VIEQUES, PR — So-called programmatic techniques for trading online ads burst on the scene quickly, and is now forecast to make up 72% of total digital display ad spend by 2017, according to eMarketer.

Group M’s North America programmatic buying president Joe Kowan says that rush wasn’t quite all it was cracked up to be, disagreeing with definitions that suggest programmatic is about “end-to-end automation” and saying humans still have a big role.

But now Kowan is observing the rise of a much more developed programmatic ecosystem he called “programmatic 2.0”:

  • “(In) programmatic 1.0, there was this requisite sacrifice the marketer had to make for the sake of efficiency. In the 2.0 world, the pendulum has swung back toward efficacy.”
  • “You’re seeing accountability controls come in to the marketplace, it’s becoming more mature.”
  • “There was a complete reliance on a sole publishers’ technology stack to operate. In this 2.0 world that we’re in, we’ve pioneered the meta-DSP approach, so we can operate in multiple technology stacks.”

This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology.  You can find more videos from the session here.