The US programmatic digital display market started 2020 off strong, but everything changed in late March when the pandemic put many advertisers on pause. Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss the publisher monetization partner's experience of pandemic volatility and the K-shaped recovery of ad spending.

Retailers have traditionally leaned marginally toward direct-response advertising rather than branding, and thus they slightly exceed industry averages when it comes to spending on search rather than display.

What are the fastest-growing areas of programmatic display in the US? Broken out by device, programmatic ad spending will grow fastest on CTV, where we predict 52.9% growth in 2021. In terms of formats, video will continue to drive faster growth than nonvideo display across all devices.

With programmatic becoming the norm for accessing mobile video inventory and more inventory being made available, the 50% threshold for mobile video as a proportion of total UK mobile display spend was breached in 2020—53.1% of total mobile programmatic display spend went to video. As per the overall market, this happened in 2020—a year earlier than expected.

Advertisers, publishers, and their partners are now confronting changes to the infrastructure of platforms and devices that will have significant effects on how they do business.

But even the relatively nascent CTV ad market won’t keep growing faster than mobile forever, and its share of display will remain below 13% through 2024, when CTV display spending will be almost even with desktop/laptop display spending. Mobile dominates spending even within the subcategory of video, though here its share hovers under two-thirds of the total.

UK programmatic digital display ad spending increased in 2020, despite the incredibly challenging conditions. The shift to programmatic trading will further accelerate this year, but certain methods are performing better than others.

Despite the deceleration in overall digital ad spending growth this year, US programmatic digital display is weathering the coronavirus pandemic and related recession.