Nick Welch was elected as the Chair of the Programmatic Trading Committee on 17th November at the most recent monthly meeting of 2021. Replacing David Goddard (Vice President of Business Development, DoubleVerify), Nick was elected to lead the committee’s work to increase understanding of the programmatic ecosystem and the impact it is having on digital advertising and influence industry initiatives to improve the ecosystem.
Commenting on his newly appointed role and vision for the committee, Nick said “Having worked in programmatic for over 11 years, I believe we are entering a really exciting time for the digital advertising industry. In our role as the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading committee, we have an integral part to play in scaling the industry’s programmatic knowledge, and ensuring it has a key place in the ecosystem in the future. By better supporting educational efforts we have a real opportunity to improve opinion on programmatic, drive results and make a huge difference. I look forward to working closely and collaboratively with the diverse members of this committee to ensure that our work and outputs provide a valuable source to many.”
Nick is an active member of the Programmatic Trading Committee, and now, as Chair, will follow on the great work of former chairs to create channels and connections that enable all committee members to contribute their knowledge and support all industry stakeholders.
The Programmatic Trading Committee is a multi-stakeholder group that aims to increase understanding of the programmatic ecosystem and the impact it is having on digital advertising and influence industry initiatives to improve the ecosystem.
For any IAB Europe Members who would like to get involved in the committee, please contact Lauren Wakefield – wakefield@iabeurope.eu.
About Nick Welch, Programmatic Director, Northern Europe, Integral Ad Science (IAS)
Nick Welch is the Programmatic Director for Northern Europe at Integral Ad Science, responsible for driving IAS’ programmatic business in the region. Nick supports clients’ media strategies such as the impending cookie deprecation and promotes robust cross-industry collaboration with the world’s biggest agencies, advertisers, publishers, and industry bodies.
Nick has been part of the advertising industry for more than 20 years and draws his experience from working across the advertising landscape. Beginning in traditional media like Radio, TV, press through to digital encompassing mobile, web, In-game with the last 10 years in the world of data and programmatic. He has held business development and sales roles on both the buy-side and sell-side of the ecosystem, with brands, agencies, and publishers, including Microsoft, Orange, SpotX, Bauer, and InMobi.
Nick has been a regular contributor of the IAB Europe Programmatic committee, widening industry discussions around sustainability, quality media, transparency, contextual and misinformation
In this week’s member-guest blog post, we hear from Filippo Gramigna, CEO at Audiencerate. Filippo is diving into the post-pandemic world of SMEs, looking at their overwhelming importance, the challenges they may face, and the role that Customer Data Platforms could play in ensuring their long-term success.
COVID-19 transformed the marketing landscape. While eCommerce was already steadily moving into the mainstream, real-life restrictions and lockdowns accelerated the transition to online retail. Companies small and large shifted to a digital-first approach to respond to changing consumer demands, as an additional 6% of EU internet users focused their purchasing power online. Nevertheless, a closer look at Europe and the UK reveals SMEs still bore the commercial brunt of the COVID-19: 70% reported reduced revenue and a further 50% could not guarantee they would survive the next 12 months. Coinciding with Google’s phasing out of third-party cookies, SMEs are facing evermore challenges when it comes to competition — especially against larger brands and companies — and questions surrounding privacy and targeted advertising.
The challenge for SMEs
Let’s take a step back to consider why SMEs are so important. According to a recent IAB Europe report, 99% of European businesses are SMEs, bringing in 50% of European GDP and employing over 100 million people, it is therefore understandable that The European Commission considers them “the backbone of Europe’s economy”[1]. The twin challenges to the industry — COVID-19 and Google’s third-party cookie disavowal — injected a high level of pressure to innovate, finding new ways to connect to audiences that respected privacy concerns. First-party data, with its granular insights drawn from loyal customer input, has emerged as a clear favourite substitute as publishers, agencies, brands, and tech platforms scramble for solutions. However, an initial swarm towards new technologies such as videoconferencing, the Internet of Things, and Augmented Reality tailed off following continued economic uncertainty. As first-party data rewards companies which already benefit from both a large consumer base as well as the technology to manage their data — consider Google and Facebook advertising ecosystems — this leaves SMEs in dire need of additional technological solutions.
While the pandemic prophesied an ad spend slump unseen since 1929, reality witnessed a spending surge of 6.3%. UK-centric data echoes this sentiment: half of SMEs considered digital advertising to be an important aspect of business during the crisis, and an even larger proportion (63%) thought digital activity was a good return on investment. Without the limitless budget of larger corporations, SMEs rely, in large part, on targeted advertising to reach their audiences as well as reduce costs. And if these businesses are to continue providing cultural and financial value to the EU and UK as well as contribute towards building a sustainable, digital future, then a blanket ban on targeted ads—as suggested by several MEPs — is not the way forward. So, what is?
Steps to success
Taking into account the myriad considerations of the current landscape, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) arise as the privacy-first solution to building the personalised experiences consumers have come to expect. Aggregating customer data from individual, disconnected silos, CDPs provide the necessary information that generates 360° customer profiles, facilitating consistent communication across channels and fostering loyalty-building strategies. Furthermore, the industry-approved identifier systems can track and measure ROAS, assisting companies in the continued optimisation of their campaigns.
The strength of CDPs lies in their capacity to unify the swathes of customer records from across multiple platforms and databases, both on- and offline. Enriching data with compliant sources to gain scale, CDPs are then able to segment customers based on behaviour and acquisition. Integrated platforms, on the other hand, allow a business to activate omnichannel campaigns. Another way they can contribute to business growth is by leveraging data independence to accumulate knowledge — having comprehensive access to their own data to help influence business decisions — and continuously expanding the database and refining the algorithms. A CDP can provide a vast range of options to an SME, and the success all depends on how they plan to use their CDPs; options include execution layers and personalisation capabilities, or identity resolution, and customer segmentation.
While the marketing sphere is still in the grips of constant transformation, there are a few certainties for SMEs to keep in mind while adapting to the present and preparing for the future. Firstly: data makes the world go around. Data defines our strategies, structures, and goals. Compared to 2016, estimates envisage a tenfold increase of data by 2025, resulting in 175 zettabytes. Secondly: the pandemic was only the beginning. Multinational corporations such as Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook have long since recognised the importance of and benefited from the consumer data and attribute their success in part to translating these insights into personalised products and services. SMEs that are slow in this respect will not only fall behind in terms of competition, but they may not survive at all.
Digital transformation was key to SME survival during the pandemic, many of which, despite suffering some losses, were still able to develop and push forward technological solutions. However, just because circumstances are returning to “normal” does not mean that businesses should abandon their initial digital dash. Tightening GDPR regulations, omnichannel campaign demands, fluctuating consumer habits and an ever-growing reliance on data demonstrate a very real need to continue investing in tech. CDPs are one answer to the complex problem of customer experience, providing SMEs with the ability to keep up with stiff competition as well as the complex needs of our time.
Have your say in IAB Europe’s Annual Industry Polls - Brand Safety and Post Third-Party Cookie
IAB Europe has launched two of its annual polls to assess the status of Brand Safety in Digital Advertising and to understand how the industry is preparing for the depletion of Third-Party Cookies.
Brand Safety Poll
Whilst there are lots of studies which look at consumer views, we want to find out what is actually happening from advertising industry experts. We want your views on how Brand Safety has been tackled in 2021 and to determine what action needs to be taken in 2022.
Have your say in the Brand Safety Poll here.
Post Third-Party Cookie Poll
The depletion of third-party cookies will bring about fundamental changes to our industry, creating new opportunities and challenges. How prepared are you for these changes? And what impact do you think it will have on targeting, measurement, verification and overall investment?
Have your say in the Third-Party Cookie Poll here.
The polls will each take no more than 10 minutes, and by taking part you will be helping us to better understand the challenges that you are facing in these two critical areas. The results will be benchmarked against previous years' results and will be used to ensure our focus for 2022 addresses the key areas that need tackling.
The deadline for both polls is Friday 28th January.
Take the Brand Safety Poll here.
Take the Post Third-Party Cookie Poll here.
IAB Europe has three exciting Industry Insiders lined up for our listeners in the coming weeks. With leading industry experts, we are tackling lots of topics, from audio to eCommerce, you won't want to miss a single one!
IAB Europe Industry Insider Webinar with Meta - Key Emerging Trends from ECommerce to Future Proof your Brand & Business
Join the newly named Meta on Wednesday 1st December to talk about all things eCommerce! Zehra Chatoo, Head of Connection Planning for Retail and ECommerce EMEA at Meta, will be diving into changing shopping behaviors and creator commerce, sharing the latest trends for 2022 and best practices from Black Friday campaigns. IAB Europe’s Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp will also be joining to share the latest industry trends in eCommerce.
Register here
IAB Europe Industry Insider with GroupM - State of Pay: The ECommerce Opportunity and How Stakeholders Can Tap into it
In this session, IAB Europe’s Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp will share an overview of the eCommerce opportunity in Europe today. He will then be joined by GroupM and a panel of experts who will dive into how brands are building and adapting their eCommerce strategy, sharing best practices and practical examples. Don’t miss the chance to hear these expert opinions! Register now and we will see you on Thursday 9th December at 12:00 CET.
Register here
IAB Europe Industry Insider with Oracle Advertising– How Tuned in Are You? Unpacking Audio Through Measurement and Context
It is no secret that audio is on the rise and that digital content is embedded in so many touchpoints in our day-to-day lives – increasingly the complexity for advertisers trying to reach the right people, in the right moments and then measure accordingly. But with the right tools and practices in place, progress is possible. Join Moomal Shaikh, Senior Product Manager at Oracle Advertising on Tuesday 7th December, 16:00 CET as she breaks down the state of audio today, and the measurement and contextual solutions at your fingertips that can help inform your decisions of tomorrow.
Register here
In this week’s member-guest blog post, we hear from Joshua Koran, EVP, Data and Policy at Criteo, as he shares his top addressability misconceptions to help marketers and media owners plan for the future of addressable media.
Everyone involved in the advertising industry - from marketers to media owners, to agency heads and small business owners - understands the need to reach and engage new consumers to effectively scale their business. And they know that programmatic advertising is one of the best methods to do this.
But today we are at a crossroads. One path returns us to an internet that resembles the original walled gardens of the past (e.g., AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy who owned and operated the infrastructure of the internet in The 1980s). The other path leads to marketers and media owners continuing to retain their choice of business partners to operate and grow their business.
This is due to multiple internet gatekeepers preferring to substitute their own solutions to help media owners and marketers conduct advertising. But, from a consumer perspective, given that the identical personal data is being collected and processed to support these business-to-business use cases, we are primarily talking about market competition, not privacy. Thus, if we want to truly protect choice for people, media owners, and marketers, we must balance people’s important privacy rights with the ability for businesses, especially smaller ones, to benefit from working with supply chain partners.
Towards this end, we should be clear about what data poses threats to people’s privacy (such as sensitive categories of information or activity linked to their identity) and what data has undergone privacy-by-design protections, such as relying on random or de-identified identifiers that pose far lower risks.
With over 20 years of experience in product management, innovation, as well as advocacy for consumers’ privacy rights and the ad-funded open internet, I’ve had innumerable conversations around addressability. In these conversations, I continue to see the same misconceptions across the industry that do little to help improve people’s privacy, much less help marketers and media owners plan for the future of addressable media — and I’d like to clear up those misconceptions now.
Misconception 1: Cookies Are Identifiers
The confusion over cookies is one of the most common misunderstandings I hear. Many people confuse a cookie storage mechanism with the identifier it often contains. These identifiers can be used in digital advertising or for remembering what’s in an online shopping basket. Cookies are merely files that contain identifiers, similar to the address on the outside of an envelope. These identifiers help marketers deliver messages to people by helping them understand how to improve their audience engagement, quantify how well it is performing, and improve how they can allocate their budgets going forward.
There’s also a growing perception that first-party cookies are good, while third-party cookies are bad. This is because many people think that cookies alone cause privacy issues, but privacy issues occur from the data collection and processing of personal data — regardless of whether the organisation that collects and processes data is first or third party.
That’s why it’s crucial for organisations of all sizes to ensure they adhere to strict privacy-safe operations for data collection and processing of personal data. If they must receive data associated with people’s identity (such as merchants who ship goods to people’s homes), it is important they implement appropriate technical and operational measures to keep this information separate from the de-identified data required in general to run and grow their business.
Misconception 2: Addressability is Going Away
The truth is walled gardens will continue to offer fine-grained audience targeting, frequency capping, and real-time optimisation. Most will also continue to support CRM onboarding where they link people’s identity or other forms of cross-site data linking to improve their own advertising solutions. Thus, addressability is here to stay. The only question is whether addressability will be available to their smaller rivals, especially those that rely on pseudonymous, random identifiers to conduct these same advertising operations. This is why addressability is a competition issue – not a privacy one.
According to a 2020 study by The Harris Poll, 66% of consumers' time spent online happens on the open internet. However, there’s an asymmetry in marketing spend, as marketers only allocate 37% of their ad spend to the open internet (the other 63% goes towards walled gardens). This is why it is so important for independent media owners and marketers to have access to responsible addressable media identifiers.
Misconception 3: Marketers Value Addressable Targeting Without Measurement
A key aspect of addressability is improving how marketers engage with audiences — current customers and new prospects alike. But delivery (or reach) is just one part of the process. Measurement of what is working, and more importantly, what is not working, helps marketers improve the allocations of their limited spend, change their bid prices, alter their messaging strategy, and in short, optimise their return on ad spend. This is why addressability is crucial to successful advertising campaigns.
Yet addressability is not only about media owners and marketers. Without addressability, consumers would suffer poor experiences due to over-exposure to the same ad as a result of the lack of frequency capping or miss out on opportunities to connect with brands and products they would benefit from knowing but don’t yet have a relationship with.
Moreover, time-delayed reporting and aggregate APIs are not adequate to support digital advertising. Such long delays mean marketers will waste spend proportionally to the delay in this feedback. The greater the delay, the lower the effectiveness, which leads to lower revenues for publishers.
Misconception 4: Contextual signals or Hashed Emails Are a Complete Replacement
Hashed emails can provide superior cross-device user experiences, but they’re not a complete solution for addressable advertising. Only non-logged-in user IDs will be able to provide a complete picture across the wide range of consumer experiences.
For example, even if a marketer were to target only people who logged in on various news sites, this alone wouldn’t provide marketer view-through attribution for people who arrive at their website a few days later. This is because most marketers don’t require people to log in when they first visit their website.
Similarly, contextual targeting enables marketers to engage the right audience while in a mindset associated with the content surrounding the ad. But without the measurement of which contextual targeting is working better — even on the same site, much less targeting the same topic across different sites — marketers cannot improve the return on their ad spend. Moreover, contextual alone cannot provide the frequency capping or attribution marketers rely on to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.
This is why pseudonymous, random identifiers provide marketers even more value to sites that rely on hashed email or contextual solutions.
Misconception 5: Publisher-Supplied Data Can Replace Cross-Organisation Identifiers
The truth is that while publishers’ first-party data is very valuable since publishers know their audiences better than anyone, it isn’t a standalone replacement. This is why publishers should enrich their inventory with the first-party data that makes it more valuable to marketers.
However, like other engagement tactics, it doesn’t support cross-publisher frequency capping or attribution. Marketers still need responsible addressable identifiers to bridge the exposure on the publisher site to the activities that happen on their own site.
In short, engagement is just one of the three important aspects of addressability, along with measurement and optimisation.
How Marketers and Media Owners Can Move Forward
It may feel like there are many details up in the air when it comes to the future of addressability. However, there are steps that marketers can take now to drive success both now — and in the near future. These include improving the management of first-party data, as well as enriching first-party data with information that the marketer or media owner doesn’t already have.
This can be achieved by working with partners who can provide the technology and services needed to grow their business using responsible addressable identifiers. Marketers and media owners can also make their voices heard by joining industry conversations with Prebid.org to collaborate on the best paths forward for addressability.
There are steps in our collective control, and we just need to take them and learn as we go. If you’d like to hear more about the future of addressability, you can watch my IAB Industry Insider Webinar here.
Despite a long break from physical events, E-commerce Germany is back and ready to go! They're not only bringing back the E-commerce Berlin Expo in February 2022 but also all the events associated with it. E-commerce Germany Awards is, of course, one of them. There are exciting times ahead, so let's find out what they will bring!
A fifth edition of the E-commerce Germany Awards is coming in 2022. With a special gala to summarise and award the winners, the prestigious contest has become a jewel in the German e-commerce events calendar, attracting increasingly more participants submissions each year.
The awards have gained acclaim across the continent. Does everyone qualify for the competition, however?
Businesses, service providers, and agencies active in e-commerce may enter any one of the twelve categories.
For the entry to be considered, the submitting company must meet a few requirements:
Does this sound like your company? Don't hesitate to submit your entry today. In the following paragraph, you will find the upcoming categories for the 2022 edition of the E-commerce Germany Awards.
As a result of market feedback, E-commerce Germany has responded to the demand to recognise the industry's real innovators, who tackle new sectors each year.
As a result, they've revamped their Awards categories, adding a few new ones as well as modifying some.
In 2022, companies will be competing in as many as 12 categories:
Submissions from both the real revolutionaries in e-commerce solutions and those who help them thrive every day are welcome.
Among all the winners from last year, you can recognize Hubspot, Sendcloud, Infobip, and Fraugster.
Submissions to the E-commerce Germany Awards are accepted until 26 November 2021. Submit your company here
Who will evaluate the submissions?
You can be sure that the group of jurors will persuade you if the categories haven't yet. Could you imagine the feeling of having your submission reviewed by industry giants?
Imagine no longer - submit it straight away. contestants' submissions will be scrutinised by representatives from companies such as:
and many, many more. There is a separate page for Jurors with all the details.
Every year, e-Commerce Germany combine their ceremony of recognising the winners with a huge networking party before the actual E-commerce Berlin Expo. At the ceremony, the winners are announced. During the event, you will also get the chance to meet the Jury and other industry influencers and experts. A must-attend event. You can meet in person to celebrate, share joy, and talk about e-commerce!
Pencil the date - see you on the 8th of February in Berlin.
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For further questions or partnership requests, please reach out to E-Commerce Gemrany's PR Manager, John Cyprych at awards@ecommerceberlin.com.
Learn more about the E-Commerce Berlin Expo 2022 here.
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Let's take a look back to 11th November when IAB Europe hosted the second Virtual Programmatic Day of 2021. With over 540 people in attendance, it was a huge success and a truly insightful day.
The Virtual Programmatic Day brought together industry experts and thought-leaders to explore the latest trends, drivers, and barriers impacting programmatic trading in Europe. A brilliant Keynote presentation and five riveting panel discussions and audience Q&As were heard, making it a fully interactive and engaging experience for all who joined.
Topics on the agenda included; what the programmatic advertising landscape in Europe looks like today, the latest developments as we transition into a post-third-party cookie era, how the TCF will work in a post third party cookie world, programmatic creativity, and all the buzzwords and big themes you need to know as we move into 2022.
A big thank you to our event partners OneTrust for helping to make this event possible!
In this post, you will find an overview of each of the sessions covered, as well as video recordings for you to view in your own time. Enjoy!
Watch the full event recording here.
Opening Keynote: The European Programmatic Advertising Landscape
Daniel Knapp, Chief Economist, IAB Europe and David Goddard, Vice President of Business Development, DoubleVerify
In the opening keynote, Daniel Knapp and David Goddard shared the results of the Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising Report and Programmatic Ad Spend Report, revealing the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in programmatic advertising today.
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 1: The European Programmatic Advertising Landscape – Latest findings
The first panel session of the event discussed the results shared in the opening keynote presentation and addressed the opportunities, barriers, and trends within Programmatic advertising.
Lisa Kalyuzhny, RVP, Advertiser Solutions, EMEA, PubMatic moderated this panel and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 2: Post Third-Party Cookie World – Are We Still on Track?
The second panel of the day explored the status of the different solutions and industry initiatives being worked on to ensure our industry is on track to deliver privacy-first ad experiences.
Moderated by Andrew Hayward-Wright, Partnerships Director, SeenThis and Programmatic Advisor, IAB Europe, this panel also featured:
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 3: The TCF in a Post Third-Party Cookie World
Following on from the previous discussion, this panel continued the conversation by debating how the TCF will work with new privacy addressability solutions and explored what consent will look like in the post-third-party cookie era.
Moderated by Thomas Mendria, VP Publisher, Central Europe, Head of External Relations EMEA who was joined by:
Watch the panel session here.
Panel 4: Programmatic Creativity
In a world where advertisers are fighting for consumers’ attention, how can technology and data be delivered via programmatic help to power creatives that resonate with audiences? What new innovations are helping advertisers to deliver their creatives more effectively? These are just some of the questions that were explored in this session.
Emanuela Recalcati, Director Creative Solutions, and Supply, EMEA, Xaxis moderated this panel and was joined by:
Watch the panel session here.
Panel 5: Tackling 2022 buzzwords – the big themes coming up
In the final session of the day, our panel of experts explored the big industry buzzwords we need to be familiar with and the themes that we should be focusing on as we enter 2022 and beyond.
Our moderator Sara Vincent – Senior Director, Strategic Partner Development, Index Exchange led this discussion and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Guide Provides Definitions and Best Practices for In-Game Advertising
11th November 2021, Brussels, Belgium: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its ‘Guide to In-Gaming’ to provide a basic understanding of in-game advertising. It addresses the various formats available and how to buy and measure them, as well as the key considerations and best practices for buyers.
Having quickly transitioned from a quirky hobby to an invaluable source of connection, driven by console and mobile innovations, gaming brings people together and gives brands new opportunities to reach engaged audiences. Particularly post-pandemic, this topic has never been so relevant.
As such, this guide, written by a host of experts from the IAB Europe Channels and Formats Taskforce, is a fantastic resource for those who need an introduction to In-Gaming. Thanks to our knowledgeable contributors, including Anzu, GroupM, IAB France, Index Exchange, Oracle Advertising, SmartClip, Triton Digital, Xaxis, and Yahoo we are able to provide the perfect 101 Guide to this channel.
Commenting on his contribution to the guide, Nick Woodford, Content Manager & Copywriter at Anzu said "As video game advertising continues to become a priority for brands and agencies everywhere, the IAB is doing a great job of bringing experts within this field together to help build a framework to ensure the space remains a safe, attractive, and accessible channel. It was vital for us to be part of this guide as we want to ensure that Anzu's narrative and focus align with the expectations and requirements of those helping to lay the right foundations for this space to continue thriving."
On the importance of brand safety in In-Gaming, as covered in the guide, Stevan Randjelovic, Director, Brand Safety & Digital Risk at GroupM said “Where advertising investment goes, brand safety issues follow. It is no different with gaming. Gaming has a few risk watchouts: fragmentation of supply, lack of measurement standards, presence of violence in games, the propensity of children’s audience, and more. However, that does not mean that the risk cannot be navigated. A smart marketer will approach this great opportunity with open eyes and keen interest, and will use the available tools, while working with the industry on the advancement of the gaming’s brand safety credentials, as we, at GroupM have been doing.’’
Commenting on the value of the guide, Ivone Schramm, Market Operations Manager, Triton Digital said “I was honored to work on the IAB Europe Guide to In-Gaming. The guide details in-gaming advertising formats and best practices. Providing advertisers with the power to understand what options they have on each platform and how the user will interact with their advertisement is essential for creating well-targeted messaging.”
The Guide is the first of IAB Europe’s work in this area and we will be working closely with our members to help further drive this channel forward.
Download the guide here.
Since Google announced that third-party cookies were to become obsolete - extended now to 2023 - there have, and continue to be many questions about how digital marketing and advertising will work in a post third-party cookie world. Among them is the question of attribution. With current attribution and measurement techniques so heavily reliant on cookies, what will happen to attribution? And how will ad success measurement work in this new era?
To better understand the challenge of attribution and what we can expect for measuring success in the future, we caught up with members of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee to share their thoughts and expertise.
Q&A with:
In this week's member-guest blog post, we hear from Anna Sikora, Client Services Partner at PubMatic, on all things In-App. She discusses the common misconceptions for in-app advertising and how brands have an opportunity to reach highly-engaged, valuable audiences.
Over the past 18 months, in-app advertising has become more sophisticated creating an opportunity for brands to tap into premium, brand-safe inventory at scale. However, due to a lack of understanding many brands are still either avoiding in-app advertising or simply transferring desktop and mobile web strategies, rather than approaching in-app in an up-to-date way. To put it simply, brands are missing out on an opportunity to reach highly-engaged, valuable audiences.
The App Revolution and Reset
Globally, app installs increased by 31% in 2021 as consumers increasingly look for highly accessible ways to access a variety of quality content and entertainment. This has caused a significant rise in the volume of quality in-app ad impressions available. Concurrently, header bidding has made in-app highly scalable and initiatives such as app ads.txt have removed early brand safety challenges. Yet somehow, misconceptions remain, ad budgets have not shifted and in-app remains a relatively untapped opportunity.
In order to reinvigorate brands’ interest in in-app, there needs to be a serious reset in the way publishers and tech platforms talk about in-app and there needs to be a concerted effort to help brands understand the new lay of the land and how to engage today’s app audiences.
The In-App Difference
There is often a misconception that in-app campaigns are broadly similar to desktop and can be retrofitted. However, this is not the case and in-app needs its own strategy in order to be effective. For brands, strategically bought in-app offers many benefits such as:
In order to realise these benefits there has to be a desire on the buy-side to connect with the sell-side and the sell-side must be willing to be flexible and start speaking the same language. Publishers and SSPs need to educate brands on the types of deals that are available and provide deep insights into app audiences to make in-app a worthwhile investment for brands. The challenge so far is that in-app has been an afterthought, and in extreme cases run as a blind buy with very little transparency or control for buyers, resulting in a black box experience and no repeat business for publishers as a result.
In-App Best Practices
For many brands, the first port of call to embark on, or restart in-app is to talk directly to publishers and understand their apps and advertising opportunities. Many SSPs have deep relationships with publishers and are leveraging these to benefit the buy-side. Reach out to SSPs that have in-app expertise. Many run roadshows that enable brands and publishers to speak directly and create a common understanding of the opportunity.
Ensure your campaigns run across a diverse portfolio of apps and formats in order to understand where you can best reach your audience and what makes them engage the most with your ads. Do not be afraid to experiment with innovative formats such as in-ads product rotation and customisation or in-app/in-play formats (ads that appear within the app or game content). These are the perfect places to run brand campaigns and the tracking that is possible in-app enables you to follow consumers into the purchase funnel and better understand consumer behaviour.
Publishers are using the fact that device IDs are disappearing to get their data in order and to create and offer first-party data segments, as well as third-party. Use this data to seek out new audiences and attach value to in-app. If possible feed in your own first-party data to create highly addressable, app-specific, privacy-safe buys that deliver superior performance.
Use technology to access all levels of inventory, first-look, targeted PMP, open market, in order to understand what works best for you. Also work with partners who can offer you bespoke in-app PMPs that give you a clear understanding of who you are advertising to, where you are advertising to them, and what they do after seeing your ads in different environments and in different formats. Ask for total transparency into the buy and reporting that you can easily understand, not sprawling spreadsheets that need a data analyst to decipher and translate into actionable insights.
Hopes For the Next 12 Months
It’s hard to predict what the next year will look like for in-app as it’s a constantly evolving space, but there are some solid trends that have emerged that look set to create a solid foundation from which brands can realise the full potential of in-app.
A huge amount of effort is going into providing brands with easy-to-access, easy-to-understand sources of education which is resulting in strategic in-app planning and buying and campaigns that deliver superior performance compared to earlier campaigns, which is blistering brands’ confidence in in-app and driving repeat business.
Tech platforms are getting closer and closer to making sure that all audiences are addressable and that both performance and direct response advertisers are able to reach their whole addressable market. This will help prove the fact that in-app audiences are of equal value to other channels and could be a driving force behind increased investment and the success of in-app.
Brussels, 5 November 2021 - IAB Europe is informed by the Belgian data protection authority (the APD) that its Litigation Chamber is close to finalising a draft ruling that will conclude its investigation of IAB Europe and its role in the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF). The draft ruling is expected to be shared with other Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) in the coming 2-3 weeks under the Cooperation Procedure laid down in the GDPR. Those DPAs will have 30 days to review it. Depending on the outcome of that review, the APD may adopt a final ruling or the matter may be referred to the European Data Protection Board for a binding decision.
The draft ruling will apparently identify infringements of the GDPR by IAB Europe, but it will also find that those infringements should be capable of being remedied within six months following the issuing of the final ruling, in a process that would involve the APD overseeing the execution of an agreed action plan by IAB Europe.
The purported infringements are a consequence of the APD’s particular interpretation of the GDPR, as explained below.
The draft ruling is expected to find IAB Europe to be a data controller for TCF “TC Strings”, the digital signals created on websites to capture data subjects’ choices about the processing of their personal data for digital advertising, content and measurement. The APD is understood to consider these signals to be personal data. It is also expected to find IAB Europe to be a joint controller for TC Strings in the specific context of OpenRTB.
Based on guidance from other DPAs up to now and the fact that IAB Europe does not in any way process, own, or decide on the use of specific TC Strings, as well as relevant case law and its own interpretation of the GDPR, IAB Europe has not considered itself to be a data controller in the context of the TCF. Therefore, it has naturally not fulfilled certain obligations that accrue to data controllers under the Regulation. The draft ruling will require IAB Europe to work with the APD to ensure that these obligations are met going forward.
We are optimistic that work on the action plan under the APD’s supervision should enable the approval of the TCF as a GDPR trans-national Code of Conduct (CoC) by the APD and the full European Data Protection Board (EDPB). Since launching the TCF in 2018, IAB Europe has been keen on evolving it into a CoC, an aspiration that has been explicitly encouraged by a number of DPAs but has had to be put on hold pending the outcome of the present case.
We look forward to the outcome of the Cooperation Procedure and stand ready to work with the APD and other DPAs to support companies in the digital advertising industry to ensure that they fully comply with the requirements of EU law.
For more information, please contact Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO (feehan@iabeurope.eu) or Filip Sedefov, IAB Europe Legal Director (sedefov@iabeurope.eu).
