Publishers Earning Revenue with Programmatic Ads, Focusing on Further Growth

A new survey from Digiday is highlighting just how important programmatic advertising is to publishers and their bottom lines, and, as Digiday says, “there is still room for growth in the category.”

More than one-third (38%) of the publishing professionals surveyed said they make a “large” or “very large” portion of their revenue from programmatic ads. In fact, 85% of respondents said programmatic makes up at least a “very small” portion as of Q1 2023, up from 78% just six months ago.

Moving forward, 84% of respondents said they are going to put focus on growing their programmatic business over the next six months, with 45% saying it will be a large or very large focus for them. “This is consistent with the 43% who said the same in Q3 2022,” the article says, “but it is a big jump from the 32% who said so in Q1 of last year.”

Digiday did contrast how dependent larger and smaller publishers are on programmatic, with “a whopping 93% of large publishers [getting] at least a very small portion of their revenue from programmatic ads,” Digiday says. “That percentage drops to 72% among small publishers.”

More than a quarter of publishers (27%) who saw revenue from programmatic said a large portion comes from open market programmatic ads, another number that “saw a big jump in the last six months.” Only 15% of publishers saw their biggest slice from direct-sold programmatic ads, a number that actually fell since Q3 2022.

“Among publishers who get revenue from programmatic ads, Digiday’s survey found that they’re much more likely to make a large amount from open market programmatic ads over direct-sold programmatic ads.”