Over 60% of brands to bring media buying in-house by 2022: survey
Increasing numbers of brands in the UK and northern Europe are taking their media buying in-house, according to a survey by Adobe. An estimated 62% are to do so by 2022, while 78% of agency participants would move "some elements" in-house. In addition, the study marked 2018 as a standout year as marketers are set to increase their control of online media spend, with 86% of brands and 89% of agencies planning to spend more on programmatic, regarded by more than half of both groups as more important than TV. However, programmatic TV also emerged as a priority.

The majority (62%) of brands will bring their media buying in-house by 2022 according to an Adobe poll, which has also dubbed 2018 as a “watershed year” for automated media buying, as such technologies are increasingly used to advance TV advertising.

More than half of brands believe that programmatic media buying is more important to their advertising strategy than broadcast

Adobe published the findings today (December 19) stating that 86% of brands and 89% of agencies plan to spend more on programmatic ad-buying in 2018, with all marketers vowing to take greater control of their online media buying.

In fact, of those marketers participating in the study, 62% said they would take all of their programmatic media buying in-house by 2022, while the remaining 38% said they will “take some” in-house within the next five years.

Additionally, 78% of agency participants agreed that some elements of programmatic ad-buying will move in-house; the consensus among participants was that they need to collaborate more effectively to understand their roles in this new paradigm.

The survey also identified programmatic TV as a clear priority among participants, with 38% of marketers and 56% of agency professionals citing it as a priority in 2018, with better cross-screen measurement of media performance also cited as a key priority.

Additionally for brand respondents, 2018 will also see access to data for personalization becoming their focus (33%); whereas for agencies effective measurement will be their more pressing goal (33%).

Meanwhile, 52% of brand respondents and 56% of agency respondents believe programmatic advertising will overtake TV as the most important part of their advertising strategy in three-to-five years. In fact, 14% of marketers participating in the study claimed that it already was, suggesting that online audiences are more important to such brands’ KPIs that broadcast media.

Philip Duffield, managing director of Adobe Advertising Cloud, EMEA, said the findings demonstrate that one-size-fits-all advertising campaigns are becoming obsolete in the opinion of all tiers of the market.

He added: “Customers are increasingly moving from platform to platform; channel-to-channel. This creates countless opportunities to interact with your brand. To maximize these opportunities however – whether you are a brand or an agency – automated optimization of campaign performance is vital.

The findings are based on an Adobe poll of 60 brand and agency clients in the UK, France, Germany, Benelux and the Nordics conducted earlier in December 2017, with the findings closely echoing those expressed in a similar study from the US trade body for marketers published earlier this week.

The findings from Association of National Advertisers (ANA) asserted that more than 35% of brands have expanded their in-house programmatic media buying capabilities as marketers demand greater transparency.

Earlier this year Adobe unveiled its Experience Cloud a full-suite of marketing tools, including enhanced programmatic media buying capabilities enabled by its 2016 purchase of video specialist demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul.