“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Today’s column is written by Sameer Sondhi, Co-CEO at Verve Group.
Even if the world hadn’t hit a large reset button due to a pandemic, programmatic advertising in 2022 would still look vastly different than any year before.
The programmatic advertising landscape has never faced more complexity or challenges than it does today. However, at the same time, the opportunity for growth and refinement has never been greater.
Here’s how marketers can take advantage of key trends shaping the space in 2022 and beyond.
Up-level your transparency requirements
Because of Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework and other privacy changes, vendors’ ability to share data across apps and identify campaign targets has diminished. Thus, justifications previously used for “black box” programmatic operations are falling away.
Advertisers need to prioritize programmatic partners that give them the transparency needed to truly understand where their campaigns are running and, ideally, share ownership of data.
It’s time for marketers to embrace supply-path optimization and challenge their partners and publishers to demonstrate their differentiated value.
Move (CTV) out of the “emerging” category
2021 was the year of connected TV (CTV) advertising, and growth will remain strong in 2022. Though advertisers are looking to increase their ad investments across CTV, the fragmented landscape presents a challenge. Solving this will require both collaboration and technology platforms built specifically for CTV.
Direct buys and upfronts for CTV will always have their place and should be leveraged on a brand-by-brand basis. But programmatic offers a unique opportunity for advertisers to go beyond video completion rates and look at the effectiveness of their campaigns holistically. In 2022, programmatic CTV will enable brands to broaden their efforts in this maturing channel while connecting it to broader ROI.
Brace for attribution backlash
Massive upheavals in campaign attribution and measurement create uncertainty and complexity for understanding ROI and channel attribution. This struggle will continue in 2022 once cookies turn off in Chrome.
Advertisers need to remain nimble and committed to adapting to continued change. Techniques like extrapolated data modeling, media mix modeling, and incrementality measurement will become increasingly more important when it comes to measurement.
Prepare for advances in programmatic DOOH
This year, advertisers can expect programmatically executed digital out-of-home (DOOH) media transactions to check new boxes for them, particularly as publishers and programmatic DOOH technology partners forge more relationships.
Brands and agencies need to prepare for this by addressing silos that might prohibit them from capitalizing on the sustained growth of this channel. So far, we’re seeing agencies own the programmatic DOOH space by setting up dedicated teams within arm’s reach of traditional OOH buying and digital teams.
Programmatic DOOH advertisers should also get creative with data. Using social media posts, tomorrow’s weather forecast, real-time navigation times and livestreams in your creative will make for interesting, head-turning experiences.
Advertisers should demand this of their programmatic DOOH tech partners as well.
Recalibrate expectations around privacy and vanishing IDs
The move to a privacy-first digital world is a welcome and overdue development. But the transition won’t be without its challenges for advertisers. Programmatic advertising, even in the absence of many once-relied-upon persistent IDs, will continue to give advertisers access to publishers and placements. And contextual targeting will become more important than ever in this equation.
As marketers explore new privacy-compliant technologies, partnerships and methods for targeting and attribution, they’re bound to run into setbacks and confusion. However, marketers that embrace change and experiment wisely in the new reality have an opportunity to claim a competitive advantage in the programmatic future.
Capitalize on industry consolidation
Finally, let’s talk about the continued consolidation within the programmatic advertising landscape. This trend will continue to benefit advertisers by consolidating resources and brain power into a smaller group of players – players that will be expending significant energy to differentiate themselves and bring unique value to clients in 2022.
Competition among these larger, full-stack players will be fierce. But the market opportunity can sustain a robust field of players. Consolidated competition will drive important innovation for advertisers, while also making way for new point solutions that will drive the next wave of enhanced capabilities in the industry.
As 2022 takes off, there’s a great deal of untapped programmatic potential for marketers to explore. The key is the right strategy – and an open mind.
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