European publishers believe that revenues from video, native and mobile formats will grow by more than a quarter over the next year, with 60 per cent saying that these formats are paramount to the success of their business. Thats according to a new survey carried out by Oath, in association with IAB Europe, entitled Understanding Programmatic Challenges for Publishers.

The study was commissioned by Oath to gain insights into the biggest opportunities and challenges that the publishing industry faces in programmatic advertising and technologies. IAB members and contacts across 30 markets responded to the survey, which found that 76 per cent of publishers consider programmatic trading a high priority currently, and 83 per cent say it will become more important over the next year.

52 per cent of European publishers believe that programmatic trading provides a competitive advantage, but 30 per cent remain unsure. Confidence is slightly higher in the UK, where 59 per cent believe it provides the edge. In-housing remains a hot topic among publishers, with 59 per cent carrying out at least some of their programmatic trading in-house.

Giving value to each impression was listed as the top challenge among publishers, with two-thirds of respondents identifying it as an issue. Connecting inventory to all demand sources and maximising mobile revenue came in join second with 47 per cent each, while managing GDPR and consent was fourth.

Better monetisation and higher quality ads remained as the key obstacles to audience growth among European publishers in the owned media space, while control, price and reach were all top challenges for publishers in off-platform audience growth.

“Programmatic trading continues to offer clear opportunities and growth for publishers across Europe, but many challenges still remain,” said Henk Van Niekerk, head of  EMEA supply platforms at Oath. “Maximising revenue is still top of mind for most publishers even as GDPR and managing consent drops down their list of concerns. As a publisher ourselves, Oath understands many of these  challenges and we strive to develop our Oath Ad Platforms solutions for publishers based on our own experience and learnigns through partner research like this with IAB Europe.”