The German programmatic market is in transition. While marketers are preferring the transparency offered by handling programmatic in-house, mobile attribution is thriving, with agencies to thank for good performance here. Although desktop is still taking a strong proportion of advertisers’ budgets, growth here is expected to stagnate in the next year, with spend on mobile web taking the bulk of the spare budget.

Marketers finding greater transparency in-house

By far and away the primary reason marketers are, or would consider, handling programmatic advertising in-house is because they feel doing so has the potential to increase transparency around programmatic ad spend (55%). That transparency is a greater issue for marketers than price (33%) and knowledge (7%) shows the importance placed upon the issue in the German programmatic market (figure 1).

Despite this, however, 42% of marketers are very satisfied with the levels of transparency within programmatic in Germany, compared to just 23% of agency respondents (figure 2). Conversely, 16% of agencies are unsatisfied with transparency levels, while only 9% of marketers fall into this bracket. This suggests that marketers are more happy with transparency levels, as they are moving programmatic in-house. Meanwhile, agencies are less satisfied, as they have identified transparency as a reason brands are handling programmatic internally, and are working to improve transparency levels, in order to bring business back.

Desktop’s budget will wane, though it still commands spend

Desktop is taking the majority of agency ad spend, with 27% of respondents saying it takes over half their programmatic budget (figure 3). From a marketers perspective, the spending split is markedly different. Mobile web is taking over 50% of programmatic budget for a third (33%) of marketers. This compares to 24% and 19% for desktop and mobile app, respectively (figure 4).

However, the landscape is set to change in the next 12 months. Though desktop currently takes the lion’s share of programmatic budgets for agencies, spending will slow in the next year. Almost half (45%) of agency respondents say desktop spend will increase by 50% or less in the next 12 months, with 26% saying it won’t increase at all.

Expected impact of GDPR in Germany on par with UK

German and British advertisers are in agreement with the extent to which the GDPR will have on their businesses. Around a third of both groups (27% in Germany; 32% in the UK) expect the legislation to have a very significant impact on their business, while only 17% in Germany, and 15% in the UK, feel there will be little or no impact.

We also see that German marketers (34%) expect a greater impact than their agency counterparts (19%). This suggests that marketers are more in tune with, and have a better understanding of, the legislation, than agencies.

This report is a snapshot of our findings, and the full report will be available at ATS Berlin, which takes place on 8th November. ATS Berlin 2017 will focus on the technology and tools that underpin programmatic and data-driven advertising, current challenges facing the industry, and future trends and developments witnessed across global markets. To purchase your tickets for the day, please click here.