caused by the fragmented advertising ecosystem: Mainly ineffective targeting, inability to calculate advertising ROI, clumsy integration in terms of UI and lack of standardization.

These platforms have successfully addressed these challenges by consolidating several ad exchanges and marketing resources into a single user-friendly interface. This allows advertisers to manage their campaigns efficiently while enhancing cross-channel and cross-segment efficiency. The data accumulated by users is then provided as feedback to advertisers to help them optimize audience segments and creatives.

Big Data-Driven Targeting will step up

As established, judging by the powerful trends in 2015 thus far, it is safe to assume that Programmatic and RTB will only continue to evolve. One of the keys to its fast-paced evolution is the user data that feeds it, optimizes it, and helps to shape and evolve it. Some of the big players in social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, have already begun further implementing segmentation and targeting strategies based on big data. At the same time, third-party big data companies are likely to become key players in the ecosystem. While major companies can afford to invest resources in developing their own big data capabilities, others still need to rely on outsourcing. These big data companies have provided services up until now, and should continue doing so on a larger scale, to meet the growing needs of advertisers that seek to leverage their personalized marketing capabilities. With Programmatic being utilized all over the place, the massive amounts of data could be efficiently processed and analyzed, using machine learning and algorithms to optimize and provide clever insights.

Throughout the past few years, we at MMG have made great efforts in the Programmatic field and set ourselves as a leading force in the industry. This has led us to developing our own strategic buying methods and technologies, positioning us on top of the programmatic buying game.

To hear about MMG’s Programmatic Media Buying solutions, please drop us a line at [email protected]