Social networks will account for a greater share of programmatic digital display ad dollars in 2019 than originally expected.
According to a new report from eMarketer, estimates for social as a portion of total programmatic are up compared to what was forecasted in April 2019.
“Since our April 2019 forecast, we’ve increased our estimates for social as a portion of total programmatic thanks to stronger-than-expected performance from social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, and ongoing expectations that advertisers will continue to seek out social networks and other walled gardens over the next 24 months.”
In total, US advertisers will spend more than $57 billion on programmatic digital display advertising. More than half of that will go to digital display ads on social networks.
Lauren Fisher, principal analyst at eMarketer, attributes the strong performance to the scale and identity capabilities of social media sites. This is mattering more to advertisers as privacy restrictions make it harder to track, target, and gather data from users.
Eric Haggstrom, forecasting analyst at eMarketer, adds:
“Advertising in a cookie-free mobile app environment where users spend much of their digital time is complicated and difficult. Social networks prove to be the major exception. They’ve made it relatively easy to target audiences at scale in an in-app environment.”
For clarification, programmatic advertising is defined as the use of automation in the buying, selling or fulfilling of digital ads. In addition to digital display ads, programmatic advertising also includes ads featured in digital audio, social video, connected TV and over-the-top (OTT) advertising