Last year, the global advertising industry exceeded $1 trillion in revenue for the first time.
By 2031, programmatic advertising is projected to claim nearly two trillion dollars all for itself in market value.
According to Persistence Market Research, the programmatic market will grow from $595.3 billion in 2024 to $1.99 trillion by 2031, expanding at a CAGR of 18.80%.
What’s driving the trillion dollar growth?
Programmatic advertising has been around since the early 2000s, but it saw tremendous growth during the pandemic years between 2019 and 2022.
Since then, it has steadily increased year-by-year and it is expected to become even stronger, as AI and machine learning open up new possibilities.
Primarily, its growth is driven by a hunger for real-time bidding and the ease of the AI-driven automation.
As digital ad spend bumps up across the board, programmatic is emerging as one of the most popular methods to reach new consumers.
Low CPC rates and efficacy of targeted ads have made it an appealing choice for advertisers worldwide.
Even with the decline of third-party cookies, traditionally the fuel of programmatic ads, the method remains robust – strategic partnerships focusing on first-party data and new initiatives like Google's Privacy Sandbox have helped in this regard.
Not only this, the evolution of Connected TV (CTV) and Over-the-Top (OTT) advertising has opened up whole new domains for programmatic to grow in.
Google, Amazon, and Adobe retain their dominance in this space. Rising social platforms like Reddit are investing sizeably into programmatic capabilities.
Mergers and acquisitions are also playing a key role. Companies are teaming up with ad tech firms and acquiring smaller players to maintain a competitive edge.
Notably, programmatic is also significant in the surge of digital ad spend across APAC.
Digital ad spend in APAC is set to outpace global ad spend by 2.1% this year. Programmatic is a key driver of this growth, projected to grow by 24% this year – over double the global average.
In China and India, programmatic is expected to grow by 25% and 21% in 2025.
Potential setbacks
Despite all of this optimism, it’s not going to be the smoothest sailing in the world.
Ad fraud is rife throughout the programmatic landscape. Bot-driven traffic, ad spoofing techniques, and fraudulent placements are all blockages in programmatic’s progress.
Data privacy laws and third-party cookie deprecation do still threaten to rock the method incontrovertibly.
If these can be overcome, then programmatic is set for a stellar ten years ahead.
