Programmatic Ad Spending Reports & Statistics
Programmatic advertising has become the backbone of modern digital marketing, enabling food, beverage, CPG, and wellness brands to plan, buy, and optimize media with precision and efficiency. As audiences increasingly engage across multiple devices and digital platforms, programmatic solutions help advertisers deliver the right message to the right consumer at the right time.
This article dives into the latest programmatic ad spending reports and statistics, highlighting where budgets are being allocated, which channels are driving growth, and how brands can maximize ROI. From rising investments in connected TV and mobile to ongoing shifts in digital media, these insights provide marketers with the data they need to make informed, strategic decisions in an increasingly competitive landscape
Key Takeaways
- Programmatic digital advertising is powered by real-time bidding, allowing agencies and national advertisers to buy ad inventory across websites while adapting to privacy changes like the decline of third-party cookies.
- Growth in programmatic display ad spending is driven by video and premium placements, while challenges such as ad fraud, MFA sites, and low-quality sites require stronger controls.
- Advertisers can maximize results by shifting toward PMP spending and programmatic direct, focusing on high-quality ad placements instead of relying on banner ads across generic sites.
Programmatic Advertising Growth Shifts Toward Video, CTV, and Retail Media
Programmatic ad spending has grown significantly in recent years and continues to expand as more advertisers shift toward automated media buying. Today, a large portion of digital display advertising is transacted programmatically, reflecting how this approach has become the standard for executing and managing campaigns. As brands focus on improving efficiency, refining audience targeting, and driving measurable results, programmatic media is capturing an increasing share of overall advertising budgets.
Shift Toward Video and Emerging Formats
Most of the growth in programmatic advertising is now driven by video, connected TV, and retail media formats. Video, in particular, is expanding at a faster pace than traditional display, taking a larger share of overall ad revenue. Over time, it is expected to dominate display-related spending, reflecting changing consumer behavior and increased demand for engaging, high-impact formats.
Implications for Food and Retail Advertisers
For food and supermarket advertisers, this shift signals an important change in strategy. Traditional banner advertising is no longer a primary growth driver, while video and retail-focused formats continue to attract a larger share of investment. Understanding these trends allows advertisers to allocate budgets more effectively toward channels that directly influence purchase decisions and deliver stronger performance outcomes.
Global Programmatic Ad Spending Outlook
Worldwide programmatic ad spending has followed a strong upward trajectory over time, growing significantly from earlier levels to a much larger global scale, with forecasts indicating continued expansion in the coming years. Although growth rates have moderated compared to earlier rapid surges, programmatic advertising still outpaces many traditional media channels, reinforcing its position as the dominant method for buying digital ads.
Market Share and Regional Dynamics
Programmatic continues to account for the vast majority of new display ad investment globally, with adoption levels remaining consistently high despite slight fluctuations over time. Regional differences still exist, with some mature markets regaining momentum after periods of slower growth, while emerging markets continue to expand at a faster pace. However, larger economies remain dominant in terms of total ad spend due to their scale and advertiser demand.
Implications for Global Food and Consumer Brands
For global food and consumer goods brands, the scale of programmatic advertising enables continuous, always-on marketing across multiple regions. At the same time, operating across different markets introduces complexity, including varying regulations, privacy requirements, and levels of programmatic maturity. Successfully navigating these differences requires a strategic approach that balances scale with localized execution to ensure effective campaign performance.
Shift Toward Private Marketplaces in Programmatic Advertising
The movement away from open exchange buying toward private marketplaces represents a major structural shift in programmatic advertising. This transition is becoming the default approach as a large majority of programmatic display transactions now occur through more controlled buying methods. The shift is driven by increasing concerns around brand safety, the rise of low-quality inventory in open exchanges, and the growing demand for transparent measurement and reporting. In addition, the expansion of premium connected TV inventory, which typically operates within curated environments, has accelerated this change.
Implications for Food and Consumer Brands
For food and consumer goods advertisers, this shift has important implications. Open exchange buying, especially for display, can expose brands to environments that do not align with their positioning or fail to reach genuine shoppers. As a result, advertisers are placing greater emphasis on quality, context, and audience relevance to ensure that campaigns deliver meaningful engagement and influence real purchase behavior.
Strategies for Effective Programmatic Buying
To adapt to this evolving landscape, advertisers are focusing on more controlled and curated approaches. Prioritizing high-quality publisher environments, particularly those centered around food, cooking, and grocery-related content, helps ensure stronger contextual alignment. Leveraging private marketplace deals and direct programmatic arrangements allows for better access to premium inventory, especially in high-impact formats like connected TV. Establishing clear brand safety standards and maintaining control over where ads appear further supports campaign effectiveness while preserving reach and performance.
Programmatic Video and CTV Spending: Where Growth Is Concentrated
Video is absorbing the majority of programmatic growth, clearly outpacing non-video display formats, which are becoming relatively stable. This shift highlights how advertisers are prioritizing more engaging and high-impact formats that capture user attention more effectively than traditional banners.
Expansion Across Video Environments
Programmatic video spending spans multiple environments, including connected TV, social video, subscription-based streaming, web-based video formats, and in-app mobile video. Connected TV continues to expand steadily, while social and subscription-based video formats are growing rapidly due to increasing consumer time spent on streaming and mobile platforms. This diversification reflects changing media consumption habits and the demand for more immersive advertising experiences.
Opportunities for Food and Beverage Advertisers
For food and beverage marketers, video and connected TV formats provide strong opportunities to engage consumers during high-intent moments. Ads placed alongside recipe or meal-planning content can influence decision-making when consumers are actively considering purchases. Interactive and commerce-enabled experiences also allow users to take action directly, such as adding products to shopping lists or engaging with retailer-linked content, strengthening the connection between advertising and retail outcomes.
Shift Toward Premium Access Models
As video and connected TV grow, buying models are shifting toward more controlled environments. Premium inventory is increasingly accessed through private marketplaces and direct deals, as advertisers prioritize quality, transparency, and brand safety. While open programmatic buying still exists, accessing high-quality video inventory often requires more strategic partnerships and curated access to ensure effective campaign delivery.
Growth of Retail Media in Programmatic Advertising
Retail media networks have become one of the fastest-growing segments within programmatic advertising and are especially important for consumer goods and grocery advertisers. Ad spending in this space continues to expand rapidly, with strong year-over-year increases and sustained high growth rates that outpace the broader digital advertising market. This momentum reflects the growing value of retail-owned media environments in driving measurable sales outcomes.
Drivers Behind Retail Media Expansion
Several factors are accelerating the rise of retail media. Retailers have developed strong first-party data strategies, enabling precise and privacy-compliant targeting. Clean-room technologies allow advertisers to match audiences without directly sharing sensitive data, improving both effectiveness and compliance. At the same time, more brands are investing across multiple retail media networks, and budgets are increasingly shifting from traditional brand marketing to trade and shopper-focused initiatives, where performance can be directly tied to sales.
Evolving Competitive Landscape
The retail media ecosystem continues to expand as multiple platforms compete for advertiser spend. While leading platforms still capture a large share, other retail networks are gaining traction by investing in their own media capabilities and leveraging their direct relationships with shoppers. This diversification gives advertisers more options to reach audiences across different retail environments.
Integrating Retail Media with Programmatic Strategy
Aligning retail media with broader programmatic efforts is essential for maximizing performance. Programmatic video and connected TV can be used to build awareness during early decision-making stages, such as meal planning, while retail media focuses on conversion and sales attribution closer to the point of purchase. Coordinating audiences, messaging, and performance metrics across both channels allows advertisers to create a more cohesive strategy and directly connect ad exposure to real-world sales outcomes.
Data, Signal Loss, and the Return of Contextual Targeting
Even as programmatic ad spending continues to grow, marketers face ongoing signal loss due to privacy changes, evolving regulations, and limited user consent. Despite these challenges, programmatic remains resilient, with its share of the display advertising market continuing to increase. The shift toward stricter privacy standards has not slowed adoption but has reshaped how targeting and measurement strategies are developed.
Changing Approaches to Audience Targeting
The decline of third-party identifiers is transforming how advertisers reach audiences. With only a small portion of users consistently opting into tracking, reliance on traditional methods is decreasing. As a result, advertisers and publishers are accelerating investments in first-party data, while also adopting alternative identification methods and geotargeting to maintain effectiveness. Contextual targeting is also gaining strong momentum as a privacy-compliant approach that does not depend on user-level tracking.
Role of Context and Advanced Technologies
Contextual relevance plays a significant role in shaping how consumers perceive and remember advertising. Ads placed within relevant environments tend to create stronger recall and more positive brand associations. Advances in artificial intelligence now allow for more detailed contextual analysis by interpreting content such as articles, videos, and audio to identify intent signals. This enables advertisers to align messaging more closely with user behavior without relying on personal identifiers.
Implications for Food and Grocery Advertising
For food and grocery advertisers, contextual and content-level targeting provides an effective way to reach high-intent audiences. By aligning ads with scenarios such as meal planning, dietary preferences, or specific occasions, brands can connect with primary household grocery buyers at key decision-making moments. This approach strengthens the link between ad exposure and purchase intent while remaining aligned with evolving privacy requirements.
AI’s Influence on Programmatic Ad Spending and Optimization
Artificial intelligence has evolved into a core driver of programmatic advertising performance, shaping how budgets are allocated across inventory and audiences. Automated bidding systems use advanced models to predict which impressions are most likely to convert, allowing advertisers to make more efficient decisions in real time. This shift has made automated buying more precise and performance-focused.
Adoption of AI Across Advertising Functions
AI is now widely used across multiple areas of programmatic advertising, including content creation, performance analysis, audience insights, and dynamic creative optimization. Adoption levels are strong across these functions, reflecting how advertisers increasingly rely on data-driven systems to improve campaign outcomes and streamline execution.
Impact of AI on Inventory Quality
While AI enhances targeting accuracy and creative effectiveness, it also introduces challenges related to inventory quality. The same technologies that improve efficiency can contribute to the growth of low-quality, automatically generated content environments that absorb advertising spend without delivering meaningful value. This creates a need for stronger filtering and quality control measures.
Practical Applications for Consumer Brands
For consumer goods and grocery advertisers, AI offers practical advantages in refining targeting and improving performance. It can be used to enhance contextual segmentation based on content signals, predict which placements are more likely to drive conversions, and optimize creative dynamically according to audience behavior and context. Additionally, AI can help identify and exclude low-quality inventory before campaigns are activated, improving overall efficiency.
Balancing Automation with Oversight
The key to effective AI use in programmatic advertising lies in balancing automation with human oversight. While automated systems can optimize performance at scale, maintaining control over brand safety, inventory quality, and strategic direction ensures that campaigns deliver meaningful and reliable results.
Formats Beyond Display: DOOH, Audio, and Sustainability Considerations
Programmatic advertising is expanding beyond traditional display and video into formats such as digital out-of-home and digital audio, creating new opportunities for consumer goods advertisers. These emerging channels allow brands to reach audiences in different real-world and digital moments, extending the impact of programmatic campaigns beyond screens and into everyday environments.
Digital Out-of-Home Opportunities and Challenges
Digital out-of-home is gaining traction as more marketers incorporate it into their programmatic strategies. Its flexibility and ability to leverage data-driven targeting make it particularly appealing for shopper-focused campaigns. However, concerns around fraud and invalid traffic mean that advertisers must apply strong verification and quality controls to ensure effective delivery.
Growth of Digital Audio Advertising
Programmatic audio enables advertisers to reach consumers during moments such as cooking, commuting, or exercising, when visual formats are less effective. Podcast advertising and streaming platforms provide strong contextual opportunities, allowing brands to align messaging with relevant content. However, measurement standards in audio are still developing compared to more established formats, which can present challenges in evaluating performance.
Sustainability in Programmatic Advertising
Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important consideration in programmatic advertising. Digital campaigns contribute to carbon emissions, and while awareness is growing, only a limited number of advertisers actively prioritize environmentally conscious media strategies. Some regions are more advanced in measuring and managing the environmental impact of digital advertising.
Strategies for Sustainable and Efficient Campaigns
To build more sustainable programmatic campaigns, advertisers should focus on improving efficiency by prioritizing high-quality inventory and reducing wasted impressions on low-intent environments. Working with partners that support measurement and transparency can also help brands better understand and manage the environmental impact of their campaigns while maintaining strong performance outcomes.
Strategic Priorities for Supermarket and Grocery Advertisers
These evolving spending patterns translate into clear strategic priorities for supermarket and grocery-focused brands. As video continues to capture the majority of incremental display ad investment, advertisers should shift budgets toward video and connected TV formats, particularly within high-intent environments such as recipe and meal-related content. At the same time, buying strategies should move toward private marketplace and direct programmatic deals, as the majority of spend now flows through these controlled environments, offering better quality, transparency, and alignment with brand objectives.
Retail media should be fully integrated into the broader programmatic strategy, as it represents a fast-growing channel that directly connects advertising exposure to sales outcomes. A combined approach allows brands to use programmatic channels for awareness while leveraging retail media for conversion and attribution. In parallel, advertisers need to strengthen their use of contextual targeting and first-party data, as signal loss from traditional tracking methods continues to reshape targeting strategies.
How Gourmet Ads Helps You Capitalize on Programmatic Ad Spending Trends
This platform is designed specifically for food, beverage, supermarket, and cookware brands, helping advertisers translate broader programmatic spending trends into measurable retail and e-commerce outcomes. By focusing on high-intent audiences and relevant content environments, it enables brands to connect advertising exposure directly to consumer purchase behavior.
Core Capabilities and Targeting Approach
A key strength of the platform lies in its contextual and recipe-level targeting, allowing advertisers to reach grocery buyers during critical moments such as meal planning. By leveraging first-party intent signals, brands can access insights from household decision-makers and primary grocery shoppers, improving targeting accuracy. In addition, curated access to premium food and lifestyle content ensures that ads appear in environments closely aligned with user intent, enhancing both engagement and effectiveness.
Multi-Format Activation and Execution
The platform supports a wide range of ad formats, including display, video, native, connected TV, and audio, enabling advertisers to run integrated campaigns across multiple channels. Campaigns can be executed through managed services or programmatic deals, providing flexibility depending on campaign goals and internal capabilities. This multi-format approach allows brands to build awareness, drive engagement, and influence purchase decisions throughout the consumer journey.
Alignment with Retail Outcomes
A core focus is aligning programmatic campaigns with retail performance. By integrating with retail-focused strategies, advertisers can connect upper- and mid-funnel exposure to tangible outcomes such as sales and conversions. This ensures that programmatic investment is not only efficient but also directly tied to measurable business impact, helping brands optimize their overall marketing strategy.
Summary
Programmatic digital advertising has become the dominant method for buying and selling digital ad inventory, with growth driven by video, retail media, and automation. Programmatic ad spending data highlights how programmatic display ad spending now dominates the spending, reducing reliance on traditional banner ads across many websites. Using real-time bidding, national advertisers and agencies compete for ad placements across a webpage, including formats like ad creatives and other types of placements.
However, challenges such as ad fraud, made-for-advertising (MFA) sites, and low-quality sites continue to impact campaign performance and waste ad spend. The decline of third-party cookies is also reshaping targeting strategies, pushing advertisers toward contextual and first-party data approaches. At the same time, Private Marketplace spending and programmatic direct deals are increasing as advertisers prioritize safer, higher-quality environments over open exchange buying. Across every country, programmatic advertising enables advertisers to scale campaigns efficiently while adapting to privacy changes and evolving digital ecosystems, including walled gardens and open websites.
