Theres no arguing that programmatic is now well-established when it comes to desktop – but, in spite of all the buzz of recent years, how much is programmatic really a big deal on mobile today?

With our Programmatic Summit taking place later this month, we put that very question to some of the events partners and speakers to find out their thoughts on the current state of mobile programmatic.

Chris Childs, UK managing director, TabMo
“In January this year, the IAB published a study showing that 64 per cent of mobile display ads were being traded using programmatic media buying technologies. For those of us working in the sector, this comes as no surprise. Programmatic mobile advertising offers the same increases in efficiencies as its desktop equivalent. These include more accurate targeting which leads to less wastage, as well as real-time bidding guaranteeing that advertisers only ever pay the true market value for the impression at the time it is offered.

“Mobile also has distinct advantages that desktop cannot compete with. It is both a highly personal channel and allows advertisers to target by location and context. Savvy advertisers can therefore use it to target the right audience, with the right ad at the right time. Combine this ability to fine-tune campaigns with the benefits of greater control and transparency enabled by programmatic and an ever-expanding pool of high quality inventory, and it is not difficult to see why programmatic mobile is an advertising ‘must have’.”

Zee Ahmad, director of programmatic, Axonix
“Industry research from the likes of the IAB seems to back the view that mobile is already a mature programmatic market place in the UK and is growing in the majority of mature EMEA markets. As education and transparency around mobile improves, we are seeing a greater appetite for audience based trading, enabling advertisers to take advantage of the growing trend of in-app users and the rich data they pass to us in the bidstream. For example, the ability to use location to tie in digital and real world activity with new mobile-first data sources such as carrier data affords advertisers the ability to target audiences in real-time.

“The result of this is not only enhancing the value of open market trading, but also adding audience-based private marketplaces to the existing environment-based programmatic direct offering.”

Antoine Barbier, director of product, TubeMogul
“Being on the front line at TubeMogul, we have seen rapid adoption of mobile programmatic. Mobile spend represents more than 30 per cent of overall spend on the TubeMogul platform and is expected to continue growing.

“To see the direction we are heading in, we just have to look at trends over the last year. Top mobile advertising companies like InMobi, Opera/Ad Colony, Tapjoy and Kargo have made their solutions available programmatically to buyers through DSPs. Additionally, spend is rapidly shifting from open exchanges to private exchanges/direct deals following the well-established online buyer practices.”

Julian Savitch-Lee, director of client services, BidSwitch
“Working with 200-plus connected platforms, BidSwitch has seen a massive 180 per cent increase in mobile traffic (phone and tablet) since this time last year, with in-app video being the fasting growing mobile segment.

“Nonetheless, while there are still challenges around: measuring and tracking in-app inventory, cross-device identification and targeting, as well as comparatively low CPMs to desktop environments, we expect to see continued innovation, growth and interest across mobile in the coming months.”