What’s Really Driving Programmatic Advertising in 2025: 4 Trends to Watch

In 2025, the programmatic landscape isn’t just evolving — it’s being reshaped.

As the CRO of a private equity–backed AdTech platform, I consider it a core part of my responsibility to stay deeply connected to the trends influencing how media is being bought, measured, and optimized. That includes what’s shifting across the broader market — and how that shift shows up in the decisions advertisers, agencies, and platforms are making every day.

What follows is a synthesis of recent research, client behavior, and ecosystem signals that I believe represent the four macro-level forces shaping who’s winning — and who’s falling behind — in programmatic advertising right now.

The conclusion is clear: the companies gaining ground are the ones aligning to four macro-level shifts that are redefining how advertising is bought, sold, and measured.

Here’s what’s driving the winners — and quietly holding others back.

1. CTV and Digital Video Are Claiming Budget Share

CTV’s share of total programmatic budgets has doubled to ~28% over the past two years, with programmatic video projected to hit $110B in 2025. This growth is coming at the expense of display, mobile, and linear — and yet, many DSPs are still lagging in video performance.

The problem isn’t demand — it’s execution.

• Many buyers want content-first campaigns, but many DSPs may be leading too hard with tactical targeting and layered complexity
• Attribution mismatches and unclear reporting often leave buyers questioning what they actually bought
• There’s clear market data showing that some fast-growing vendors are winning by delivering simplicity, scale, and brand-safe environments — not just layered audience precision

This “TV-first” positioning is especially effective when tapping into upper-funnel, brand-driven budgets. But there’s also a large opportunity in precision-targeted CTV for performance campaigns — if handled correctly.

The challenge? Attribution is the wild west. Different vendors lean on different methodologies (deterministic vs. probabilistic), third-party measurement tools, and definitions of success. Without alignment up front, even a well-executed campaign can appear to underperform.

That’s why sales, media planning, and solutions teams need to get deep into attribution expectations pre-launch — agreeing on methodology, goals, and success metrics from the start. It’s not just about the delivery — it’s about the interpretation.

In our own business, we’re seeing aggressive CTV growth in the Local segment by positioning it as what it is — TV. When we lead with scale, premium content, and straightforward delivery, we win.

The takeaway: if you're not making it easy to buy TV-like inventory with TV-like reporting, you're not going to capture this spend.

2. First-Party Data Is the New Currency — and Everyone Wants Control

The death of third-party cookies isn’t a future threat — it’s a present constraint. As of 2025, 54% of mobile in-app impressions and 36% of desktop impressions no longer carry an ID. And buyers are responding:

• 80% of marketers now say clean rooms are essential for activating their own data
• Nearly half of brands plan to primarily use ID-free targeting methods by year-end
• DSPs that integrate easily with CRM, CDPs, and attribution tools are winning in both self-service and managed environments

Advertisers want to activate their own audiences, measure across channels, and maintain control. DSPs that can’t meet that expectation — or make it complicated — are seeing spend drift toward alternatives.

3. AI in DSPs Is Moving From Hype to Utility

Artificial Intelligence is finally showing up in real ways across the DSP landscape — and not just as buzzwords.

More than five leading platforms have released tools that:

• Predict clearing prices and adjust bids in real time
• Generate dynamic creatives based on audience and content context
• Recommend budget allocation strategies based on past campaign data

The common thread? These tools aren’t replacing human strategy — they’re reducing human friction.

The companies that lean into AI as a co-pilot rather than a black box will outperform, especially as campaign complexity scales across video, audio, DOOH, and emerging retail media formats.

(Sources include public investor presentations from multiple DSPs between 2024–2025.)

4. Buyers Are Rebuilding the Supply Chain on Their Terms

We’re seeing disintermediation at every layer of the ad stack.

• Brands are in-housing programmatic more aggressively — with AT&T reporting over $100M in annual savings by taking control of their media buying
• DSPs are cutting out SSPs
• SSPs are courting agencies directly
• Everyone is being asked: what value do you actually add?

The message is clear: cost layers that don’t clearly drive performance, efficiency, or insight are being removed. If your platform or partner can’t show tangible contribution, your place in the stack is at risk.

The CRO’s Takeaway

We all know programmatic is a volume business — but volume without alignment doesn’t scale. The companies capturing momentum in 2025 are doing three things exceptionally well:

• Making CTV easy to buy and simple to understand
• Building first-party data activation into every layer of their stack
• Using AI to reduce time-to-value
• And removing anything that slows clients down

The opportunity is massive. But it will go to the DSPs, partners, and sales teams who align with how today’s buyers want to work — not how our tools were originally built.

Sources Cited:

• Proximic by Comscore, State of Programmatic 2025
• eMarketer / Insider Intelligence, U.S. Programmatic Forecast
• IAB, Buyer Trends Survey 2024–2025
• Advertiser Perceptions, CTV/OTT Buy-Side Research
• ANA, In-Housing Programmatic Report
• Investor presentations: multiple public DSPs (2024–2025)
• AdExchanger, AdWeek, Digiday, and analyst commentary (2024–2025)