Programmatic advertising seen growing ... but slowly

PETALING JAYA: The outlook for programmatic advertising in Malaysia may see a slow growth with much growing pains, but it is nonetheless a slowly expanding segment that is touted to be the future of advertising strategies.

Programmatic advertising is a platform which allows for media to be exchanged using data and intent to create targeted, personalised advertising experiences for consumers.

Though there are general risks such as a lack of understanding in how to mine data, and lack of brand safety education, speakers at the Programmatic Malaysia 2018 conference are confident that Malaysia would experience a steady growth of programmatic advertisement over the traditional means of advertisement.

“Our first strategy would be to consolidate all the different ads from various publisher websites onto one single publisher space where potential buyers may extract the creatives from one source, instead of various ones,” Google Malaysia head of platform solution Stanley Lim ( pic) said during his talk.

“This would reduce ad wastage and allow for the reinvestment into the advertisement expenditure (adex).”

He also added that the reduction in ad wastage is estimated to uplift the revenue by 20% and reduce overall cost by 30% of any company that intends to pursue programmatic advertisement.

Though experiencing a slower growth than the rest of the world, especially the US, Malaysia is expected to see a tentative increase between 10% and 15% for this new form of advertising.

The adex was expected to rebound in the second half of 2019, after the economic growth forecast for this year was lowered to 5% from its earlier estimate of 5.5% to 6%.

This was due to increasing consumer confidence, and a pick up in bullish prospects for programmatic advertisement.

SpotX managing director for the Asia region Gavin Buxton said that the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region would have to generate more cost efficient content to target a higher amount of consumers in relation to the cross-channel segment.

“There is much opportunities for the region to expand in cross channel video advertisements especially when 88% of consumers between the age of 16 and 34 rely on their smart phones to view videos.

“Asia is price sensitive,” he said in respect to the slow expansion of advertisement in streaming-by-demand channels such as Netflix. In the US, plans are already underway to test pilot ads into content videos.

“Many Asian markets prefer to pay a lower fee and sit through watching some ads,” he said.

For Eyeota’s Asia general manager Priya Kathri, she advised that advertiser companies who are interested in adopting programmatic advertisement apply the funnel technique, which is to streamline the intent of consumers into a more niche market across segments.

“Data is important to get in and moving it to audiences by any information on publisher sites such as surveys, registration forms and e-commerce.

“It is important for companies to know their reach and relevancy.

“The data has to be on target, and how attribution will be contributing to the campaigns. It [attribution] will take you on the path to conversion which looks like a funnel approach.”

She also added that this has yet to be seen in the Apac market compared to more mature markets like the US and India.

Programmatic Malaysia 2018 conference was organised by Star Media Group at New World hotel and was targeted towards high level marketers.