NEW YORK – Programmatic video had a big year, but the next stop will see it take a mobile-first focus, said an executive from Google in an ad:tech New York 2016 panel hosted by The Drum.

In the final round of The Drum’s Programmatic Punch series on programmatic advertising at ad:tech New York, executives from Google Bid Switch and Integral Ad Science spoke about the future of the programmatic market, speculating on where the industry was headed and what were some of its successes and failures.

“If we think about how viewership has changed when it comes to content, there have been enormous shifts,” said Eve Goldman, head of programmatic video at Google. “Users are consuming a lot of video on a lot of different screens.

“This creates a lot of interesting opportunities but comes with challenges.

Mobile next

The Drum published a manifesto every year that focuses on what state the marketing industry is currently in as well as where it has come from and where it should go. The subject of this talk was devising a programmatic manifesto – a guide for where the world of programmatic is and where it should go next.

The Drum selected Ms. Goldman, David Hahn from Integrated Ad Science, and Barry Adams from Bid Switch to answer those questions from a few different perspectives.

As head of programmatic video, Ms. Goldman spoke about how the most pressing issue that was facing the programmatic world was adapting to the new mobile landscape in which users consume the majority of their media through mobile devices.

Eve used an example to show how the industry is lacking in the mobile department in many ways.

She asked the audience how many of them had consumed video on their phones. Most raised their hands.

Then she asked how many people casually flip through their emails or check social media with their phones held sideways. Not a single person raised their hand.

“Then why is so much mobile video still designed for a horizontal orientation?” Ms. Goldman asked.

This is an example of the disconnect between how consumers behave and how marketers try to connect with them.

“We have to make it a priority to come up with solutions to solve those sorts of problems,” she said.

Multiple screens

A recurring theme throughout ad:tech New York has been that marketers need to start from where consumers are and work their way backwards to find where to start. Rather than marketing to where they think users should be, they need to market to where they are.

Right now, where they are is mobile.

Marketers need to take advantage of the fact that consumer behavior shows a clear preference for cross-screen media consumption. Users regularly consume media throughout their day through a variety of channels and through a number of devices.

The upside of all the variety of screen options is that consumers are viewing more media constantly throughout the day. The downside is that this behavior makes it incredibly difficult to track who is viewing what as consumers’ attention flits from screen to screen, profile to profile and channel to channel.

“This last year had been breakout for programmatic and brand advertisers interested in premium video,” Ms. Goldman said. “Within Doubleclick alone, we have 85 of the top 100 Ad Age brands who are buying premium video.

“A lot of this is driven by the evolution of programmatic marketing.”