The Programmatic Marketing Forecasts report, which covers 41 markets, estimates that programmatic advertising will grow 31% in 2017 – faster than all other digital channels. 

In comparison, the report predicts that social media will grow by 25% and online video by 20%, and that a growing proportion of those channels will be traded programmatically. Programmatic is expected to become the principal method of trading digital display. 

In the UK, spend on programmatic is anticipated to grow by 18% next year, increasing from £2.2m in 2016 to £2.6m in 2017. 

“Programmatic buying of digital media has become the norm in major markets, and is aggressively following this path in smaller markets,” said Benoit Cacheux, global head of digital & innovation at Zenith.

“We believe that the growth of programmatic will continue to be fuelled by improvements in the quality of media available in programmatic environments – especially private market places – and the greater availability of programmatic mobile media, as well as the sophistication provided by ad tech solutions such as data management platforms and connected ad tech stacks.”