Programmatic might take up the lion’s share of media sales, but it’s still not preferred by premium publishers. While Insider Intelligence reported that in 2022 more than 90% of all digital display advertising was transacted programmatically, numbers can be deceiving. Giant platforms like Amazon, Meta and Google drive most of that volume, mainly through small and local advertisers. A lot of premium advertising is still sold directly. PubMatic recently estimated that 57% of connected TV inventory is sold directly, for example. There’s a good reason: Publishers can get significantly better costs per thousand (CPMs).
The sticking point for publishers is that there is continuous pressure from advertisers to transact programmatically because they are often focused on audience-based media buying and performance metrics that lend themselves to optimization via a demand-side platform (DSP).
