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, 14 October 2021 - IAB Europe is dismayed by a new campaign and report, launched by the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, that paint huge swathes of the internet economy as ‘manipulation’, and call for an outright ban on the use of personal data in advertising that would spell disaster for European media, start-ups and small businesses.
The campaign presents a misleading view that data-driven advertising, and personalised advertising in particular, is uniquely harmful and escapes user control.
It draws on a report that proposes to unequivocally outlaw the business practice, completely disregarding the full applicability of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to any business activity underpinned by personal data.
The paper blatantly ignores a universally accepted all-encompassing definition of ‘personal data’ under the GDPR, disingenuously putting forward a variation of ‘contextual advertising’ as a panacea to all challenges on the web, and as an alternative to data-driven advertising. But contextual ads still require the processing of ‘personal data’ to deliver and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns, and even the most informed account would admit they can only ever be one part of the mix for online publishers and advertisers.
The authors of the study claim that there exist ‘many opportunities for publishers and advertisers to survive, and even flourish, in a post personal data advertising world, despite having to navigate a complex transition’.
Yet those very same businesses – thousands of European digital media publishers, content creators, communications agencies, technology providers, eCommerce businesses, entrepreneurs, and software developers – have already firmly and collectively opposed a ban on targeted advertising, instead calling on the EU to simply recognise and enforce its already extensive legal framework for privacy and data protection.
At a time when EU legislators are negotiating in good faith to try to secure a compromise on the crucial Digital Services Act (DSA) package, this campaign can only be viewed as misleading and, indeed, manipulative. IAB Europe welcomes the prospect of the DSA boosting clarity and transparency around digital advertising, but we must remember just what it is that this legislation is scoped to do, and what impact assessments have been undertaken. At this late stage, introducing an untested and uncosted ban on one of the fundamental drivers of an open and innovative internet is a major distraction from the task at hand and would have simply immense unintended consequences for Europe’s free press, its small business ecosystem and its international reputation.
We call on all reasonable voices to reject this proposal and instead use the tools of enforcement already enshrined in the GDPR.
IAB Europe is inviting all advertisers and agencies to answer the 2021 In-Housing Survey! Take part here.
In-housing programmatic trading has gone from a nascent trend in recent years to a term that more and more brands and agencies are familiar with. But what is the current status of programmatic in-housing in Europe, and how will it evolve in the future?
If you're an advertiser or an agency, please help us to understand the current landscape by sharing your thoughts and experience of programmatic in-housing by completing this short survey.
The deadline to complete the survey has been extended to Friday 5th November, and it takes just 5 minutes to complete. Plus your response will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Help us uncover how programmatic in-housing is being adopted and what the future holds for this trend. Take the survey today!
On September 28, IAB Europe hosted the headline event of our Trust and Transparency series 'The Great Debate'.
The event was created to round up our exclusive September event series by discussing and debating all things trust and transparency in digital advertising.
Featuring a series of panel discussions, IAB Europe and IAB Europe member companies shared best practices and current initiatives and did a deep dive into the latest policy and legal regulations to drive trust and transparency in our industry. They shared their views on what’s being done and what else needs to be done.
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.
Watch the full event recording here.
Panel 1: Tackling Disinformation in the Industry
IAB Europe’s Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp, lead the conversation on what disinformation is, how it is grown, and what can be done by the industry to curb the spread. He was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 2: Tackling Brand Safety and Suitability for Emerging Channels – Gaming, CTV, and Audio
Following on from IAB Europe’s work around educating stakeholders on best practices for brand safety and suitability in emerging channels, this panel delved deeper with practical case studies and examples of what can be done to keep brands relevant and safe.
This panel was moderated by Tina Lakhani, Head of AdTech, IAB UK, who was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 3: Understanding the Digital Services Act (DSA)
A panel of industry association leaders from advertising and beyond discussed the latest status of the DSA, detailing what it means to them and the stakeholders they represent, including start-ups, SMEs, and Entrepreneurs.
This panel was moderated by Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe, who was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Panel 4: Supply Chain Transparency
If the digital advertising industry is to increase investment from the buy-side and to continue to benefit consumers through personal, timely, and relevant content, then maintaining transparency is critical. This panel discussed the latest initiatives to help maintain such transparency.
This panel was moderated by Daniel Knapp, Cheif Economist, IAB Europe who was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Keynote: New Standards
Presentation by IAB Europe’s Technical Director, Alexandre Nderagakura, and Pierre Gauthier (IAB France Executive Committee member and Commercial Director at Channel Factory) on new standards to drive trust and transparency in our industry including the SCID initiative.
Watch the session recording here.
As part of our Trust and Transparency event series, we are hosting a range of Industry Insider sessions with some of our members. In the series so far, we have heard best practices and advice from PubMatic, OneTrust, Sourcepoint, and Criteo.
If you missed these sessions, don’t worry as you can access them all on-demand here.
Next week we will be joined by leaders from Facebook, Google Integral Ad Science, and Xandr as they dive deeper into key areas of and best practices for trust and transparency.
Join the following events to hear the latest views from leading industry experts. All sessions are free and include an audience Q&A.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Industry Insider With Xandr: How PREX, Delta Pronatura, BurdaForward And Xandr Partnered To Find More Transparency Within The Programmatic Ecosystem!
27th September at 12.00 CET
In August 2021 Xandr partnered with PREX, Delta Pronatura, and BurdaForward to help them gain full transparency over their media investment along the supply chain. Xandr and its partners expanded the SCID (Shared Campaign Identifier) project out of France and showed that it can serve as an industry standard for transparent operations in the ecosystem.
During this session Mediaplus and Xandr will discuss the SCID solution, the opportunities it provides, and why advertisers should care about transparency.
Industry Insider with Google: Building Trust with Privacy by Design - with Google Ads & Chrome
28th September at 16:00 CET
Join this session to hear Google Ads share new research with Ipsos that asked 7,000 people about ads and privacy, and what marketers can do to adapt. Google Chrome will discuss the latest developments on Privacy Sandbox and APIs such as First Party Sets. Join to learn about steps you can take today to prepare your business for what’s to come.
Please note: This is a live event and will not be available on-demand, so be sure to secure your space today!
Industry Insider With Integral Ad Science: Mind The Gap: Addressing Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency
29th September at 12.00 CET
The meteoric growth of programmatic has captured the attention of digital power players. While supply chain optimisation can add complexity, advertisers still need to access the most relevant inventory to reach consumers. In a fragmented landscape where efficiency matters more than ever, how can partnerships make transparency a reality for programmatic buyers?
During this practical session, IAS and a panel of experts will open up an in-depth discussion about Supply Path Optimisation adoption and moving the market towards more transparency.
Industry Insider With Facebook: Driving Change Through Transparency by Facebook
30th September at 12.00 CET
During this Industry Insider webinar, Facebook leaders and subject matter experts will be discussing the company’s commitment to transparency, and why it matters for the future of the industry.
To catch up on any of the Industry Insider Trust and Transparency webinars you have missed, watch them on-demand here.
As part of our September Trust and Transparency event series, we hosted a range of Industry Insider sessions with some of our members. This is where leaders from Criteo, Facebook, Google, Integral Ad Science, OneTrust, PubMatic, Sourcepoint, and Xandr took us through a deep dive into key areas of and best practices for trust and transparency.
All of our events have been recorded and are available to access on-demand, so why not check out the sessions in your own time below:
Industry Insider with PubMatic - Rebuilding the Value Chain with Transparency at the Core
In this webinar, PubMatic examined the wider issue of transparency across the supply chain and discussed how we can continue to work together as an industry to generate progress towards achieving a better ecosystem.
Helen Mussard, Chief Marketing Officer, IAB Europe moderated the session and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider with OneTrust - Web, Mobile, OTT & CTV: How to Make Consent an Asset, Not a Hurdle
In this session, Casey Hill, Product Management Organisation at OneTrust shares an understanding of how to incorporate consent and privacy strategies across web, mobile, OTT, and CTV applications, and best practices to help maximise consent rates.
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider with Sourcepoint - Responsible Media Through the Lens of Privacy
In this session, Sourcepoint led a roundtable with leaders in responsible media from throughout the ecosystem for a discussion of privacy. They discuss questions such as – How are companies reacting to new regulatory requirements? How can the industry make these changes sustainable? How do we shift the culture to go beyond the notion of binary compliance?
This session was moderated by Justin Pearse, Editor, New Digital Age who was joined by:
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider with Criteo: The Responsible Use Of Addressable Media – Rethinking User Consent For The Open Web
In this session, together with their partners, Criteo discussed how to win users’ trust in the future of addressable media and shared some active initiatives that can make this a reality in 2022.
Speakers:
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider With Xandr: How PREX, Delta Pronatura, BurdaForward And Xandr Partnered To Find More Transparency Within The Programmatic Ecosystem!
During this session Mattis Koch from PREX (Mediaplus), Jan-Henrik Scharlach and Christoph Platt from Xandr discussed the SCID solution, the opportunities it provides, and why advertisers should care about transparency.
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider With IAS: Mind The Gap: Addressing Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency
The meteoric growth of programmatic has captured the attention of digital power players. While supply chain optimisation can add complexity, advertisers still need to access the most relevant inventory to reach consumers. In a fragmented landscape where efficiency matters more than ever, how can partnerships make transparency a reality for programmatic buyers?
During this practical session, IAS and a panel of experts had an in-depth discussion about Supply Path Optimisation adoption and moving the market towards more transparency.
Speakers:
Watch the session recording here.
Industry Insider with Facebook: Driving Change Through Transparency with Facebook
Facebook leaders and subject matter experts discuss the company’s commitment to transparency, and why it matters for the future of the industry.
The session opened with a keynote presentation from Facebook’s VP Northern Europe, Steve Hatch, who shared Facebook’s view for Trust & Transparency.
Helen Mussard, Chief Marketing Officer, IAB Europe then moderated a panel session with:
Watch the session recording here.
This week we kicked off our brand new Trust and Transparency series and what a week it has been so far!
From a 101 deep dive into data transparency that focused on how it works and who benefits from it to an exploration of the socio-economic and cultural value of targeted advertising in Europe. It's been a fantastic start to the series with lots more exciting things to come, as we discuss all things trust and transparency across the month of September.
We hope you've been able to join us but if not, fear not, as below you can find an overview of each of the sessions we've covered so far and the links to the on-demand recordings.
Data Transparency: How it Works and Who Really Benefits
To kick off IAB Europe’s series of events on Trust and Transparency, this session provided a 101 overview on how personal data should be obtained and stored in relation to European data and protection regulation. To truly understand how personalised advertising works and the benefits it brings to people and publishers, it's one not to be missed.
This session was led by Andrew Hayward-Wright, Partnerships Director, SeenThis and Programmatic Advisor for IAB Europe who was joined by:
Watch the session recording here
The Wider Socio-Economic and Culutal Value of Targeted Advertising in Europe
In this session, IAB Europe's Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp presented the key findings from our hot off the press study that systematically explores the wider socio-cultural value of targeted advertising, and how it contributes to the specific make-up of Europe’s economy. He then moderated a stimulating debate about how targeted advertising can be used for good to continue delivering value with the following experts:
Watch the session recording here
In this week's member-guest blog post, Fiona Ellis-Smith, Associate Director, Advertiser Solutions at PubMatic shares her thoughts on the future of audience addressability for buyers.
This year has been the year that we’ve seen the digital advertising industry really take stock of the challenges that need to be addressed to create a fair value exchange and chart a way forward. Advertisers and publishers are forging deeper relationships than ever before and defining new ways to make consumers’ digital content and advertising experiences great again.
What are the biggest changes?
There is now a wide acceptance that as an industry we need to reset and rethink the consumer value exchange and remove the ‘big brother is watching you’ fear factor. Publishers are focusing on diversifying their revenue streams beyond the black and white of paywall or advertising. Through communication and collaboration, advertisers and agencies are able to leverage the opportunities that publishers having more control over their data presents for them from an audience addressability perspective.
Another big change is the realisation that in order to provide a truly valuable experience for consumers and a fair value exchange for publishers, tech companies, and advertisers, we need local data and local solutions. There’s a real opportunity for local, independent publishers, tech, and data companies to harness their expertise and compete on a level playing field with the big players. By offering advertisers with custom solutions that are built to solve for the unique characteristics, regulations, and consumers in each market, we’re taking a big step towards building an ecosystem that can leverage both the power of scale - powered by alliances - and local expertise.
Consumers have, for a long time, been vocal about what they dislike about digital advertising; however, the interpretation of this has been fragmented, extrapolated, and ultimately consumers’ concerns have not been sufficiently addressed. Today, we’re seeing the voice of the consumer being taken more seriously and solutions emerging that give consumers more choice than ever before.
Premium publishers are offering consumers multiple ways to access content, such as 100% ad funded, part ad funded, free, but only in exchange for data. We’ll see more flexible models emerge as publishers learn from these early offerings. Content that is built on consumer data works - e.g. Netflix. When advertising is involved, we need to tread more carefully as the user experience is very different compared to receiving content recommendations. By educating consumers about how the decisions to show certain ads are made and giving them the choice to change the way they access content if they’re not happy, addressable audiences will continue to grow.
What is driving the current changes?
When GDPR came into effect there was a sense in the industry that the ecosystem would change at the flick of a switch on May 25th, 2018. Today, regulations, standards, frameworks, and targeting options are evolving in a fluid manner, resulting in different strategies emerging. All of these strategies are designed to meet the same goal - make the digital advertising industry better.
There’s also a greater sense of collaboration rather than a battle for control. There is an understanding that publishers need to maintain a certain level of control to preserve their user experience and that when publishers have this control, advertisers are better able to engage consumers. This has put publishers in a position to choose who they work with and partner with tech companies that share their values and vision for the future, and support them in building the right solutions for them.
For example, platforms that enable publishers to test multiple ID solutions are in a great position to grow and shape the industry because they enable publishers to gather insights into the benefits that each solution brings. By facilitating this test and learn approach, these platforms are feeding vital, data-based knowledge into the industry, which is something that has been lacking in the past when there has been a tendency to keep learnings in siloes.
What will digital advertising look like in 2025?
2021 is the moment of change that we’ve needed for several years, and there’s no doubt that current endeavours to build post-cookie addressable audiences will cause digital advertising to look very different in 2025. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, but our predictions for the future are as follows.
Publishers and advertisers will be working together in ways that we’ve not even begun to see. There will be joint initiatives designed to inform consumers in non-tech speak about their options - not simply an opt-in to having hundreds of companies tracking them or none at all. In tandem, customer data platforms (CDPs) will evolve to provide more flexibility and be easier to interact with on an ongoing basis rather than a one off.
There will be more logged in users, and as a result, there will be more tailored content and advertising that exists in harmony with that content in a non-creepy but personalised way. This will increase consumer trust and engagement with digital advertising, and the voice of the consumer will have shifted to focus on what they like about advertising, not what they don’t like.
In the TV world, connected TV (CTV) will continue to grow, and as with digital, consumers will have the flexibility to choose how they want to pay for content - financially or with data, which will safeguard content providers’ revenue.
The digital advertising industry is closer than ever before to making advertising that works for everyone, and it’s clear for all to see that we’re on the cusp of great change. Collectively, we’re responsible for driving this change and keeping ourselves accountable. The next five years will continue to be uncertain times, but the post-cookie, consumer-friendly, addressable opportunity is closer than ever.
The Summer might be over but we have a lot of exciting opportunities at IAB Europe for you to get involved with for the rest of the year (and beyond)!
So far in 2021, our committees and task forces have produced some incredible outputs. From an updated guide on the Post Third-Party Cookie Era and a new Guide to the Programmatic CTV Opportunity in Europe to a deep dive into Brand Safety in CTV, plus over 20 virtual events. It’s been a great start to the year and there's still lots more to come.
If you’re keen to get involved, we’d love to have you join us! We have a range of committees and task forces that every IAB Europe member can join, and below, we’ve put together a summary of our committees so you have all the information you need to sign up and get involved.
Why join a Committee?
Being a part of a committee will help you to expand your knowledge and network, and provide valuable education and guidance to the wider community. You can stay up to date on the latest regulatory affairs and public policy initiatives that promote self-regulation, best practices, and industry standards. Most of our committees organise events, so you have the opportunity to become a speaker or moderator at large events, which bring together hundreds of industry peers. Finally, being a part of a committee means you can influence the work we are doing to drive forward the future of our industry.
What’s involved?
Each committee has a monthly conference call with a quarterly face-to-face meeting when we can meet again. The committee Chair and Vice-Chair lead each session and proactively involve members to get the very best from each meeting. The latest projects and outputs will be discussed so members can decide what they’d like to get involved with and work on. Most committees will focus on two to three key projects each quarter which could range from producing a white paper or discussing the latest policy situation to conducting industry research and market insights. For any output you are involved with, you and your company will be cited in the report and have the opportunity to be involved in subsequent PR or events.
What Committees can I join?
Please see below for an overview of the committees you can join. For more details on the committees with details on the Chairs, work plan, and contact details, please click here.
Ready to sign-up?
For more information and to join our committees please contact: communication@iabeurope.eu
In this week’s member-guest blog post, we welcome Alex Hole, VP Samsung Ads Europe, as he shares why the emerging audience of gamers in the UK presents a number of exciting opportunities for advertisers.
There are few things that can change our habits and behaviours like technology. Legendary American actor and director Orson Welles was asked for his thoughts on the new TV sets taking centre stage in living rooms in the late 1940s. “I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.”
New advances in technology quickly morph into novel formats for media. Such advances provide fresh channels for culture and communication to proliferate. And new avenues for brands to reach consumers. The TV still takes centre stage in living rooms around the globe. But the role it plays in the lives of consumers is changing - a change accelerated by COVID-19.
The pandemic and the disruption it sparked in our lives and daily habits created a new social context, which has supercharged certain consumer habits. As the physical world shrank, the digital world expanded. The Economist described gaming as “the single biggest new media habit to be formed during the pandemic”, and suggested these habits would be “sticky” and not decline following the lifting of restrictions.
Our latest report, ‘Behind the Screens: Gaming on Samsung TVs in 2021’, reveals the extent of these blossoming consumer habits, with time spent gaming on UK Samsung TVs increasing 15% since January 2020 to the period ending June 2021.
Our data also found a 28% increase in the number of Samsung TVs with active monthly gaming activity in the UK between January and June 2021, equating to 58.81 million hours spent a month gaming on these devices.
UK gamers on Samsung TVs spend a lot of their TV time in streaming environments, with this cohort spending 28% more time streaming compared to all Samsung TVs in the UK. These gamers also spend 80% of their total TV time either gaming or in streaming environments.
These viewing habits are influenced by the console or device these audiences are using. Whilst the majority of gaming hours are spent by users on older generation consoles, UK Samsung TV users that are connected to a new console, like the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X, spend more time gaming.
These ‘next-gen’ gamers - those with new consoles - spent an average of 3 hours and 24 minutes gaming each day between January and June 2021. This is compared to those gamers with the previous generation consoles spending 2 hours 28 minutes on average each day gaming, and those with old consoles spending 51 minutes on average each day gaming during the same period. As access to these premium consoles proliferates - and as more exclusive games become available on them - we can expect these figures to rise further.
Different markets tell different stories about the rise of gaming. UK gamers spent significantly more time gaming on Samsung TVs compared to their European counterparts in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, with an average daily gaming time of 1 hour and 24 minutes. Samsung Ads saw the biggest spike in activity for UK gamers in April 2020 during the first national lockdown reaching 2 hours 30 minutes on average per day, and again in January 2021 with 2 hours 9 minutes per day on average.
This Samsung TV data shows that, to quote Orson Welles, people can’t stop eating peanuts. Developments in technology, supercharged by rapid shifts in our social context, have accelerated the role of gaming in the lives of UK consumers. As this medium continues to evolve, so does the opportunity for brands to establish new and exciting routes to this blossoming audience.
Download the full report here.
In our latest member guest blog post, Jane Handel, Product Marketing Manager at Smaato discusses how you can get ahead of the trends impacting the digital ad tech industry to help shape your monetisation strategy and extend your reach. She also shares a preview of some of the topics covered in Smaato's Digital Ad Tech Trends Report.
How did the COVID-19 Pandemic Shape Digital Advertising Tech?
Digital Ad Tech is rapidly evolving to keep up with an increasingly digital world
Any trend report would be remiss to exclude a thorough analysis of how the pandemic has altered not only history but also the future.
In this report, we dive into the impact in specific areas, including eCommerce, fintech, health and wellness, and grocery/food shopping, while fueling digital adoption for remote working, learning, and gaming.
Health & Fitness App Gross Revenue
Worldwide, 2020 – H12021
Source: Smaato Publisher Platform, 2021
Rather than focus on the negative impacts of the pandemic, our report examines the ways in which a more complete shift to a digital lifestyle has expedited online trends, and forced the ad tech industry to evolve quickly in order to keep up. For example, lockdown restrictions actually expedited the digital adoption trend, as can be seen by the monthly active WeCom (WeChat Work) app users in China:
Monthly Active WeCom (AKA WeChat Work) App Users
China, December 2016-March 2021
Source: QuestMobile, April 2021
You’ll see trends across verticals, as well as the impact (and steady recovery) of more negatively affected categories, like the travel industry.
Do You Know the benefits of OTT/CTV Advertising for Publishers and Marketers?
OTT/CTV (streaming video online) has been trending for a while, but this is just the beginning
According to eMarketer, by 2025 nearly 40% of households will have cut the cord, shifting from traditional cable and satellite subscriptions to internet-streamed TV.
Cord Cutters
US, 2016-2025
Source: eMarketer, February 2021
The shift to a reliance on OTT/CTV is just beginning. As 5G sweeps the globe, lightning-fast streaming speeds, reduced latency, and better quality on the go will further fuel OTT’s success.
Publishers and marketers recognise the opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience based on what they like to watch rather than who they are.
In the 2020-2021 Trends Report, we share how marketers can reach specific audiences while helping publishers monetise their inventory. We also go into detail about how different ways to auction OTT/CTV inventory can generate higher eCPMs.
Indexed eCPM for Non-Podded vs. Podded OTT/CTV Inventory on Smaato’s Platform
Indexed before eCPM
Source: Smaato Publisher Platform, 2021
If you’d like to learn more about the history of OTT/CTV and monetisation opportunities for publishers, check out our complimentary guide: OTT/CTV Advertising eBook here.
How Can You Improve Brand Sentiment and Engagement?
CTR is not the only KPI. Learn why delivering positive user experiences is key to long-term success.
From innovative new ad formats to a shift in how marketers and publishers measure success, learn why brand favorability is changing advertising strategies around the globe.
A major theme? Giving users/viewers more control over their advertising interaction and delivering more tailored experiences helps improve brand sentiment. After all, users will favor applications, websites, and content that gives them control over their advertising experience. In fact, Integral Ad Science found that delivering more relevant ads improves favorability by 107%. This means users are more likely to engage with advertisements while maintaining a positive feeling about the publisher’s application, website, or platform.
While ads can sometimes be an unwelcome interruption, users would almost always prefer to engage with ad content than make an in-app purchase:
Would US Mobile Gamers Prefer to Watch Rewarded Video Ads or Pay for In-App Purchases? US, Q2 2020
By Demographic
Source: DSIQO, September 10, 2020
Here are four key ad formats that can engage audiences with a less obtrusive experience, including deep linking and splash ads, shoppable ads, and rewarded video outside of gaming:
As users and viewers opt in to engaging with ads, brand sentiment improves, user experience improves, and the likelihood of conversion increases.
Why is Programmatic Bidding So Popular?
Programmatic Bidding gives publishers more flexibility and control over their inventory, and Marketers get to extend their reach
In 2021, eCPMs for direct marketplace deals (including private exchange and preferred deals) were 18% higher than for open exchange deals on our platform, mirroring a larger trend.
Here’s a quick refresher on the four main programmatic ad buys (open auctions, private marketplaces, preferred deals, and guaranteed deals):
Best for scale: The Original Programmatic Marketplace, Open Auction
Also Known As: Open Exchange, Real-Time Bidding (RTB), Open Marketplace.
As the name suggests, open auctions are open to all. All marketers on the exchange/SSP/ad network have an opportunity to bid on all available publisher inventory. This is the most traditional form of programmatic auctions.
With real-time bidding, publishers can set the floor price for an ad, but marketer demand still determines the final price, and the highest bid wins. Inventory is not guaranteed.
Historically, Open Auctions came with some risks. Publishers wouldn’t always know who was purchasing the inventory, which could hurt their brand image. Meanwhile, inventory isn’t necessarily disclosed, so marketers didn’t always know what they’d be getting. At Smaato, we share IDs with our partners to help improve transparency in the RTB process.
Best for offering premium inventory to relevant advertisers: Private Exchange
Also Known As: Private Marketplace (PMP), PMP Programmatic, Private Auction, Invitation-Only Auction
A private exchange is another form of real-time bidding, but instead of being open to all marketers and all publishers, a single publisher invites a mere handful of marketers to participate.
Private exchanges are quickly becoming industry standard. In 2020, US ad spend in private exchanges outpaced open auctions for the first time.
To access the auction, these hand-selected marketers will need a time-sensitive deal ID. Publishers set a floor price, and the bidding starts there. As in the open auction, the highest bid wins. Inventory is not guaranteed.
Best for a first look at premium inventory: Preferred Deal
Also known as: Unreserved Fixed Rate, Programmatic Non-Guaranteed
A Preferred Deal is a private, 1:1 relationship between a publisher and a marketer. In a Preferred Deal, publishers offer premium inventory to the marketer at a pre-negotiated fixed eCPM price.
While eCPMs are a bit higher, marketers are paying to get what’s essentially “first dibs” on premium ad space. When an ad request comes through, a marketer with a preferred deal has an opportunity to bid at the pre-negotiated fixed eCPM price in real-time, before the inventory heads to open auction. Inventory is not guaranteed.
Best for guaranteed impressions and set budgets: Programmatic Guaranteed
Also known as: Guaranteed Buy, Programmatic Direct, Automated Guaranteed
With a guaranteed buy, a publisher offers specific, reserved inventory to a marketer at a fixed price.
Publishers and marketers negotiate a price for a guaranteed volume of impressions or flight date. This is similar to a direct sale/buy, but programmatic automation replaces the manual IO process, improving efficiency and reducing error.
Meanwhile, header bidding solutions are also quickly becoming a favourite among publishers and marketers alike. Marketers love header bidding solutions because it gives them a chance to compete in the auction, while publishers love header bidding solutions because they ensure better fill and higher eCPMs.
Indexed eCPM for Unified Bidding (Smaato’s Header-Bidding Solution) vs. Exchange for one Publisher on the Smaato Platform
H1 2021
Source: Smaato Publisher Platform, 2021
How Can Publishers and Marketers Ensure Compliance with Privacy Laws?
Hint: first-party data is key
Crucial players like Apple and Google are leading a consumer movement towards increased privacy and data controls. As legislation like the GDPR, CCPA, and CPPA take hold, user privacy protection becomes not only the right thing to do but a legal requirement, as well.
In the full report, see the impacts of policy changes like iOS 14.5 and solutions like SKAdNetwork, to help ensure campaigns get properly attributed while maintaining compliance. Learn how audience targeting can help marketers reach audiences based on what they watch or engage with rather than who they are, and see how the crumbing cookie is paving the way for more relevant contextual opportunities for publishers and marketers alike.
There’s so much more to see.
Publishers, read the report to get familiar with each of these growing ad tech trends to help inform your advertising monetisation strategy. Marketers, advertisers, and DSPs, download your copy to learn how to engage audiences and deliver ROI for your campaigns.
Download the Complete Report Today!
2020 kicked off with one of the most fundamental changes to the online advertising industry, when Google announced its goal of making third-party cookies obsolete by 2022. Where marketers had once relied on cookies for targeting, re-targeting, display advertising, and behavioural marketing in general, they now needed to change tact. And even though this has now been postponed until late 2023, the race is and continues to be on for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem to find a solution that offers the ability to target ads in an effective and privacy-first way.
But amongst the whirlwind of the industry’s response to the end of cookies, how does brand measurement fit into the conversation? When it comes to a post third party-cookie world we must not only think about the available alternative solutions and what the future of attribution looks like but also consider brand measurement as we move into 2022 and beyond.
So, what will brand measurement look like in a post third-party cookie world? We asked members of IAB Europe’s Research committee to share their thoughts and expertise.
Q&A with:
Q1. On the brand measurement front specifically, what do we know is no longer going to work once Chrome deprecates cookies?
Anita Caras, Yahoo “This will impact some research providers more than others, depending on their data collection methods and whether they have a direct relationship with the panelists they utilise.
For those research providers who have their own consented panelists, brand measurement should be able to continue because here, we are essentially solely reliant on using first-party cookies. An example of this in action is the work we do with one of our preferred data providers OnDevice. OnDevice recruits panelists via OnDevice's website and is explicit on how they use cookies to track panelists' online behaviour and to serve them surveys, in return the panelists are incentivised, providing a transparent value exchange.
In order to run brand measurement studies a pixel is appended to the campaign ad assets, this recognises whether that user is an OnDevice panelist or not via the ad server call. If they are an OnDevice panelist they are served a survey, if not, the call is ignored. This approach is already being used and we are seeing data from all browsers (including Safari and Firefox) as no third-party cookies are used in the data match.”
Cate McVeigh,TikTok “Ongoing cookie deprecation across browsers has had an impact on how to execute brand measurement. The quality of experimentation will continue to get more difficult as approaches to how to execute brand measurement shift. With third-party cookie deprecation, there is a shift to more direct vendor integrations. This will lead to a trade-off between methodological rigour and flexibility for insights. There will need to be a practical acknowledgment that fewer players can execute randomised control trials well.”
Q2. What do we know is still going to work in a post third-party cookie world?
Duncan Southgate, Kantar - “As cookies are deprecated, direct integrations for the safe passing of deterministic passive exposure between publishers and research agency vendors will help maintain the quality of digital effectiveness measurement. These will rise in importance, but this will never quite manage to achieve 100% coverage because not all users will opt-in or be “matchable”. Smart probabilistic exposure approaches (where aggregated media inputs are mapped to claimed media consumption behaviours) will complement the passive exposure approaches, and be blended into new hybrid solutions. These probabilistic routines will themselves become increasingly sophisticated. Beyond the measurement of live campaigns, we also expect to see a continued rise in the popularity of controlled exposure “lab” approaches which enable brand lift measurement fully independent of cookie tracking.”
Anita Caras, Yahoo - “First-party cookies will continue to exist and work in the short to medium term. However, 3 years+ from now, I would not be surprised if the usage of first-party cookies will also come under scrutiny, as will the tools and techniques used to maintain a persistent identity. We are seeing signs of this with Apple’s recent iCloud Private Relay announcement.
What is clear is that those that have a direct relationship with their consumers, who can offer a clear value exchange (e.g. premium content, services, or rewards) for their consent will become increasingly valuable.
At Yahoo, for example, we have our own polling mechanics on our DSP to ask our users questions but we are looking to extend the capability further to enable us to continue to capture key brand measures amongst our millions of opted-in users across Europe.
I believe this change will also push many data providers to explore the use of metered panels, an approach used by TV in many European markets ie. explore the provision of a single source measurement panel as a proxy for consumer behaviour. On the positive, there is full transparency on the data capture, measurement, and monetisation. However, on the flip side, you have the constant challenge of balancing for panelist bias whilst managing retention, scale, and costs. The diversification of the online medium means that to be able to capture meaningful coverage of website and ad usage would command panels in the size of 10’s of thousands - which has hefty maintenance costs attached.
An alternative would be perhaps asking consenting panelists to undertake a specific task and/or visit specific sites where the ads reside (a research method known as forced exposure); this is a tactic we again use today in the absence of other workable solutions and is regularly deployed by other media. We work with research vendors who can deploy best practices such as having a 24-48 hour delay in questioning a respondent post-exposure in an attempt to mitigate inflated results which could be gained from requesting brand responses immediately after exposure.
Although this technique can provide brand measurement results across various formats, where this gets more challenging to measure is where there are discrete or niche targeting tactics employed that you are trying to replicate in a forced environment and hence should be evaluated alongside first-party and/or metered panel approaches.”
Cate McVeigh, TikTok - “Systems will continue to work, but they will need to have new integrations. There will be a need for managers to train measurement staff and non-technical staff who consume brand lift studies on how to judge quality experiments versus cheaper/faster/easier methods.”
Q3. What is still unknown or needs to be considered when it comes to brand measurement in a post third-party cookie world? And what needs to be tested?
Anita Caras, Yahoo “We already have browsers that have blocked the usage of third-party cookies and hence can test and learn from these areas as we prepare for the demise of the cookie on Chrome. To me, the biggest unknown is whether the scrutiny applied to the third-party cookie will be extended to first-party data tracking and measurement tactics and if so, in what timeframe - this in fact has already begun with Apple’s introduction of ITP; where the use of first-party cookies in a third-party context on Safari browsers has been limited to a 24-hour window, see here for further info. Looking beyond the technology changes we obviously also need to keep abreast of further legislative revisions and/or restrictions and the implications for measurement.
Whatever the changes ahead, we are moving to a world of accountable, consent-based relationships with our consumers. If we get this right, we have a much higher probability of providing accurate and accountable measurement solutions but it does mean that the pool of people that we measure against will get smaller.
Online has prided itself on being a 1:1 medium that can market to an individual and in return get analysis back on an individual basis, but this may have to change, with further data aggregation and cohorts being formed to align with privacy expectations. Perhaps we, as marketers, publishers, planners, or buyers, need to reflect on the fact that we have already weighed up the costs and benefits of these alternative measurement approaches, deployed them for decades, and accepted them as effective solutions for other media so why not online? What is clear to me is that now is the time to plan for every eventuality.”
Cate McVeigh, TikTok “For legacy solutions, there will be a number of things to consider such as scale, budget thresholds, experimental contamination, and possible bias that can't be accounted for. New integration types such as server to server, clean rooms, and cohort level analysis should be tested.”
Q4. What is your main piece of advice to advertisers willing to measure the brand effectiveness of their digital campaigns in 2022 and beyond?
Duncan Southgate, Kantar “As the Journey song goes, “Don’t Stop Believin’”. The underlying exposure tracking capabilities are changing, but both single publisher and comprehensive cross-publisher digital brand lift measurement will remain feasible and accurate during this transition.”
Anita Caras, Yahoo “Get prepared and act now… If we are to take on board any learnings from the GDPR experience it should be act early and act now…we should be making sure we are focused on providing clarity back to consumers on how we are using their data and the value they are getting in return, in the hope of gaining consent, to fuel our measurement systems of the future.
Google has delayed the phase out of third-party cookies on Chrome until the second half of 2023 - this is not a time to take a big sigh of relief and carry on as usual, it means that the testing period is a little longer and we should use this opportunity to the full.
There are a number of cookieless measurement solutions already in the marketplace that can be deployed and be compared against solutions that currently use cookies so we have a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the results. I recommend we all use this time to test, learn and strategise, to prepare for the changes that are coming. As an industry, we need to put consumers back in the center of our thinking and create measurement solutions that align with their expectations. I would also encourage us all to keep talking about our concerns, our understanding and the implications as it is through collaborative thinking that the right measurement solutions will emerge and we can build a sustainable ecosystem for the future. Let’s use this time wisely, to identify and work through the options available, to develop our strategy with our consumers front of mind.”
Cate McVeigh, TikTok “Statistical significance is not worth much if it's not reproducible. Preparing for changes in partner systems and supporting necessary methodological shifts are key. Having a learning agenda will help you focus on new approaches that will continue to help drive your brand metrics.”
