This RTB inventory carries an “ad tech tax,” which we estimate will represent 37.3% of total RTB digital display ad spending this year. That means $11.77 billion will flow to technology and software intermediaries that execute the transaction before the publisher receives its share of revenues. Revenues Dip From Loss of Legacy Identifiers.

Programmatic digital display advertising fees, also known as programmatic fees, include the portion of programmatic display ad spend that is paid to technology and software intermediaries that execute the transaction before the publisher receives the spending as ad revenues.

Programmatic transparency has come a long way in recent years, with many supply-side platforms (SSPs) now offering an interface for buyers to get log-level data. Amanda Martin, vice president of enterprise partnerships at Goodway Group, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss why buyers are interested in this information, what is still making it difficult to understand and execute on, and her hopes for the future of transparency.

The significant fees associated with executing programmatic digital display ad transactions have long been denigrated in the industry as the “ad tech tax.”

Programmatic digital display advertising fees (also called programmatic fees) include the portion of programmatic display ad spend that is paid to technology and software intermediaries that execute the transaction before the publisher receives the spending as ad revenues.

Programmatic Fees. We expect programmatic fees paid to intermediaries to rise 26.2% this year, rebounding from slow growth of 6.2% during 2020. Programmatic fees will account for a slightly falling share of nonsocial programmatic spending over time as advertisers, publishers, and their partners continue looking for efficiencies.

Entities throughout the programmatic supply chain are emphasizing these practices as important points of differentiation, and industry groups like the IAB Tech Lab are continuing to release standards that make further supply path optimization possible.

Buys executed on Display & Video 360 come with a standard programmatic fee of 15% of a campaign’s total spend, according to a Google blog post in June. Google Ads doesn’t have advertiser fees. Some advertisers will use Google Ads to manage their YouTube buys to avoid paying fees, even if they use Display & Video 360 for other media buying.