Up Close With Programmatic: The Year’s 10 Most Popular Display Columns

Despite concerns about ad fraud weighing heavily on the minds of advertisers in 2015, programmatic continued to dominate the display advertising landscape this year. More and more brands latched onto programmatic advertising as a way to maximize their return on investments, with programmatic ad revenue expected to hit more than $15 billion by the end of the year.

And while mobile might be a newer element in the evolution of programmatic, advertisers are jumping on that bandwagon, as well, with mobile expected to make up a whopping 60 percent of total programmatic display ad spending this year.

Of course, with any untrodden territory comes a new technological learning curve, so our expert display columnists were on hand to get marketers up to speed. Many of our top columns sought to demystify the more complex aspects of programmatic ad buying, including an in-depth guide to understanding programmatic direct.

But 2015 wasn’t all about automatically pumping out a bunch of ads that are all the same. Our readers were also interested in how to enhance the creative quality of their ads to increase engagement. Peter Minnium’s exploration of the ways in which digital ads are becoming more creative was by far the most widely read display column on Marketing Land in 2015. And his practical tips on making programmatic creative work showed that programmatic and creative can actually work hand-in-hand.

To catch up on these topics and more, check out the top 10 display columns published on Marketing Land in 2015.

1. The 3 Ad Creative Types Digital Marketers Need To Master by Peter Minnium, published on 2/25/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 231, Google+ 61, LinkedIn 484
2. The Data-Driven Art Of Digital Marketing by James Green, published on 3/23/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 540, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 863
3. 5 Reasons Why Display Advertising Will Never Die by Peter Minnium, published on 6/24/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 1799, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 821
4. 5 Principles For Making Programmatic Creative Work by Peter Minnium, published on 5/4/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 163, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 414
5. Navigating The Modern Ad Serving Stack, Part 2: Programmatic Direct by Ratko Vidakovic, published on 2/2/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 71, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 368
6. Programmatic Beyond RTB: A Primer by Matt Ackley, published on 4/16/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 68, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 264
7. Why Mobile Programmatic Is The Next Frontier by Alex LePage, published on 5/21/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 134, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 430
8. Scaling Programmatic Advertising With Dynamic Ads by Matt Ackley, published on 6/11/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 113, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 231
9. It’s The Creative, Stupid: 3 Reasons Why Ad Creative Trumps Technology Every Time by Peter Minnium, published on 2/4/15.
   Social activity: Facebook 130, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 236
10. The Affiliate Publisher Evolution by Liane Dietrich, published on 2/20/15.
    Social activity: Facebook 85, Google+ 0, LinkedIn 166

Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of page views measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount.