Earlier this month, IAB Europe released the tenth edition of its ‘Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising Report‘, highlighting increased programmatic investment, driven by growth in CTV. But this year proved something of an anomaly, where the proportion of advertisers transacting programatically actually decreased, alongside a reduction in agencies buying CTV programatically.
Wayne Tassie, Chair of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee, and Group Director of Integrated Solutions EMEA at DoubleVerify, interprets the pullback as a momentary blip in an otherwise growing open marketplace. “From my perspective, programmatic trading is growing,” he tells VideoWeek. “But the ecosystem is shifting, and it’s changing.”
Tassie identifies a couple of factors behind the pullback. The first is a lack of standardisation in emerging channels, including CTV, that tempers the level of programmatic investment in Europe, compared to the “stratospheric” rise the channel is seeing in the US.
He likens this instability in the CTV market to mobile investment before the introduction of the Software Development Kit (OM SDK), the industry standard for third-party measurement in mobile app environments.
“Think about how mobile used to get bought and then fall off media plans, until we brought in the OMSDK and really standardised as an industry how we track and measure in mobile environments, especially for in-app,” says Tassie. “That is kind of where we are with CTV at the moment. As soon as that standardisation comes in, programmatic CTV investment will go through the roof.”
Cookie conundrums
The other major factor is a lack of trust in the open marketplace, predominantly caused by ongoing uncertainty over Google’s deprecation of third-party cookies, which was pushed back repeatedly in 2024. The IAB Europe report found that less than 50 percent of advertisers think their company is prepared for third-party cookie deprecation.
“It scared the market,” he says. “If you look at the data around how many businesses feel like they’re actually prepared for cookie deprecation, and how many people breathed a collective sigh of relief every time it was pushed back, nobody really knew what it meant. I feel like this has just been a year where the uncertainty has made people cautious around programmatic investments. When the cut-off date comes, what does that mean for scale? What does that mean for measurement? Nobody could answer those questions effectively.”
Despite that erosion of trust in the open marketplace, the Committee chair remains optimistic over the channel’s long-term sustainability. “It’s caused a blip this year,” he says. “But I think next year it’s coming back.” While corners of the industry have decried the end of the open marketplace, Tassie argues that rumours of its death have been exaggerated.
“The open marketplace is going to have a massive renaissance in the next couple of years, hopefully next year, when we finally a) solve the cookie conundrum, and b) when there’s a plethora of new identifiers to choose from, which are really going to further instil confidence back into the ecosystem. Because let’s be honest, there are brands out there who invest in programmatic because they want low CPMs and they want high reach, and that is what the open marketplace offers.”
And that mistrust has also given rise to a new wave of sell-side curation, which along with alternative IDs, could ultimately help bring cautious advertisers back into the programmatic ecosystem. “The uncertainty has caused some negative sentiment around programmatic this year, and caused some negative PR, not because of the channel itself, but because of the lack of clarity that the macroenvironmental conditions have caused,” says Tassie. “But once that settles down, we’re going to be in a really different place. The ecosystem will continue to evolve.”
Leaning on agencies
Another impact of that uncertainty has been more advertisers looking to agencies to handle their programmatic operations. According to the report, 44 percent of advertisers transact their programmatic buys through agencies in 2024, up from just 4 percent in 2023. But 42 percent of advertisers said they were considering bringing programmatic trading in-house over the next 12 months, potentially swinging the pendulum back the other way in 2025.
Again this 2024 blip appears to be a symptom of instability in programmatic channels. “When an ecosystem isn’t stable and there is a lack of trust, you’re likely to see advertisers leaning on their agencies for guidance and direction,” comments Tassie. “That is why the agencies are there. They are the experts, and they have like these really robust relationships and partnerships with all the tech players out in the ecosystem, because then they can help brands and advertisers make truly informed decisions.”
And navigating cookie deprecation this year will have required a level of expertise, tech and resources that agencies can provide. “This year, if I was a brand, I would be leaning on my agency,” says Tassie. “We want to invest in the ecosystem, but we’re relying on you to understand what the risk is and what these factors are around cookie deprecation.” Bringing those operations in-house next year would then reflect a more stable programmatic ecosystem.
“I’m going to call it now, next year will be the year of programmatic,” predicts Tassie. “It’s going to be a renaissance all over again.”
