Tom Cruise enters a “GAP” store and a hologram reads his retina to say:

“Mr. Yakamoto, welcome to GAP again, what do you want…. “

Cars drive without a driver, on vertical and elevated roads.

There is a kind of big human who sees everything, able to predict the future.

(Steven Spilberg’s Minoriry Report movie, starring Tom Cruise)

Are we already in 2054? No, but this is going really fast, more than the movie.

Let’s make a quick pass through the Internet and digital advertising:

In 1991, it was publically announced the WWW.

Yahoo Altavista was founded between 1995 and 2001. The figure of 10 million connected “computers” was reached: Terra, Wanadoo, Olé, Ozú, the chats… Digital advertising begins in Spain: Doubleclick, Falk, AdLink, i-Network, the IAB.

2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Adwords and Adsense, Appnexus, Rubicon…. Affiliation, automation, “self service”, CPC, CPA: “performance”.

Year 2017: Header bidding, ads.txt, transparency, data – GDPR, cookie matching… .tv connected, virtual reality, cross device… artificial intelligence to be able to predict our behavior as consumers, and now we can intuit that our children will probably not be taken out the driving license.

Does it go fast? Or is does not?

Networks as we understood them no longer exist. Some have disappeared, and others have migrated to be platforms. The migration to programmatic is not total. Change is slow among other things, due to lack of transparency.

Programmatic is no longer synonymous of performance. There are campaigns in open auction looking for quality inventory with proper CPMs. Programmatic deals are not as easy as we thought.

The publishers take control: they like google products, but thanks to bidding header it becomes easier to put the giant in competition with others. On the other hand, this brings more technical complexity and the need for optimization and analytical tools.

Transparency is infiltrating the DSPs, the SSPS. Advertisers and publishers ask for it and value it.

Most successful advertisers decide to buy on their own. It’s not as easy as they thought: they need equipment they don’t have, and tools they don’t know. They discover the value in each step of the chain – creativity-analytical-measurement-technology-data –editor.

Fraud jumps to the fore. 2 large massive frauds are discovered.

Some consumers care about their data … the circle of our privacy narrows. Commercial communications of what interests us pursue us on radio, TV or any other digital medium. It begins to sound that the user wants to have control, the unique ID managed by the user sounds, without the intervention of a third party who makes a profit with the data.

What are going to see in 2018?

The model will continue to evolve: advertisers and media want more control and transparency. This happens by owning the licenses of the buy / sell platforms (DSPs / SSPs) and manage them with external equipment (outsourcing).

Hidden costs should disappear. Each chain activity must provide and justify its value.

The collection and data managing will become more complex, and the user will gain prominence in transferring their data or not and in facilitating or not providing cross-service.

Artificial intelligence and automation will make target selection and campaign planning and execution simpler.

Creativity will grow in the programmatic environment, within the mandatory standardization.

There will be concentration and / or specialization in technologies: too many SSPs / DSPs. They will have to be differentiated by price, volume or service.

New digital media on the street and at home with apps on TV.

For our side, from Sibbo Ventures, we will continue investigating technological trends, tools and best practices in the market, with the entrepreneurial, innovative and exciting spirit of being part of the digital era.

We will continue to helping our clients (publishers and advertisers) to find the best way in programmatic advertising.

By Agustín Pérez Buendía

CEO Sibbo Ventures