Despite a hugely challenging 12 months in terms of both the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the deprecation of third-party identifiers, programmatic investment and spend is growing at a rapid rate across the Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) region, with nearly two thirds of firms increasing their programmatic activity from last year. This is according to a new research report, The State of Programmatic in JAPAC - 2021, unveiled by OpenX and ExchangeWire on 4th August 2021.

The report highlights that 30% of agencies, publishers and brands recorded higher programmatic revenue or spend compared to pre-Covid figures. 31% of publishers are generating over 40% of their revenue via programmatic. On the buy side, 21% are allocating over 40% of their spend to the channel.

The report follows last year’s assessment of the region - The State of Programmatic in JAPAC – 2020 – and examines once again Australia, India, Indonesia and Japan given their diverse economic climates and differing approaches to programmatic trading. Alongside each market’s response to Covid, various factors affecting programmatic trading are examined, including access to first-party data, the use of header bidding, the deprecation of Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA, and the status of supply path optimisation (SPO). The report also highlights concerns around the deprecation of Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) and Google’s initial announcement that it would block third-party cookies on its Chrome platform next year. The search giant has recently pushed back its plans until late 2023.

Supplementing the quantitative findings, the report includes analysis from industry thought leaders at Publicis, Microsoft, Unilever, and Xaxis, providing further insight into emerging trends.

According to Andrew Tu, Managing Director, APAC, OpenX: “The programmatic industry in JAPAC is displaying a remarkably strong recovery. We see newly-forged programmatic expertise across both buy and sell sides driven by rapid digital transformation. Agencies, publishers and brands are demonstrating greater confidence in managing their own programmatic activities. As a result, the ecosystem is directing more revenues and spend through the medium compared to other marketing streams.”

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