Publishers Bet on a Programmatic Future Despite Issues, Operative Survey Finds

NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Operative Media, Inc., the global leader in advertising business management solutions, today announced the findings of a recent survey of more than 85 premium digital publishing executives regarding the state of their programmatic advertising business. Operative found that more than 80% of publishers are currently using programmatic solutions to sell digital advertising, including both real-time bidding and premium direct solutions. The majority of publishers are bullish on programmatic, with nearly half agreeing that it is the future of their digital advertising business. Half believe that premium programmatic is the future of their digital business, while nearly as many, about 45% believe that RTB is the future of their business. Publishers are betting on programmatic channels despite the fact that publishers also reported major issues with programmatic including heavy manual labor, low CPMs and low revenue. Download the whitepaper now: http://hubs.ly/H01NKYc0.

Additional key findings in the report include:

• The majority of publishers surveyed reported less than 5% of last year's revenue from programmatic channels.
• Most direct sales teams are empowered to sell programmatic, but rely on a complex and manual set of systems and internal teams to complete a deal.
• Publishers cite decreasing CPMs and manual labor as the two factors that are most detrimental to their programmatic business.
• Less than 30% of publishers optimize programmatic revenue sources in any automated way.

"Premium and automated guaranteed have a lot of promise for our industry, but there is much more work needed in order to accomplish the true goal of efficiency and automation" noted Jeff Burkett, Sr. Director Sales Operations and Product Strategy at The Washington Post.  

"Publishers understand that in order to sell audiences efficiently across channel, they will need to embrace a programmatic future," says Operative CEO Lorne Brown. "With the coming advancement of programmatic RTB and premium programmatic across not only digital, but also TV, publishers have an opportunity to improve what has become a very complex digital advertising business. While the industry works to provide better technology and process, publishers must make their voices heard to ensure that the resulting ecosystem works in their favor, minimizing manual labor and encouraging fair and transparent optimization."

About Operative

Since 2001, Operative Media, Inc. has developed software and services that help publishers, agencies, and networks simplify the business of advertising. Media companies rely on Operative to sell, traffic, and bill premium ad inventory, increasing revenue and decreasing overhead. Operative's client base, which controls over 20 percent of the global ad market, features NBCUniversal, Wall Street Journal, Comcast, iHeartMedia, BuzzFeed, and Schibsted Media. www.operative.com

SOURCE Operative Media, Inc.

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