YAPA - Yet Another Programmatic Article

I came across this article written by Russell O'Sullivan, Senior Digital Performance Marketing Manager at Lloyds Banking Group UK, and thought it was a great piece and a great follow up on my WTH is IOT post.  Russell obviously has a potty mouth :).  The article is very well written and is one of the better pieces out there that does a great job of articulating what Programmatic really is.  

I agree with him that, "I still believe there is a place for the “old inventory display” way of buying ad space."  I can relate to this and I think it fit's inside the bucket of what's being deemed as "Premium Programmatic" whereby publishers are trying to protect their inventory by creating these PMPs - Private Market Places.  All along I've said that I think Programmatic could be a race to the bottom and that the publishers have the most to lose.  

With the advent of the Adblockers becoming more prevalent, it's the publishers again having to figure out how to provide free content to an audience that via Programmatic buying, may or may not be (depending on who you believe), reducing the value of their ad inventory and in tandem, having said inventory volume reduced because of ad blocking software.   According to Jim Hirshfield, PageFair's senior vice president of sales, "PageFair estimates that ad-blockers are costing content publishers $22 billion per year worldwide."

It's no secret, Programmatic is here to stay - at least for the foreseeable future.  Per the article, Programmatic will make up nearly $15 Billion of the approximately $56 Billion of the digital advertising pie in 2018.  Programmatic is rife with fraud - I think we all know that.  The industry is working to correct that - I think we all know that as well.  What I think we all need to know and understand is that without the publishers, we don't have a digital marketplace.  Let's not forget about what's best for them.