Alma conducts an annual programmatic survey State of Programmatic in Finland which is targeted to programmatic buyers across Finnish agencies and in-house teams. Survey offers a comprehensive view of the current state and trends in Finland’s programmatic market. The study explores programmatic buying across ad formats, targeting and optimisation strategies, measurement practices, and the industry’s most topical themes.
Now conducted for the fifth time in 2026, State of Programmatic in Finland has become Finland’s most extensive programmatic advertising survey. The accompanying white paper delivers valuable benchmark insights for buyers across both agency and in‑house teams.
Latest survey highlights three key points how Finnish buyers plan, optimise and evaluate media. The findings point to an attention‑based effectiveness, curated quality, smarter channel choices and clearer proof of impact.
Key findings from the survey:
- Cost efficiency remains dominant, but quality, attention and impact emerge as equal pillars
Programmatic buying is currently driven by price and performance, with decisions mostly tied to hard metrics. While attention measurement contains a lot of different signals and there isn’t one standardized metric for it, a major theme in this year’s report is the rise of attention as a strategic input. Buyers increasingly design formats, placements and creative choices to secure attention from the outset.
Finland is already acting on attention:
- High‑impact formats are the #1 attention tactic
- Creative quality and context selection are chosen already at planning stage
- Buyers increasingly optimise attention with viewability, reach and APM
Source: State of Programmatic survey 2026, N110
- Curated marketplaces drive both simplicity and complexity
The survey shows that curation and marketplace’s top benefits and downsides could be the quite same things but from the different perspective. Key benefits such as simplified buying and time savings, better control and inventory management can return as a downside: increased workload, technical complexity and higher demands on resources and expertise.
Finland has taken the first steps with marketplaces and is evolving. Same time there is questions about scalability and whether buyer‑led marketplaces deliver enough net value for the advertisers in a quite small, deal‑driven market.
- AI is moving from hype to practical acceleration
During the 2026, Finnish buyers expect AI to improve planning, automate routine tasks and bring real added value on the daily business. AI was named the single biggest theme for 2026.
