• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, April 12, 2016

Programmatic advertising is on track for another year of robust growth in 2016, driven in part by strides in video ad buying in this fashion. In its latest report on the programmatic buying marketplace, eMarketer predicted that digital programmatic display ad spend will hit $22 billion this year, comprising 67% of the total digital display ad market in the US.

That’s nearly 40% growth from last year, an impressive boon for this technology-driven buying approach. Video plays a key role in the rise. That’s because programmatic video ad spend is on target to hit $5.51 billion this year, a whopping 56% of the total digital video ad spend. That figure is also about a quarter of the programmatic digital display market overall.

This is a huge shift in a medium that, in and of itself, is still relatively new. Digital video advertising has only been an option in most media plans for about a decade now, and to see programmatic take on a bigger role underscores the value that such automated- and data-driven buying is assuming in the ad business.

Look for mobile to do its part to drive the programmatic engine next. In 2017, eMarketer expects programmatic mobile video ad spend to reach $3.89 billion, accounting for half of the total programmatic video ad spend in the U.S.

Already, the mobile medium is responsible for much of the growth of programmatic ad spend overall, and is on pace to hit $15.45 billion this year, or 69% of the programmatic digital ad display market.