Programmatic trading is gaining rapid momentum in the Middle East and Africa region. This is further vindicated in Tailwind’s findings highlighted in the research, The Status of Programmatic Trading. As is known, Tailwind is TDG’s ad tech company in the CEEMEA region, which includes markets in Middle East and Africa.
In addition to the Middle East, which has been examined separately for the first time, the survey reflects the level of understanding and adoption of programmatic advertising in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe as well. This is the third edition of the study that records key advertiser and publisher views on the challenges and opportunities of programmatic trading.
Programmatic On The Rise In The Middle East
On many counts, the results reflect a fast maturing Middle East region. The findings indicate that the region is quickly evolving from the testing phase to leveraging technology usage and seeking best practices.
Compared with the previous year’s responses, an increase of 135 percent is recorded, in the understanding of programmatic at an ‘excellent’ level.
“Having spent time in the Middle East region this year, I can tell you that it has been like trying to regulate traffic in a six-lane highway without creating a jam. The region combines so many different levels of knowledge, spend and experience that it becomes an important challenge to support a region’s development at this scale,” said Alex Karageorgis, COO, TDG.
The study also showed that when it comes to the use of programmatic advertising, more than half of the respondents suggest they use programmatic channels for both branding and performance campaigns, signaling a market that deeply understands the value and capabilities of programmatic.
“The pure thirst of this region for programmatic and the solutions necessary to scale up the job of digital media buying have been a refreshing surprise as compared with many developing markets. By offering global scale solutions to our partners we see immediate response and desire to improve on every aspect of the ecosystem,” Mr Karageorgis added.
Other key highlights of the report are:
#1. Traditional Dislpay and Mobile, remain dominant, with an adoption rate of over 91 percent and 89 percent, respectively. The opportunities of new formats, such as Oustream Video and Native formats (e.g., Content Recommendation) are recognized, but there is still significant room for growth.
#2. Brand Safety is recorded as the main point of concern for publishers and advertisers. Its safeguard is recorded as the most important, industry-wide issue and is expected to become a cornerstone for the further development of Programmatic Trading.
#3. Skills development, for the majority of buyers (39.5 percent) and finding the ideal mix between ‘Direct sales’ and ‘Programming Capabilities’ for publishers (47 percent), are recorded as the primary factors to unlock further development.
#4. Optimism for 2017, with 49.2 percent of publishers and 42.9 percent of buyers saying they expect more than 10 percent of revenue and budget respectively being programmatic.
The full report is now released and available here.
