Media companies are eliminating the silos between their direct and automated advertising departments.

Now that more than 80% of digital display ads are being bought programmatically, it makes less sense for ad agencies to keep their direct sales and programmatic teams isolated from each other. In a May 2018 survey of 104 US digital media buyers conducted by Centro and Forrester Consulting, three-fourths of respondents indicated that they are beginning to unify their direct and programmatic teams. However, just 17% said that their direct and programmatic teams have fully converged.

Ad sellers are also ending the days of having separate programmatic sales teams. Though the evidence is mostly anecdotal, publishers like The New York Times, Dotdash, Meredith and BuzzFeed have taken steps to more fully integrate their programmatic products throughout their entire sales operation.

When different buying teams don’t work together, discrepancies arise over planning and measurement. The buyers surveyed by Centro and Forrester indicated that the biggest obstacle preventing innovation in media buying is the “difficulty overcoming data silos.” Theoretically, merging disparate sales departments can help soothe this difficulty.