Programmatic Prices Increase Despite Rise In Volume, Market Concentrates Around 'Quality' Supply

The programmatic media-trading marketplace ended 2015 by accelerating its “flight to quality” with average CPMs continuing to rise, according to an analysis of fourth-quarter trading by independent agency trading desk Accordant Media.

While the volume of programmatic trading continued to explode -- rising 67% in North America (and 213% worldwide) in the fourth quarter vs. the same quarter in 2014, the average CPM rose 12%. That’s an expansion in the rate of CPM growth and a healthy sign that traders are focusing on higher-value inventory, defying RTB’s “race-to-bottom” reputation. The fourth quarter’s CPM expansion compares to a rate of only 6% during the third quarter.

“2015 was a year marked by much more scrutiny for filtering out fraudulent traffic -- and to still end up in the fourth quarter with that much more impression volume is a positive sign,” explains Accordant Founder and CEO Art Muldoon, adding: “Overall, the story is about a flight to quality.”

Muldoon says he can’t speak for the rest of the industry, but that Accordant has spent the past year and a half consolidating the number of publishers it does business with and that despite the increase in trading volume, the company is “transacting overall on fewer numbers of domains that are more heavily filtered.”

1 comment about "Programmatic Prices Increase Despite Rise In Volume, Market Concentrates Around 'Quality' Supply".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 3, 2016 at 3:08 p.m.

    It may also be that higher CPMs via programmatic buying reflect the introduction of tighter "viewability" standards by smart buyers, which would have the effect of lowering the "audience" and, consequently, raising the CPM. In other words this year's CPM data may not be comparable with last year's in terms of the metrics employed.

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