Programmatic advertising is growing and real-time bidding is now being used far beyond traditional display advertising, according to new global research.
The study, from ad technology provider Turn, also found that ‘smoother ‘spend indicates more proactive media planning; marketers are preparing for seasonal highs and targeting their audiences more effectively.
As a result of this better planning, the mobile, social and video channels are all becoming nearly as competitive as display, which has been consistently competitive for a number of years.
Other key findings from the report include:
• Globally marketers have increased their spend on mobile advertising by 109% and on video by 65% compared to the same period last year
• In the UK, eCPM increased by 108% on video from Jan-Apr 2013 to Jan-Apr 2014. Mobile saw a similarly impressive growth in this same period with eCPM rising by 104% and impression volumes increasing by 34%
• Sports and recreation has seen competition decrease dramatically from Jan – April 2014, perhaps suggesting that advertisers were saving their spend for the World Cup period
• Travel, telecoms and financial services are mature markets; lots of advertisers are fighting for space so there is consistently high competition
• Apparel saw a decrease in competition from 2014 compared to 2013 but spend has increased meaning it’s still very competitive
The report (turn.li/2014mayinsights) shows mature markets such as financial services and travel stabilising at high levels of competition and spend – with much less volatility – as marketers plan better for data-driven budget allocation. The data also indicates advertisers are investing heavily in emerging regions and channels; for example, competition and spend surged in mobile advertising across Asia and Europe.
The Turn research shows data-driven marketing trends worldwide from January through April 2014, compared with the same period in 2013.
Advertisers sold on the benefits of display ads continue to ramp up budgets, while getting smarter about harnessing data and targeting spending to find customers across all other channels.
The report notes a massive increase in how much advertisers from all industry verticals allocated to mobile, video, display, and social channels from January through April 2014 vs. 2013:
• Marketer spend on mobile was up 109%
• Video ad spending increased 65%
• Display, which has become a more mature channel globally, was still up 20%
• Social advertising budgets rose 20%
The global analysis found that marketers are paying more to reach their target customers as competition increases, with eCPM (effective cost-per-thousand impressions) for social, display, and mobile advertising increasing year-over-year from January through April 2014:
• Social advertising eCPM soared 64%
• Display eCPM was up 21%
• Mobile eCPM rose 8%
• Video eCPM was essentially flat, decreasing 1%, as an increase in inventory suppressed pricing
“Spend and competition are increasing in mature markets, leading to smarter data-driven budget allocation this year,” said Pierre Naggar, Managing Director EMEA, Turn. “Brands and agencies are using sophisticated audience-first strategies to drive planning for programmatic advertising, turning insights into an advantage against the competition.”
In Europe, we’ve seen the following trends for January through April 2014 versus the same period in 2013:
• Compared to 2013, display was less competitive and more volatile.
• Europe is catching up to the U.S. for mobile, only lagging by about two months, with much higher levels of competition this year.
• Social also saw big increases in competition and is maturing rapidly.
• Video saw more activity during this period, but overall it’s still a volatile market.
The report is based on an analysis of data from the Turn platform, which every day makes over 100 billion data-driven advertising decisions, analyses over 1.5 billion anonymous customer attributes, and provides instant access to billions of digital ad impressions – resulting in an unmatched ability to provide game-changing insights.
Turn provides three real-time marketing applications: Audience Suite, an enterprise data management and audience planning platform; Campaign Suite, a digital media execution platform for video, mobile, social, and display advertising; and DataMine Analytics, a data exploration, optimisation and warehousing solution purpose-built for marketers. Turn works with the world’s top brands, agencies and trading desks, including Accuen, Aegis, Dell, Experian, Microsoft, OMD, Sky, Sojern, Thomas Cook, Toyota, and VivaKi.