• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, March 12, 2014

European advertisers spent 366% more on ads delivered via real-time bidding (RTB) in 2013 than in 2012. In Q4, advertisers spent 32% more than in Q3. The data comes from Adform’s RTB Trend Report Europe Q4.

Adform notes in the report that “publishers are offering greater amounts of Rich Media inventory” via ad exchanges, and the company believes this will entice brands to use RTB for campaigns more often.

Perhaps publishers are offering more inventory via exchanges because the CPMs continue to increase. According to the report, publishers saw a 15% jump in CPMs from Q3 to Q4 and a 67% jump on the year as a whole.

“Higher CPMs will attract more publishers to participate in the real-time markets,” the report reads, and “will justify” involvement in exchanges. This echoes what The Weather Channel’s VP of programmatic, Jeremy Hlavacek, said at OMMA RTB last month.

Marketers are becoming increasingly aware of “viewability” -- ads that are at least 50% in-view on a user’s screen for at least one second -- and Adform’s data indicates why. The company noted a 5% increase in click-through rates for ads that were in-view and a 14% decrease in click-through rates for ads not in-view in Q4.

Mobile and tablet inventory accounted for 13.75% of all RTB impressions Adform saw in December 2013, compared to just 2.65% in January 2013. Adform expects mobile RTB to account for roughly 20% of all impressions in Q1 2014.