Benchmarking Methodology:
The methodology of the DataBeat’s Programmatic Trends Report for March 2024 lies in the analysis of anonymized data, sourced from some of the industry partners within the databeat network.
In this report, we compared March 2024 performance to Feb 2024 and March 2023 performance for programmatic advertising demand in the United States. Overall, The trends are expected as we tend to see higher CPMs over the months in Q1 which is evident in this report as well.
Key Highlights:
Month over month, the overall CPM increased by 4.5%, where Display increased by 6% followed by video with a 3% increase, and Programmatic fill rates increased by nearly 7.6%. This trend is in line with expectations as we normally observe better KPIs from Jan&Feb to March. Video CPM is the only KPI where we see a drop YoY in both Feb & March which might be due to new IAB guidelines regarding Instream vs Outstream
When coming to Year over year, the overall CPM increased by nearly 10% even though Display CPMs increased by only 4.5% and video CPMs decreased by 4.5%. The reason for this is due to the change in share of volume from Display to Video. Also, Programmatic fill rates increased by 4%.
Overall, The KPIs are looking strong even at YoY amidst concerns of chrome cookie depreciation which is still not at its full affect
Device Trends:
- Mobile devices continue to dominate the industry with a substantial 55% share of volume, and their CPMs are consistent over the months with an increase in CPMs by nearly 7% both MoM & YoY.
- While Desktop CPMs increased by 3% MoM which is slightly lower than Mobile however their CPMs increased by nearly 5%. Interestingly, the CPM gap between desktop and mobile is minimal, suggesting that advertisers are allocating similar budgets for both desktop and mobile ad formats.
- Though tablets hold a smaller share of volume, their CPMs increased by nearly 5% MoM & 10% YoY.
- Programmatic fill rates are comparatively better on Desktop when compared to Mobile and it increased by a staggering 17% MoM where Mobile fill rates increased by nearly 3% only however Mobile fill rates increased by 10% YoY while Desktop decreased by 4%.
- The large gap in programmatic fill rates between Desktop and mobile can be attributed to the fact that most of the Mobile inventory is taken by direct deals and has more competition resulting in lower programmatic fill rates compared to Desktop.
Programmatic Integrations Trends:
- In the programmatic landscape, Google being the market leader holds a 42% share of volume while client-side prebid integration stands out as the most widely recognized and utilized method among web publishers and has a 36% share of volume.
- Google saw a 7% increase in CPMs MoM however their CPMs dropped by 8% YoY, however, being the market leader it is still able to compete with all integrations easily which is evident from its market share.
- Prebid CPMs show similar trends as of Adx in both MoM & YoY where CPMs increased by 6% & 11% respectively. Its CPMs are higher than all other integrations in the industry followed by TAM
- TAM experienced a slight decrease in MoM CPMs although YoY CPMs increased by 7% however it is still favored by the majority of the publishers because of its higher CPMs.
- While EBDA may be a smaller player in the industry, it has been significantly influenced by Google trends, The shifts in Google’s demands play a pivotal role in shaping the EBDA performance.
Prebid Top SSPs Highlights:
- Rubicon has the highest volume share of client-side prebid integration at 19%, and their CPMs are pretty good at $2 with a 12% increase in MoM
- Most of the partners MoM trend is inline with the industry except for Pubmatic where its CPM dropped by nearly 25% however it still has strong CPMs of $2 when compared to others. Interestingly this drop doesn’t align with their Q1 2024 outlook where they mentioned that their CPMs would remain stable.
- Even though Teads hold only 3% share of volume it has nearly $4 CPMs which is almost double what other partners are providing. The reason being is its focus on premium inventory within high quality content.
TAM Top SSPs Highlights:
- Since TAM is owned by Amazon, a large chunk of inventory is taken by Amazon accounting for 37% of the share of volume, even though their CPMs are lower than most of the other SSPs in TAM. Their CPMs dropped YoY with a 25% drop.
- Oath has 2nd highest share of volume at 14% even though its CPMs comparatively very low at only $0.5 and even its CPMs dropped by nearly 35% both MoM & YoY.
- There are only few partners like OpenX, Triplelift , Rubicon & Index Exchange which are strong in both Prebid & TAM offering similar CPMs which explains their dominance among other SSPs in the market.
