“Trading desks, which include WPP’s Xaxis, Publicis’ Audience on Demand, Omnicom’s Accuen and Interpublic’s Cadreon, probably deployed $2 billion of online spending in the US last year, up from around $1bn in 2012 and may spend up to $3bn in 2013. This represents a substantial change in the context of a market which saw $18 billion in non-search spending during 2012.”
“…The marginal cost of buying incremental impressions is substantially less than it is with the legacy process. Overall, we think that whereas RFP-based buys might consume 10% of spending for agency fees, trading desks might consume closer to 2-5%. In the context of how large marketers make decisions, these fee differences are no small matter.”
-Brian Wieser, Pivotal Research analyst, in a report this morning.