The past few years have been a wild ride for advertisers and consumers alike. Coming out of the pandemic, a flight of buzzy trends emerged—each promising to usher in an exciting new future for digital advertising filled with transformation and potential. Unfortunately, most of these so-called trends quickly fizzled out, leaving disappointed marketers wondering how we can separate the true “trends” from what’s merely “trendy.”
This webinar takes a realistic approach to the trends set to shape 2024. Basis Technologies’ VP of Media Innovations & Technology Noor Naseer shares insights on what lies ahead so marketers can tune out the noise and instead focus their attention on the most important, proven trends that will shape the year to come.
~
Looking for more trends content? Check out our Trends Hub and our 2024 trends report today!
Over the past few years, a slew of buzzy marketing trends has emerged—each promising to usher in an exciting new future for digital advertising, filled with transformation and untapped potential.
Unfortunately, most of these so-called trends quickly fizzled out, leaving marketers disappointed and wondering how they can separate the true “trends” from what’s merely “trendy.”
So, how can advertisers tune out the noise and focus their attention on the most important, proven trends that are set to shape the year ahead? Find out in our 2024 digital advertising trends report.
Ready to discover the trends that will shape digital advertising in the year ahead? Download Future in Focus today!
“Remember These Child Actors From The ‘80s? You’ll Never Believe How They Look Today!”
If you’ve ever clicked on a link like this, you’ve likely found yourself transported to a digital space that looks more like a carnival midway ride than a normal website: ads flashing, inventory refreshing, and call-to-action buttons leading you to other websites with even more pop-up ads. Worst of all, it takes dozens of clicks to find out what happened to those child actors!
These digital spaces are called made-for-advertising sites (MFAs), and a recent study found that brands spend about 15% of their programmatic ad budgets on them. But do MFAs help advertisers reach their business goals, or are they simply generating revenue for the people who build and manage them?
To help advertisers break through the clutter, we spoke with Ayse Pamuk, Manager of Platform Operations at Basis Technologies. Below, Pamuk breaks down how MFAs work, and shares insights on how advertisers can avoid low-quality ad inventory before a campaign starts.
Ayse Pamuk: An MFA is a generic website that is not the result of any quality content creation or journalistic effort. These sites are built just to generate traffic: They usually pay for traffic to their site and then generate multiple ad impressions on each page. So, good old arbitrage (buying website traffic for a low cost and monetizing it via higher-paying advertisements).
It starts with a clickbait headline. Once a user clicks on that headline, the site tries to make them scroll down or click through a slideshow to reach the promised content, thus generating even more ad impressions. In the end, the user gets almost nothing out of the content, so they often leave frustrated.
AP: Technically speaking, an MFA is a real website and there are real ad impressions being served—so they don’t necessarily fall under the category of ad fraud. However, MFA sites are definitely low quality, and they certainly don’t drive any actual performance. Just because ads served on these sites are displayed on the screen for more than five seconds and people technically see them doesn’t mean those ads create awareness for a brand, or that they drive sales or anything else an advertiser would want from an ad placement.
AP: Wasted budget is the biggest risk associated with spending on MFAs. Again, it’s not fraud, but it could pose some brand safety and brand suitability issues. This is an especially important topic to understand now, because with more and more digital content being generated by AI, we are going to see MFA sites popping up by the dozen almost every day. And when money gets funneled to them, that’s money wasted on websites and inventory that aren’t helping brands meet their campaign goals.
AP: I think it’s about understanding the real mathematics around this, and using those insights to set the right goals and KPIs. As an advertiser, I can either try to achieve very low CPMs and generate a substantial number of impressions, but get low to no action as a result; or I can spend the same amount of money and generate fewer impressions, and get much better performance and much more beneficial action.
If you only care about spend and how many impressions you generated, then maybe you do want to spend on MFAs. But if I were a business owner working with an agency, I would ask, “OK, you generated this many impressions, but what impact did they make?” I would want that connection between objectives and KPIs to be clear.
AP: Not surprisingly, since MFAs’ only goals are to make money from advertising, they include some distinguishable characteristics, like having a large number of ads on the screen, ad inventory that auto-refreshes at a higher-than-average frequency, and numerous links to other MFAs. By working with partners who prioritize strong brand safety protocols and tools, advertisers can avoid having their ads end up on these sites. For example, Basis Technologies’ partnership with Jounce media gives users the ability to use a dynamic MFA block list to avoid serving ads on those sites.
AP: One responsibility of adtech providers is to give advertisers access to high-quality inventory. The advertiser should be able to get the most out of their budget: They should be able to spend one dollar and generate a thousand. So, their money should be spent on ads that will show up in places that provide the outcomes advertisers want.
Adtech providers also have a responsibility to create an efficient environment for clients and to seek out solutions that help advertisers more easily avoid MFAs. Getting the best impressions for advertisers takes historical data, machine learning optimization, and algorithmic optimization. Those tools allow advertisers to spend less time, effort, and energy to create high ROI.
I always say it takes a village to combat industry problems like MFAs. Advertisers, data and inventory partners, and adtech providers should keep each other informed because each new topic presents new avenues for fraud, or gaming the system, or other shady practices. It’s an ongoing battle. Everyone involved must be proactive to prevent these things from becoming bigger issues.
—
Need help navigating the world of MFAs and avoiding low-quality digital ad inventory? Connect with our experts to learn how to build your most efficient and impactful digital advertising strategy.
Abrupt stop to nearly all travel during the pandemic? Check. Rapid return to travel in 2022? Check. Economic downturn that throws a wrench into said rapid growth? We’re three for three here, folks. It’s safe to say the last few years have been quite the trip for travel and tourism marketers (see what we did there?)
The good news? Inflation in the US has begun to ease, and even though its effects have lingered, demand for travel has remained robust, fueled by consumers who continue to prioritize experiences and connection over material things. Case in point: 64% of global travelers report that they plan to reduce personal spending in other areas to prioritize travel in 2024. This is especially true for millennials and Gen Z.
So, how can travel and tourism marketers position themselves to make the most of this increased demand for travel in the year ahead? Read on for three key trends to know to stay ahead of the curve in 2024.
Though many consumers report they’re planning to spend more on travel in 2024, they still have lingering price sensitivity from the economic uncertainty of the past several years. As a result, people aren’t necessarily searching with one destination in mind, but may in fact be considering a variety of places to travel and/or experiences—and their decision will likely be based on the value they perceive each option to provide.
For travel and tourism marketers, this combination of increased price sensitivity and willingness to explore multiple travel destinations makes it critical to lean into the value that a specific brand, service, or product can provide. Take, for example, a hotel near a bustling beach town: If that property’s pricing is already competitive with other nearby hotels, they’re going to have to find alternative ways to highlight their value. If they offer certain amenities (i.e., free beach transport, complimentary umbrellas and towels, location within walking distance to popular restaurants), their marketing team should emphasize these benefits through their messaging to show customers the added value they’ll get by choosing their hotel over another that’s comparable in price.
Today’s travelers are multi-faceted and fit into many different buckets—in other words, there’s significant overlap between different traveler “personas.” For instance, someone who used to never mix travel and work might now be a “bleisure” traveler since they work a mostly-remote job but have to travel to on-site meetings several times a year. And that same customer might also be interested in international travel, which they enjoy during their non-busy season.
So, what does this mean for travel marketers? First, it means that most pre-packaged audiences (think: “people interested in traveling to Phoenix”) aren’t cutting it anymore. The solution? Travel marketers can action their brand or property’s first-party data for customization. Going forward, the most successful audience segments will be dynamic and modeled off a destination or property’s owned website traffic. First-party data is more reliable, since it comes from customers themselves, and will allow brands to better craft intentional, personalized advertising experiences to better connect with (and convert) audiences.
It has long been a practice in the travel and tourism industry to show audiences the experience they’ll have with a product, brand, or service, rather than tell them about it. Competition is high between travel brands, and providing an immersive advertising experience to prospective travelers is one way for travel marketers to set their brand apart. Leveraging digital video is a key component of this, especially when long(er) form content (such as CTV) is paired with short-form, less polished content (i.e., user-generated content on social).
And, with new and exciting technological innovations available (such as AR, VR, and AI-generated content), there are even more opportunities for travel marketers to craft compelling creative that motivates audiences to take action. For instance, hotels can leverage AR/VR to offer a “look inside” to prospective guests, ski resorts can utilize these technologies to allow avid skiers to explore their terrain prior to booking, and tour companies can use these tools to preview the experience travelers will have with their company.
With many consumers planning to prioritize travel in the year ahead, marketers in the travel and tourism industries are well-positioned to make the most of this opportunity for growth. By leaning into value-based messaging, leveraging first-party data effectively, and showing exactly what travelers can expect from a certain trip or experience, savvy marketers can grow their brands and forge meaningful—and profitable—connections with key audiences.
__
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
Digital health innovations and technologies are evolving at a rapid pace. More and more interactions are taking place digitally rather than in-person, and individual health consciousness is at an all-time high. Further, health and pharma advertising is undergoing some substantial digital shifts: In 2023, the health and pharma industry spent $17.8 billion on digital advertising, and that number is projected to hit nearly $20 billion in 2024.
In addition to adapting to these factors specific to the healthcare industry, advertisers in the space are making substantial changes to meet the demands of the digital advertising world, including Google’s long-delayed deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024. Considering these complexities, it’s no surprise that the advertising strategies health and pharma brands and agencies use to connect with consumers are transforming at a remarkable rate.
With the increasingly digital nature of the healthcare ecosystem, marketers in the space must be flexible and adaptable. And in this ever-evolving landscape, staying ahead of the curve is not just a strategic choice—it’s a necessity. To that end, read on for three key trends that should be top of mind as we head into 2024:
Beyond the increased privacy and regulatory demands that all digital marketers are encountering, health and pharma advertisers face additional challenges to ensure all their communications adhere to HIPAA regulation. And, thanks to a 2022 Office for Civil Rights (OCR) policy, IP addresses are now considered protected health information under HIPAA. This can make it difficult (if not downright impossible) to use pixels for targeting and measuring while maintaining legal compliance.
This is especially meaningful when it comes to performance marketing, and more and more healthcare brands and agencies are shifting away from these types of tactics and relying, instead, on mixed-funnel media strategies. Moving forward, there will also be an increased focus on awareness-based media, since it can be tracked with third-party brand lift studies while maintaining HIPAA and OCR compliance.
“OK, great,” some healthcare marketers might say. “Does that mean I should throw my lower funnel activities out the window?”
Certainly not! Even when brands can’t accurately measure attribution on their mid-to-lower funnel channels, they nevertheless remain a critical piece of a holistic marketing mix. For example, since brands know that most consumers start their health journeys online, they might focus on search ads and using contextual targeting to ensure such ads are in places where relevant patients are likely to encounter them.
And even though lower funnel attribution is a sticky point when it comes to healthcare marketing, there are ways to evaluate campaign performance to inform future marketing strategies:
Within that larger context of increased regulation and consumer privacy demands, savvy health and pharma marketers will also benefit from auditing past campaigns and applying key learnings to future campaigns in the year ahead. This is especially true when it comes to those aforementioned lower funnel tactics, where attribution can be particularly tricky.
For example, if a brand uses paid search ads to promote their telemedicine offerings to new patients and notices an increase in these types of appointments, they can use that historical performance data to continue to prioritize investment in the channel. Alternatively, if a brand invests in social media ads aimed at getting audiences to opt-in to receive more information about specialized treatments and doesn’t notice an uptick in conversions, they might choose to re-allocate investment in that channel—or reapproach their creative and/or messaging.
Given the increased demand for (and regulations around) patient privacy, 2024 is likely to bring a greater focus on marketing to healthcare providers (HCPs), rather than directly to patients. HIPAA protects individuals’ personal health information, meaning they can’t be targeted based on conditions, IP address, etc. But that doesn’t mean that HCPs that treat specific conditions can’t be targeted. As such more and more health and pharma brands are focusing their efforts on targeting HCPs rather than trying to connect with patients directly.
For example, if you’re a pharma brand whose drug treats a specific type of disease, you can’t target patients with that disease, since that’s protected healthcare information. And, thanks to the new OCR guidance, you’re even limited when it comes to targeting IP addresses within a certain location of a treatment center for that disease. So, what you can you do? Use job title-based targeting to reach HCPs who treat that disease. Once they have a greater awareness of your drug and its benefits, they may then be more likely to turn around and recommend it to patients.
It’s clear that the healthcare landscape today is complicated and that brands and agencies in the space face distinct challenges. By leveraging mixed-funnel media to connect with audiences, leaning into historical data to inform future campaign strategies, and shifting focus from patients themselves to their healthcare providers, health and pharma marketers can find success in 2024 and beyond.
__
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
During the early stages of the pandemic, consumer shopping behaviors migrated online out of necessity and convenience. Today, while pandemic restrictions have loosened and in-store shopping has now rebounded in some areas, e-commerce is still on the up-and-up across nearly all retail categories. The online retail and e-commerce space has truly come into its own, with consumers increasingly shopping websites and apps for items ranging from luxuries to necessities.
As part of this online shopping boom, and in preparation for cookie loss, retailers are learning how to collect more first-party data from customers through promotions and loyalty programs. This, in turn, is resulting in new opportunities to monetize, analyze, and diversify how they activate this wealth of valuable customer information to drive both online and in-store sales.
Meanwhile, technology has continued its rapid advance: Artificial intelligence, which is forecast to grow globally in retail market size from $10 billion to $45 billion in the next decade, is powering retail data analysis and subsequent recommendation engines. At the same time, consumers’ screens, big and small, are becoming more interactive, actionable, and attributable to sales in real time.
Looking to make the most of all the new opportunities available to retail marketers in 2024? Read on for three key trends:
If first-party data is gold for marketers, then retailers and e-commerce brands that successfully collect and activate that data can be considered retail royalty. And retail media networks (RMNs)? They’ve quickly created a kingdom of their own. In fact, it was that inherent value of first-party data—opt-in, great for targeting and attribution, and future-friendly in a cookieless world—that created a catalyst for the explosion of RMNs, which are forecast to reach $55 billion next year.
RMNs allow retailers to monetize first-party data by providing targeted, attributable advertising inventory on their websites and apps, as well as in stores. For instance, Walmart.com can activate a logged-in user's first-party data and analyze their shopping patterns to target them with relevant product ads to drive future sales. This could look like displaying ads for baby food to someone who purchased diapers, or showing a shopper who almost bought a certain sweater an ad for an alternate knitwear brand.
Right now, RMN data is very siloed and lacks standardization. This makes it difficult for advertisers to assess which networks are driving strong performance, incremental sales lift, and ROI across all their chosen RMNs, which hinders informed budget allocation. And the biggest players, like Walmart and Amazon, don’t have much incentive to share their data outside their own walls. So, it’s in the best interest of retailers and e-commerce businesses to take a balanced approach to the visibility of RMNs—remember, your own first-party data is king.
While certain aspects of artificial intelligence are still evolving, there are already numerous practical applications in use. These include personalization opportunities, customer service capabilities, and the ability to analyze data to forecast product demand.
As customers call for more personalized shopping experiences, AI will enable retailers and industry marketers to deliver on expectations in key ways. Data analysis will continue to improve as AI matures, and retailers and e-commerce marketers will consequently be able to utilize AI-powered tools to better segment and target audiences and tailor the advertising they see across the web.
Post-purchase, generative AI tools are evolving to be head and shoulders above previous iterations of simple chat-based customer support. Pairing owned data with GenAI can help retail marketers with tactics like targeted and relevant promotional messages based on past purchases, up-sells or re-sells (if a prior purchase is getting old), cross-sells (say, a deal on golf shoes for a customer who just bought a new driver), or creating content, talk tracks, and dynamic offers or webpages within a more controlled customer service environment. Of course, retail brands will want human team members to review content generated by AI to ensure accuracy and brand authenticity.
Shoppers have continued their shift to smaller screens—smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Still, with the growing addressability and connectedness of the large screens in our homes, retail marketers are increasingly able to advertise their goods cohesively across devices. Even better, those devices and platforms have evolved to let customers scan, click, or tap to shop directly from the ads they display.
There are many ways to create shoppable videos, including adding product links to video descriptions, using overlays to display product information, or displaying QR codes that link viewers to product pages. For example, QR codes in CTV advertising allow highly targeted consumers to navigate to retail or e-commerce sites, an action that can be directly attributed to the advertising campaign. It’s an opportunity to get the best of both worlds: the lean-back, immersive experience of traditional TV plus the granular targeting and measurement capabilities that come with digital advertising.
On smaller screens, platforms like Meta, TikTok, and YouTube are developing technologies that let consumers purchase products within videos on their platforms. This trend was accelerated in no small way by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, which made it difficult for platforms to track user behavior outside their own ecosystems. Social media channels are rewarding retail advertisers with greater visibility for creating shoppable ads, as they keep users on the platforms, and they offer a chance to collect valuable user data from purchase activities—a win-win for platforms and for retail marketers.
Overall, as pandemic-era online shopping behaviors have maintained and evolved, competitive retailers and platforms have adapted to those behaviors in ways that turn data into dollars. Marketers in the retail and e-commerce industry who strategically tap into retail media networks, artificial intelligence, and shoppable video will meet customers where they are and how they expect to transact, in ways that foster sales and longer-term loyalty.
__
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
As restaurant and dining businesses recover from the era of peak pandemic restrictions, the industry continues to show signs of improvement. As an example, for most of the past year, restaurant operators more frequently reported higher same-store sales than lower same-store sales on a year-over-year basis.
Plus, the impacts of macroeconomic headwinds—inflation, increased food prices, the labor shortage, and supply chain disruption—seem to be easing. The forecast of continued (albeit stabilized) revenue growth, combined with the valuable experience of running leaner operations that restaurant and dining institutions gained during the early years of the pandemic, suggest that, while challenges still exist, there’s room for growth in the year ahead.
How can restaurant and dining industry advertisers whip up marketing recipes for continued success? Read on for three key trends to keep top-of-mind in 2024 to achieve greater visibility, provide more value to customers, and craft an enhanced dining experience.
The restaurant and dining industry was hit hard by economic downturn in recent years, as were its customers. Inflation has driven up food costs, which has affected the pricing strategies of restaurants, as they strive to maintain profitability while keeping prices competitive. Those prices have caused lower-income consumers to spend less on dining out and to visit restaurants less frequently—although the wealthiest diners are actually spending more.
Food service businesses are adopting strategies to up the value they provide, and then investing in marketing those approaches. For instance, some restaurants have lowered prices but adjusted portion sizes to match; others have provided discounts on slow days or at off-peak times; and others still have found that “more” is actually the way to go—Olive Garden’s famed “buy one, take one to go” option during the pandemic allowed diners to stretch their order beyond one meal.
“Value” can also extend beyond the price tag. Businesses that sell or serve food that’s healthier, more functional, or more sustainably sourced should highlight that connection to the values held by their diners. Instituting loyalty programs with incentives can also result in higher and more frequent spending over time, something 8 in 10 adults said that they’d likely join if offered by a favorite local restaurant.
Though the economy shows signs of improvement, emphasizing value will continue to remain key in 2024. Marketing messages that highlight promotions, special offers, affordable dining options, and non-monetary value will resonate with discerning consumers.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of contactless and tech-driven dining experiences, as evidenced by the boom in third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats. Today, consumers have come to expect, if not rely on, that level of convenience. As such, it’s no surprise that the food delivery market size is projected to grow.
Part of that growth is due to the growing number of restaurants that plan to offer food delivery directly. Benefits to the food establishment include not paying fees to third-party delivery apps, and, in turn, passing those savings onto the customer by not marking up menu items; and building loyalty to the restaurant brand instead of the app. Plus, app downloads and associated loyalty programs have inherent marketing implications, such as the opportunity to own customers’ opted-in data and activate it through advertising and one-to-one marketing (like email and SMS), pushing promotions more directly to customers.
Embracing partnerships with third-party delivery apps also provides opportunities to create new revenue streams and relevant marketing touchpoints. Restaurants that aren’t leveraging the popularity of apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats may be missing critical visibility at key moments—last-minute supper plans, additional hungry party guests, or late-night snack attacks—as well as a chance to generate goodwill (if not repeat business) with app users. Once those valuable partnerships are forged, industry marketers can consider in-app advertising or app listing optimization tactics to reach and speak to customers who are hungry for convenience.
From birthday dinners to boozy brunches, consumers are continually seeking dining experiences that go beyond the food itself. These outings are often occasion-based, but sometimes, the allure of a hands-on cooking demo or a class on cocktail mixing can be the reason why people choose to dine out—and a memorable, shareable experience might result in repeat visits and word-of-mouth recommendations.
It took a few years, but the experiential dining trend is finally catching up with consumers’ desires for a unique dining experience. In that time, the a la carte menu of experiential options has exploded: Dinner theaters, multi-sensory dining, immersive environments, and augmented and virtual reality have all provided noteworthy nights out for the current generation of foodies.
Given that food is inherently visual, restaurant and dining advertisers can add this “experiential” layer to their marketing to tease the tastebuds of today’s experience-seeking customers. Faux out-of-home creative has become a popular way to attract attention, by simulating (or wildly exaggerating) a digital food or dining experience (Popeye’s and Burger King are two recent FOOH practitioners). Augmented reality for this industry has evolved past QR code menus to include interactive food visualization and immersive environment exploration.
Advertisers who present enhanced creativity by leveraging emerging technologies, high-speed data networks, mobile accessibility, and consumers’ desire for an innovative dining experience will whip up a marketing recipe that satisfies and delights.
While consumer dining behavior can change more drastically than a seasonal menu due to factors like the economy, technology, and social influences, there are a few things restaurant and dining marketers can focus on to drive success in 2024. By centering their messaging on value and dining experiences, and by tapping into the opportunities available in the delivery realm, marketing teams can gain and retain hungry customers in the year ahead.
—
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
The financial services industry is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by customer expectations, governing bodies, technological advancements, and competitive disruption. Financial institutions (FIs) face pressure to adapt to new technologies and provide a seamless and personalized customer experience, all while under heavy regulatory scrutiny. Meanwhile, finserv marketers must reconcile those increased customer expectations and growing competition with significant digital ad spend growth and strict advertising compliance regulations.
Going into 2024, finserv marketers who monitor and respond to industry trends with a consumer-centric approach can build the sort of trust that puts FIs at the forefront of people’s evolving financial needs. Read on to learn more about the trends set to shape the year ahead:
While most (if not all) industries have felt the brunt of the past few years’ economic turbulence, it’s had a unique impact on financial services. Consumers are dealing with the rising costs of borrowing money and obtaining insurance, at the same time that higher price tags for goods and services are influencing record credit card debt. Meanwhile, banks big and small are closing, often due to investment strategies that failed for reasons correlating with the pandemic.
However, despite this confluence of factors, many FIs thrive today: They offer security that many alternatives don’t, their products and services are as valuable as ever, and the expertise within these institutions has benefits from educated consultations to hands-on transactions. FIs can be more involved in their customers’ personal finances at a smaller level like checking and savings accounts, up to major decisions like home and auto loans, financial advice, and retirement planning.
Financial services marketers should lean into those advantages to position FIs as a resource for customers anywhere on their trajectory. Brand advertising with consistency across channels can create awareness for products like accounts, loans, and credit cards or services like investing, accounting, and wealth management. Then, applying content marketing best practices to educate consumers on the value of those products and services through website and app content can create a tangible connection based on safety in a tumultuous economy.
Financial marketing that’s highly relevant, timely, personalized, and educational can create trust that leads to new or stronger relationships. And by zooming in on target audiences and their unique financial behaviors, marketers can provide personalized education and serve targeted messaging that meets consumers where they are on their individual financial journeys.
For example, tech-savvy younger consumers (think Gen Z and millennials) are increasingly expecting more personalized and innovative financial products and services, and they’re also more likely to use alternatives, such as peer-to-peer lending and embedded financial features. FIs are responding by investing in technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning; enhancing their mobile and online platforms to appeal to younger customers; and strengthening valuable fintech relationships by offering embedded finance. Promoting those enhancements through social media, online video, and other programmatic advertising options can find digital natives where they are, with messaging to educate them and make them feel seen and heard.
In another life stage, older Gen Xers and boomers who are knocking on retirement’s door are redefining what it means to “be retired”—some are taking a phased approach, pushing “pause” on their careers to travel and explore, then re-entering the working world for a spell before doing it again. That nontraditional retirement plan requires new ways to save and more fluid ways to spend, and FIs should advertise the savings products, points, perks, and wealth management services that can help retirees live their visions in—or before—their twilight years.
Along with personalization, innovation, and education, consumers are increasingly demanding transparency from FIs that, in turn, need to tap user data to tailor experiences, develop relevant new offerings, and segment customers for accurate ad targeting—all with a high level of compliance by institutions, marketers, and service providers. People want to know how their data is being used and trust that their data, like their money, is safe.
Finserv marketers who apply current tools and techniques can better communicate to their intended audiences both about their data and based on their data. For instance, FIs can add more details on data usage (for background checks, credit checks, or future marketing) at the point of collection (like form submissions, quote requests, and online chats) into dynamic web content or iterative ad copy, which they can create with generative AI or other scalable methods afforded by emerging technology.
Then, based on data, finserv marketers can efficiently deploy that personalized, trustworthy experience across platforms by leveraging automation to accurately target customers with relevant, optimized messages. For example, consumer signals for “buying a home” can trigger ads for home mortgage loans, while underlying creative optimization can help display timely, transparency-friendly notes like current rates and terms, fees and associated costs, and other decision-affecting factors. This goes for annual fees from credit card companies, transaction and maintenance fees from investment firms, and any instance when honesty, accuracy, clarity, and relevance can lead to a higher degree of consumer trust.
The financial services industry has never been immune to the economy, technology changes, evolving consumer expectations, or strict policies and mandates from governing bodies. If anything, the industry has proven itself quite resilient and resourceful amidst these complexities. When it comes to the marketing bridge between FIs and their customers, industry marketers who track economic trends that lead to consumers’ banking behaviors—as a whole and by demographic or life stage—and apply an omnichannel approach to deploying tailored, targeted messages that meet expectations and regulatory standards will be primed for success in the coming year.
—
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
It’s a complex time for consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers. There are no shortage of factors to juggle: From differentiating products and brands within highly saturated markets, to navigating the private-label goods boom, to determining how emerging media channels like retail media networks fit within a holistic digital media strategy, and lots more. Couple these with the challenges faced across industries—including inflation woes, interest rate hikes, and souring consumer sentiments—and CPG marketers must be nimble and savvy as they adapt to meet customers’ needs.
Amidst this complexity, it’s critical for CPG marketing teams to prepare for what 2024 has in store and take steps to adjust their strategies to set their brands or clients up for success. To that end, let’s dig into some of the key trends that should be top-of-mind as we head into the new year.
The last several years have been a wild ride for consumers—and their spending habits have fluctuated accordingly. Though inflation isn’t as high as it was a year ago, the US consumer sentiment index, which gauges the level of positivity consumers have regarding general economic conditions and their own financial well-being, dropped for the fourth month in a row in November 2023.
With inflation rates still climbing and student loan payments restarting in October, many consumers are still adjusting their spending or abandoning previously go-to brands in favor of cheaper options. But, interestingly, these increased economic pressures aren’t leading to an overall decline in spending. There’s significant variance across demographics, but in general, most consumers are being more thoughtful about how they spend—not necessarily spending less. For example, a millennial shopper might be more apt to “trade down” for a store’s private label of paper towels, but would likely stick with the skincare brand they love even if it means spending a bit more.
In 2024, it will be increasingly important for CPG brands to invest in tracking and understanding the decisions and behaviors of their target consumers, with the goal of better anticipating (or even shaping) that behavior. Amidst this complexity, brands will also benefit from sharpening their value propositions and refining how they communicate them in their marketing.
In 2023, retail media ad spend will reach $45.15 billion. That’s an increase of nearly 20% year-over-year. That said, retail media networks are still in their infancy, and standards and guidelines for their use are still emerging. Until those become solidified, it’s important for CPG marketers to know what they want to achieve through retail media and to evaluate if a specific network can provide it.
If a brand focuses all their efforts on just one network, they’re limiting their dollars to just that audience and no one else. Additionally, retail media networks are essentially walled gardens, offering very little (if any) access to their data. If CPG brands focus only on retail media networks to connect with audiences and don’t build up their own first-party data, they’ll find themselves way behind the curve in the privacy-first future where first-party data will be of utmost importance for marketing teams. Which leads us to our final trend...
Since retail media networks are still emerging and being refined, and since they don’t allow CPG brands to build up their own first-party data, they are best used as part of a holistic digital media approach. For CPG marketers, it’s critical to evaluate where retail media fits within their overall strategy, which part of the customer journey they want to use it for, and how many different retailers/retail media networks they’ll want to focus on.
Pairing retail media with connected TV (CTV) advertising can be particularly impactful. Additionally, CPG marketers might opt to use a mixture of digital out-of-home, digital audio, display, social media, and retail media to reach customers at different points along their buying journeys. By complementing retail media with other digital channels, CPG brands can ensure they’re reaching consumers when and where they’re spending time and make sure they aren’t putting all their eggs in just one basket.
__
Hungry for more 2024 trends? Check out our 2024 Trends Report for everything digital marketers need to know for next year.
