At the start of another uncertain year for digital advertising – and the world as a whole – what ad tech trends can we expect to see in 2022?
From changing consumer habits shaped by the global pandemic through to the shifts in digital advertising brought on by the demise of the third-party cookie, there’s no doubt the ad industry is undergoing a transformation.
In the face of these and other changes, the ability to be agile has never been so important; advertisers, agencies, and publishers need to stay on top of the changing landscape if they are to succeed.
And so, to help you prepare for what may be on the horizon, we take a look at some of the ad tech trends we expect in the coming year.
Privacy
The resurgence of contextual targeting
While Google may be delaying Chrome’s blocking of third-party cookies an extra year, the industry has accepted that adtech will never be the same again.
Advertisers need to find new ways to target their audiences without gathering third-party personal data. But what are their options?
Sure, the big players can delve into their vast treasure troves of first-party data, but what about the majority of businesses out there that rely on third-party cookies to reach their audiences?
Contextual targeting is widely regarded to be one of the best alternatives. With ever-advancing AI technology able to recognize webpage and image content with increasing reliability, the relevance and accuracy that can be achieved through contextually targeted digital advertising has never been better.
The best part is that it requires very little user data, which makes it easier for advertisers to comply with the necessary regulations. So we expect to see increasing investment plowed back into this tried-and-tested method.
A focus on first-party data
As mentioned above, another alternative in the privacy-first future of advertising is the use of first-party data.
Since the third-party cookie began to crumble, many players in the industry have been renewing their focus on the value of the first-party user data they hold, and the ways in which it can be utilized.
The more data you have the better, so organizations such as Amazon, Google and global publishers will, of course, have a huge advantage. Because of this, we expect to see many more brands joining forces by forming strategic first-party data partnerships.
Additionally, with the potential for much more intricate and nuanced agreements between advertisers and publishers, we could see agencies once again playing a more important role.
Technology
The rise of CTV advertising
With the global pandemic confining most of us to our homes throughout various lockdowns over recent years, we are now streaming more content than ever before.
This shift away from traditional (or ‘linear’) TV has led more and more people to cancel their existing cable TV contracts. This, in turn, has provided great opportunities for advertisers in the connected TV (CTV) space, especially when trying to reach millennial audiences.
By combining the viewability and impact of linear TV advertising with the precision targeting of digital, it’s no wonder CTV advertising has seen a huge rise in popularity – and we expect this to continue.
Using AI to advertise at scale
Sure, artificial intelligence (AI) has been used by ad tech companies for a long time, but with the aforementioned focus on privacy, it’s set to play an increasingly important role.
With the third-party cookie on borrowed time, ad tech companies have been working hard to find new ways to achieve ad personalization without gathering individuals’ data.
One way is advertising at scale – and this is where AI can help. AI can efficiently gather and crunch huge quantities of consumer and advertising data, identifying trends much quicker than humans can.
This gives brands in a cookie-less world the agility they need to react to changes in behavior, and to reach the people who matter when it matters to them.
Marketing in the metaverse
While the metaverse is still somewhat of a mystery to most, all indicators point to it being more than just a fad. From Epic Games’ $1bn funding round, through to Facebook’s widely reported rebrand, this next iteration of the internet has some powerful backers.
It could be billboard ads for real-world products on a computer-generated street or immersive brand experiences such as virtual stores. Whatever the format, advertising and marketing opportunities in the metaverse are potentially endless.
Right now, it’s still too early to set any solid guidelines for advertising, which makes it easy to overlook the platform when strategizing for the year to come. However, with its closest comparisons being online gaming worlds like Roblox – which attracts nearly 50 million daily active users – advertisers would be remiss not to plan for the new world wide web in some capacity.
Measurement
Attention metrics in digital advertising
For some time now, there has been rising opposition to the way digital advertising has traditionally been measured. While the current ‘impressions’ model tells advertisers how many users could view a particular ad, there is no way of measuring just how many actually saw it.
The key factor here is attention; just because an ad was served on a page, it doesn’t mean anyone gave it the time of day. And yet, impressions often form a basis for measuring an ad’s cost and success. Indeed, bad actors have long profited from this through the use of ad stacking, pixel stuffing, and other forms of ad fraud.
So it’s no surprise that using attention as a form of measurement is gaining increasing popularity in digital advertising. Growing numbers of industry players believe that eye-tracking data, combined with other metrics like viewability, duration and position, is an accurate measure of ad quality. One study found that 98% of respondents believed attention metrics in mobile advertising would drive value for their organizations.
The fact that it also allows advertisers to perform cross-platform measurement between digital and other forms of advertising such as TV and out-of-home (OOH) advertising is considered to be another key advantage.
We would expect to see attention metrics continue to gain traction this year, with more publishers working alongside attention metrics partners to measure the quality of their inventory.
SmartFrame’s innovative image-streaming technology offers a unique in-image contextual advertising solution. Learn more or contact us for further details.
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