The Future of Programmatic 2025: new research by WARC explores major trends in programmatic advertising

WARC’s The Future of Programmatic 2025 report, released today, highlights emerging trends in programmatic.

Based on insights from both WARC and external research, it provides an overview of the programmatic marketplace, a deep-dive into three specific trends – the rise of sell-side curation, AI-powered brand safety, and the growth of programmatic out-of-home advertising – and includes practical guidance for marketers evolving their programmatic and ad tech capabilities.

Paul Stringer, Managing Editor, Research and Insights, WARC, says: “The past few years have been challenging for open web programmatic advertising due to issues over transparency, targeting and measurement. There is a growing sense that it must reinvent itself or risk losing even more ground.

“Fortunately, programmatic advertising is showing promising signs of progress as advertisers put more emphasis on quality inventory, embrace privacy-friendly approaches and cookie-less channels like CTV, retail media and DOOH, and adopt advanced AI tools that enhance brand safety measurement — signaling a potential renaissance for open web programmatic advertising.”

Key trends outlined in WARC’s Future of Programmatic 2025 report are:

Marketplace overview: The shift to quality

Spending on the programmatic open internet has stagnated, with almost all of the growth accrued by the major walled garden platforms.

To cope with signal loss, advertisers are responding by adopting a range of cookie-free strategies, with first-party data and contextual advertising proving particularly popular. Research by Comscore shows nearly half (48%) of marketers expect to primarily rely on cookie-free targeting tactics by the end of 2025.

Following years of inaction, advertisers are now looking for more transparency and control over programmatic buying, and putting more emphasis on quality and brand-safe inventory. Spend efficiency on programmatic campaigns has increased 14% since 2023, according to the ANA’s Q1 2025 transparency benchmark report.

Phil Acton, UK Country Manager, Adform, commented: “Walled gardens have built their empires on scale, not transparency or quality. The open web’s strength lies in accountability and collaboration, delivering better results for advertisers, more revenue for publishers, and richer experiences for consumers.”

According to research by the IAB, key programmatic growth areas this year include retail media, CTV and DOOH. WARC forecasts indicate both CTV and retail media will lead ad spend growth to 2026, ahead of channels including social media, online audio and search.

The rise of sell-side curation

Programmatic curation (the process of packaging advertising inventory based on criteria like audience interests, behaviours and contextual relevance) is moving to mainstream adoption and could eventually become the primary means of transacting on open web inventory.

According to a 2024 study by Exchangewire, 41% of marketers across Europe see curated deals as an opportunity to drive higher ROI; and programmatic consultancy, Jounce Media, reports that multi-publisher curated deals now represent nearly three-quarters of all bid requests in programmatic advertising. The open auction, meanwhile, is in structural decline.

Joe Root, CEO and co-founder, Permutive, said: “Curation effectively harnesses first party data from publishers alongside all addressable audience signals. When advertisers operate this way, you see huge uplifts in reach, and more importantly, significant improvements in outcomes.”

However, curated deals can mean higher costs for both advertisers and publishers. Advertisers do not always get clear visibility into where their ads run, what data was used, and who the supply partners were, while publishers also lack insight into how their inventory is being packaged and where it is being sold.

Brand safety’s AI-powered evolution

Marketers increasingly see brand safety as a top priority, according to IAB Europe, and evidence from the ANA’s 2025 Programmatic Benchmark shows advertisers are buying more quality, brand-safe inventory. Along with these behavioural shifts, brand safety tools are evolving.

New AI-powered tools are capable of analysing content and context with far more precision and granularity than traditional tools, like keyword and category blocking, which have failed to protect brands from showing up in unsafe environments while unfairly penalising publishers.

There is hope these new tools will help shift brand safety strategies from being reactive to proactive, while increasing trust, accountability and transparency across the entire programmatic ecosystem.

Laura Quigley, Senior Vice President APAC Sales, Integral Ad Science, comments: “AI is revolutionising digital advertising by enhancing brand safety and performance. Innovative AI technologies can analyse vast datasets to identify harmful content and predict trends, allowing marketers to strategically place ads that align with their brand image and risk tolerance.”

The growth of programmatic out-of-home

Programmatic digital out-of-home (prDOOH) represents an evolution in outdoor advertising, combining out-of-home (OOH) media’s traditional reach capabilities with the precision and addressability of programmatic buying.

While OOH ad spend has remained largely static since 2013, global digital out-of-home (DOOH) spend is growing at a healthy pace – up 15.0% in 2024 and forecast to rise 14.9% this year, reaching $17.6bn, per WARC Media.

Half of all digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns are now purchased either fully or partly programmatically, which offers more flexibility and precision than traditional OOH, allowing brands to target audiences with more relevant and timely ads. Research consistently shows that outdoor is more effective when combined with other channels.

The ability to adjust creative in real-time, is a major benefit of prDOOH. Adoption of dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) is on the rise. This enables brands to adjust creative based on data triggers, such as time of the day, footfall, weather, and even product availability – to deliver more relevant and effective advertising. But scale remains an issue given the finite amount of prDOOH inventory available.

Helen Miall, Chief Marketing Officer, VIOOH, says: “prDOOH’s lower barriers to entry and data-driven capabilities are enabling advertisers to increasingly use real-time messaging within dynamic creatives. This ensures highly contextual and relevant campaigns, confirming the 37% more attention that OOH delivers to digital ads within multi-channel campaigns.”