A new era of big data analysis and automation has been heralded in by the rise of programmatic advertising. But what is the actual impact on local? That’s the subject of BIA/Kelsey’s new insight paper: Defining the Local Stake in Programmatic Sales.

Programmatic advertising supports the ability to automatically plan, buy and optimize ad campaigns. By adding transparency, discoverability and transactability to media inventory, much of the buy/sell friction is reduced When it comes to local, however, programmatic’s rise has been slower because of local’s fragmentation, natural inefficiencies and non-early adopter status. We estimate that fewer than five percent of ad sales are now oriented towards programmatic exchanges.

Will programmatic ultimately prevail in local? We think so, and in a big way. Local programmatic allows marketers to optimize local inventory buys efficiently and effectively at scale – and close the loop with better attribution insights. It is already strong in search and display, and should become increasingly important in the new powerhouse channels of mobile and video.

In our paper, we detail the elements of programmatic; discuss major issues that impact local sales channels (i.e. the purported flight of sales agents?); and provide insights from top thinkers in the space. Those include MediaVest’s Jason Dailey, Prohaska’s Matt Prohaska, Advance Publishing’s Sandy Lohr, Hulu’s Kristen Wnuk, Balihoo’s Dabid Olivera, Simpli.fi’s Frost Prioleau, Operative’s Lorne Browne, Enradius’ David Carberry and Ninth Decimal’s David Staas.

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BIA/Kelsey clients can access this report by logging in to the client portal and then navigating to the report’s landing page. The report is also available for individual purchase.