• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, February 20, 2015

Nearly four times as many agencies expect to spend the majority of their digital video ad budget via programmatic in 2015 compared to 2014, according to recent research from Yahoo’s BrightRoll, a programmatic video ad platform.

BrightRoll surveyed 120 different U.S. ad agencies in December 2014 for the data. The company has been conducting the same survey for the past three years.

Nearly one in four agencies (22%) plan to dedicate a majority of digital video budgets to programmatic channels in 2015, up from just 6% the year before. Over one-third (35%) plan to dedicate “around half” of budgets to programatic this year -- up from 32% last year -- while 43% of agencies plan to dedicate a minority of their budget toward programmatic, down from 63% the previous year.

BrightRoll asserts this data indicates a growing confidence in programmatic, but it’s not that cut and dried.

Trust in ad tech is growing, but it’s far from universal. Recent data from Strata indicates that while agencies are planning to use more programmatic ad tech in 2015 (not just in video), only about one in four (24%) trust the tech to properly execute ad orders. About one-third of agencies say they are “unsure” if they trust the tech.

According to BrightRoll’s survey, most agencies expect mobile video to be the fastest-growing category in terms of digital media spend this year, followed by desktop video. Interestingly, 27% of respondents said they expect “programmatic TV” to be the ad category that sees that largest increase in digital media spend in 2015, tied with mobile display and ahead of desktop display, social and search.