Programmatic never seems to slow down. This year, global programmatic ad spending is expected to hit $493.16 billion , and by 2026, it’s expected to reach $724 billion. And with over 90% of ads across the globe being traded this way, it’s fair to say programmatic is here to stay. This is despite the demise of the cookie, which will simply give contextual targeting precedence over the behavioural variety.

Barriers to programmatic

But while programmatic was initially hailed as a truly automated method of ad trading, it still needs humans, with specific skill sets, to get the most from it. This brings several challenges:

Staff headcount: The advent of programmatic has actually increased the number of jobs that exist in advertising meaning more competition for experienced individuals. Wider global economic pressures have also made it much harder to hire staff in line with work demand. As a result, there are fewer people doing more work with fewer resources, including managing programmatic campaigns. And naturally, some tasks can fall through the cracks, leading to mistakes.

Continuity of knowledge: Staff retention is essential for the continuity and building of knowledge resources within a business. In high-pressure environments, this represents a major challenge for every player in the industry. When a skilled member of staff leaves, they take with them the knowledge they’ve built up around programmatic ad management and platform-specific know-how, which can take a great deal of time and effort to replace.

Systems complexity: Inherently, programmatic was meant to eliminate complexity through automation. But without the right tools in place, a lot of the gnarly, repetitive tasks still need to be carried out manually. This makes the overall process quite fragmented. This means that even those companies with enough skilled employees are spending too much of their time troubleshooting programmatic campaigns, rather than focusing on mission-critical initiatives. In addition, while some employees may be skilled in using a particular programmatic ad platform, they also need to understand the interoperability between different platforms - of which there are many.

These challenges can make navigating the programmatic advertising space intimidating for many new brands - or even for established agencies looking to deliver against their multitude of clients' requirements.

Solutions to help unlock the potential of programmatic

Industry challenges create industry opportunities, and one of the major solutions to the challenges above is to implement a ‘service layer’ between advertisers and programmatic platforms to partner with ad buyers, making their lives easier whilst also reducing workload. Key attributes of such a programmatic partner include:

Simplicity: Rather than making programmatic even more complex, your service layer partner needs to be able to simplify these processes for you. They can do this by offering flexibility in selecting the right audiences, both globally and locally, as well as providing timely in-campaign and post-campaign communication.

Efficiency: A programmatic partner needs to be able to work in tandem with your teams, reducing and optimising the workload of your staff. The partner you choose should therefore be able to efficiently navigate the complex programmatic ecosystem, knowing how to put together the most efficient supply chain for each

client, regardless of vertical, or where in the world their marketing messaging is designed to land.

Trust: For a service partner to be trustworthy, they will need to have core values centred around an agnostic approach where the clients’ needs are king. They need to prove they have the technical expertise not only to get you set up, but to support you throughout the duration of your campaigns, being on hand to help you troubleshoot when you need to.

In summary

Over the years, as it’s become apparent that adopting programmatic can be incredibly challenging as identified above. It’s also become clear that basic programmatic automation only goes so far.

Adding a service layer within a business can address these challenges while reducing friction and barriers to entry. With more and more ad platforms coming onto the market in the years ahead, we expect that partnering with specialist service providers will become common practice, helping brands and their advertisers to unlock the power of programmatic.

Also Published in: Marketing Donut