Technology has prompted a tremendous change in the advertising industry—change that would have been inconceivable even a decade ago. People are now accessing, consuming, and sharing content in more varied ways than ever, and marketers have scores of new opportunities to understand, reach, and engage with consumers. The next evolution in digital advertising must be driven by innovative platforms that more effectively help marketers move their businesses forward. 

The evolution in digital advertising

1. Automation will take hold. As automated, or programmatic, advertising technologiesreplace unwieldy manual media planning and buying processes that eat up too much time and overlook critical consumer data, more (human) resources can be directed toward the creative side of the house, and towards engaging and effective advertising that drives commerce, for example, native advertising, sponsorships, take-overs and other strategic initiatives.
2. Open ecosystems will succeed.Both Wall Street and Madison Avenue have run out of patience for niche ad technologies that are product features masquerading as point solution companies. Look no further than the massivesell-off last week of stock from specialized ad tech vendors. For too long, the industry has asked marketers to manage multiple relationships with up to 40 vendors to execute online advertising.  This is a significant deterrent for digital investment as it creates more work than value for already resource-strapped agencies and marketers. These closed systems that force marketers to stitch together a patchwork of feature companies will lose, and a small number of open ecosystems that these feature companies can plug into will emerge to streamline agency and marketer workload.
3. Mobile will drive sales for marketers. Desktop displaygrowth has been leapfrogged by the smartphone and tablet, moving multi-screen advertising into the spotlight. The Association of National Advertisers and Nielsen just reported that by 2016, about 50% of digital advertising will be multi-screen.  This trend already in business with about 45% of all clients running multi-screen advertising. Innovations and technologies – such as new targeting capabilities and new uses of data that empower marketers to gain a single view of the customer across all screens are leading this movement, because ultimately, a cross-screen strategy will drive the highest return for marketers.
4. Premium advertising will get more premiums.Immersive advertising experiences that tie directly to a transaction will begin to flourish on the Web. As automation kicks in and time is given back to agencies and marketers to be more creative, an industry call for more premium opportunities that goes beyond banners and gets much more sophisticated and customizable.
5. Operational convergence will drive strategy.Technologists, creative art directors, and content producers can no longer operate in separate silos.  With more consumer data being generated than ever before, marketing, data, and technology must be aligned. As this convergence accelerates, more holistic and integrated businesses will emerge and outperform their competition.