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Every two years, US political campaigns descend upon the advertising landscape, feasting on inventory and bringing with them a host of challenges for nonpolitical advertisers—challenges that only seem to intensify with each election cycle.
2024 is no exception. A highly divisive Presidential race, hotly contested Senate battles, and polarizing ballot measures are converging to drive unprecedented political ad spend. At the same time, advancements in generative AI could potentially create a landscape characterized by groundbreaking volumes of mis- and disinformation, especially on social media.
Marketing and advertising leaders from outside the world of politics will need to navigate that landscape and determine how to make the most of their spend amidst high demand and localized inventory scarcity, while simultaneously protecting their clients or brands from the potential pitfalls of adjacency to negative political content and AI-generated mis-and disinformation.
To do so, marketers must understand when and where these issues will affect them (and their ad dollars) most acutely, and should dial up their placement control to protect brand safety.
This year’s political ad spend is forecast to land between $10.2 billion and $12 billion—numbers that would demonstrate a 13%-to-30% increase from the 2019-2020 election cycle. For advertisers, this glut of money can bring higher CPMs—especially during certain time periods, in certain locations, and on certain channels. Inventory scarcity is another consideration, although there’s enough inventory out there that price will be most advertisers’ primary concern.
Political ad spend stats from Basis platform in 2022 and 2020 show that about 50% of the year’s political dollars ran in the 30 days leading up to the election, with 25% running in the ten days leading up to Election Day. In 2024, we may see that run on political ads start a bit earlier as a result of early in-person and mail-in voting, but the election likely won’t dominate advertising too much sooner than that. Historically, we have seen gradual increases in the numbers of individuals using these early voting methods, but those early voters are generally not the undecided voters that political advertisers most want to reach. That means that advertisers will see the highest prices and the scarcest inventory for all of October and into November.
There is also a chance that some of these races might not be determined on Election Day, as some states may end up having runoffs, like Georgia did in 2020. If that is the case, these inventory and brand safety issues will continue for advertisers in those specific locations until those elections are completed in the traditionally retail-heavy months of November and December.
Speaking of location, geography is the other major factor that will impact advertisers during this year’s election cycle. Political campaigns will heavily target certain swing states and counties, and ad rates and inventory will be much more affected in those areas than those that reliably vote blue or red.
For the presidential election, there are about seven states that will be hotly contested and see an increased proportion of presidential campaign ads: Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Within those states, most political consultants think certain counties will swing the election, and hyperlocal targeting within those counties will mean higher CPMs and scarcer inventory.
Beyond the Presidential election, key Senate races and divisive ballot measures will also lead to high volumes of political advertising in cities like Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Reno, Pittsburgh, Missoula, Billings, Boston, Wilkes Barre-Scranton, Butte-Bozeman, Detroit, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Harrisburg, DC, and Raleigh-Durham.
Marketers must research the states, counties, and cities in which they plan to advertise this year to determine how divisive the races and issues on the 2024 ballot will be in those locales, as that will correspond to how acutely political advertising will reshape the media landscape.
Political advertisers love video, so the increased demand for advertising space across media will be felt most acutely on CTV, linear, online display video, and those social networks that accept political ad dollars. The impact on CTV will be especially pronounced: 45% of all digital political ad spend in 2024 will go to CTV, up a whopping 26% from the 2020 election cycle.
Additionally, advertising on linear television comes with the possibility of actually getting crowded out of ad slots. Because of the FCC’s Equal Time Rule, if a candidate wants to advertise and buy 60 seconds on a certain channel, that channel must offer other candidates a comparable amount of time and a comparable placement. This can end up bouncing other advertisers in situations where there is limited inventory, and while somewhat unusual, it is most likely to occur during the leadup to Election Day in competitive locations.
The election season poses multiple brand safety threats, manifesting in the form of possible adjacency to negative political content and/or to political disinformation and misinformation.
Political ads are often negative (or come with negative baggage), and political content can be divisive, so advertisers should consider how comfortable they feel having their ads show up nearby. One survey found that exposure to negative political advertising provokes “extremely negative emotions” in viewers, and that those feelings can have a detrimental impact on how consumers perceive brands whose ads run alongside them. To avoid this, advertisers may want to take measures to avoid adjacency to political ads and content (more on this in a moment).
While negative political advertising has been around for a long time, the volume of election-related mis- and disinformation expected this year poses a newer challenge for advertisers. This kind of content was an issue in 2020, but experts expect it to be even more of a threat in 2024 as a result of the emergence of generative AI, which makes it easy for bad actors to generate huge amounts of false or misleading content. Even outside of the context of this year’s election cycle, close to 100% of advertisers agree that GenAI presents a brand safety and misinformation risk for digital marketers, with 84.2% viewing it as a moderate to significant risk.
Compounding this is wave of layoffs in recent years affecting the trust and safety teams at Meta, X, Alphabet, and Amazon, including employees tasked with addressing mis- and disinformation. It’s particularly worrisome considering that social media is the channel where misinformation gets amplified most. Social platforms have promised to release new tools designed to protect consumers and advertisers from misinformation this year, and advertisers should keep an eye out for those capabilities, but social could present unique brand safety risks this election season.
Considering this environment, leaders will need to dial up their placement control, and there are a variety of ways to accomplish this. Advertisers can work with partners like ComScore, Oracle, and Peer39 to ensure their ads are shown in premium, non-divisive environments, and implement allow lists and block lists—such as dynamic MFA block lists—to avoid political and low-quality websites. Utilizing smart contextual targeting is another way to make sure messages only show up in desired environments, and investing in programmatic guaranteed and PMPs can further secure premium placement. Finally, teams may want to avoid certain social platforms during the lead-up to Election Day—for example, X will likely be a hub of political conversation, which could come with increased brand safety concerns. Instead, advertisers may opt to shift their spend toward places that don’t accept political advertising, such as Netflix, Disney+, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, during this time period.
Additionally, marketers who want their brands to stand out from negative and weighty political content can embrace lighter, more upbeat, and humor-driven creative to better appeal to weary consumers.
Overall, it’s critical that advertisers factor in these challenges when planning their campaigns so that their messages show up in places that can effectively—and positively—reach consumers.
In what promises to be a tumultuous election year with record political ad spend, marketers who take a “business as usual” approach to their campaigns risk misallocating their spend, alienating potential customers, and taking major hits to brand perception. It’s essential that leaders plan their campaigns around how political advertising will impact the landscape—especially during the start of Q4.
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While advancements in generative AI are driving many of the brand safety threats facing advertisers in 2024, they’ve also brought new opportunities for efficiency and speed in the campaign process. Check out Generative AI and the Future of Marketing to learn how your peers are utilizing GenAI.
In March 2024, US employment across advertising, public relations, and related fields reached an all-time high, with ad agencies accounting for the largest portion of these jobs. However, this job growth doesn’t negate the longstanding challenge of high turnover within the advertising industry, particularly among junior-level employees.
To help mitigate turnover, the vast majority of hiring managers—in advertising and beyond—say they plan to hire in 2024. And as agencies and brands approach either filling newly-created positions on their teams or replacing those left vacant by employee departures, it’s increasingly likely that many of their candidates will be members of Generation Z.
The last several years have seen an influx of Gen Z workers: 17.1 million joined the US workforce in 2023, and they are forecast to overtake the number of baby boomers entering the workforce in 2024. While each generation is distinct, Gen Z is particularly so, having been shaped by the digital age, prolonged economic turbulence, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, agency and brand leaders who fail to adapt their hiring, engagement, and retention strategies for Gen Z may struggle to meet their distinct needs and expectations, which could in turn lead to long-term workforce challenges.
Born approximately between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is the first generation of true digital natives, with all its members having grown up at a time when the internet was a ubiquitous part of daily life. Members of this generation are also more racially and ethnically diverse than any prior generation, as only a slim majority—52%—are non-Hispanic whites. As a result, they care deeply about inclusivity and embracing diverse perspectives in their interactions and decision-making. Gen Zers are also adaptable and resilient, as a result of events like the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent economic uncertainty shaping many of their formative years.
Further, Gen Z has established itself as a socially conscious generation, one that cares about action over words and isn’t afraid to take a stand on social and political issues. Members of this generation expect brands to do the same, with mental health, caring for the environment, and racial and gender equity being 3 of the top values that Gen Zers want brands and companies to support—in honest and authentic ways. And given the high expectations they have for brands as consumers, it’s likely those who pursue careers in the advertising industry will hold their employers to the same standards.
Many Gen Zers were wrapping up college, obtaining internships, and securing their first jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic surged.
This timing led some members of this generation to take time off college or delay graduation; for others, their internships or first job offers were rescinded as employers in advertising and beyond were forced to make cutbacks; still others started their jobs in under-resourced, overworked, and all-remote environments, contributing to high levels of burnout.
Even after the pandemic peaked, this tumult didn’t end—the years that followed were characterized by the Great Resignation, which was especially pronounced in the advertising industry. All in all, Gen Zers’ first experiences in the workplace were largely characterized by layoffs, thoughts of quitting, or actual quitting.
Given their turbulent entry to the workforce, it’s no shock that Gen Z workers aren’t as engaged as older generations, and that they continue to experience higher levels of job-related stress and burnout. Additionally, many managers say they struggle to connect meaningfully with their Gen Z employees, with 3 in 4 managers reporting that Gen Z employees are difficult to work with, and nearly half experiencing this difficulty all or most of the time.
Given Gen Z’s increasing presence in the workforce, current employment growth in the advertising industry, and the fact that agency leaders are already articulating concerns about recruiting and engaging workers from this generation, brand and agency leaders must be proactive and intentional as they implement strategies to support their Gen Z employees.
Like every other generation, Gen Z has been shaped by the unique societal and technological context of their coming of age. Brand and agency leaders who seek to understand this, and then embrace strategies that meet this new generation’s needs, can enhance productivity, bolster engagement, foster creativity, and improve retention in the years ahead.
This generation has grown up immersed in technology, making them adept at navigating digital platforms, adapting to ever-changing tech, and understanding online trends. Agencies and marketing teams can tap into this expertise in a variety of ways. For instance, leaders can empower their Gen Z workers to play a meaningful role on digital campaigns or projects on platforms they’re intimately familiar with, such as TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat. Managers can also give Gen Z employees the chance to showcase their knowledge around the latest digital trends, platforms, and tools they use with their broader teams, such as through collaborative workshops.
Though many organizations seem to be walking back their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), agencies and brands looking to support their Gen Z employees (and, frankly, all their employees) should be doing the opposite. Prioritizing and investing in these programs is not only good for employees, but also for businesses’ bottom lines.
As the most diverse and educated generation in the workforce, Gen Z is increasingly advocating for diversity and inclusion with their employers. In fact, 56% of Gen Zers say they would not accept a job without diverse leadership, and 68% feel their employer is not yet doing enough on this front.
Brand and agency leaders looking to promote diversity among their teams can start by ensuring their hiring practices are attracting and supporting a diverse talent pool. This could include evaluating job descriptions for potential biases, building diverse interview panels, and doing outreach to underrepresented groups.
Beyond their hiring practices, leaders can also invest in regular training and education, such as workshops or summits, for all employees. Focusing on education can help raise awareness, build empathy, and equip all employees with the tools to foster an inclusive workplace.
“We’ve learned in the last few years that Gen Z employees value flexibility,” says Goretti Duncker Joseph, Director of Total Rewards at Basis Technologies. “Flexibility builds trust and loyalty—employees want to work for a company that cares about their wellbeing and demonstrates that through their policies,” she continues.
When leaders hear “flexibility,” many might think this only refers to where employees work—and that being flexible means adopting an all-remote approach. But Gen Zers, within advertising and beyond, have indicated that this isn’t the case: In fact, a recent study found that only 11% of Gen Z workers want to be fully remote.
While a hybrid work approach might work for some businesses, employers can also foster flexibility by allowing employees to work earlier or later than the traditional 9 to 5 time frame, to help foster balance between their work and personal lives and mitigate potential burnout.
“Flexibility isn’t just about when and where employees are working,” adds Duncker Joseph. “We’ve found that the Gen Z population also values flexible benefits that meet their unique needs.” This could look like providing student debt repayment programs, since many Gen Zers are working to pay off student loans, offering telemedicine benefits alongside traditional health insurance, or including mental health benefits such as free access to virtual therapy and life coaching. By leaning into opportunities to grant their workers flexibility, agency and brand leaders can help foster the trust and loyalty that is foundational to long-term retention and engagement—particularly among Gen Z.
In a recent conversation with Gen Zers on their struggles working within the advertising industry, many shared they felt a lack of personal connection with their teammates and craved mentorship. Many said they feel they’re not given enough direction, and want guidance and support as they develop their skills. Given their entrance to the workforce during the isolation and upheaval of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this desire for mentorship and connection with teammates beyond their own generation makes sense.
To support this desire for personal connection and mentorship, agency and brand leaders might consider implementing formal mentorship programs within their organizations. These programs can pair Gen Z employees with experienced professionals who can offer guidance, share industry insights, and provide constructive feedback. At the same time, they create space for Gen Zers to share their own unique expertise. Creating a structured mentorship framework helps foster meaningful connections and facilitates knowledge transfer.
“We’re bridging the mentorship gap for our Media Operations team, which is largely composed of early-career professionals, by connecting them with seasoned revenue team members at Basis,” says Marissa Enfield, Group VP of Media & Ad Operations at Basis Technologies. “By facilitating a combination of one-on-one and group learning over 6 months, we aim to enhance our team’s understanding of our campaign workflow and address vital career themes like burnout prevention and goal setting.”
Additionally, leaders can support their Gen Z talent by ensuring these employees have a clearly defined manager or leader to check in with. This framework can help to provide Gen Z employees with clear expectations, and create space for consistent conversations around alignment, growth, and any challenges that might arise. By providing opportunities like these for mentorship, organizations can nurture Gen Z's professional growth, confidence, and engagement in the workplace.
It's crucial for agency and brand leaders to adapt their strategies to meet the unique needs and expectations of generation Z, given that these individuals are making up an increasing portion of the workforce. By leaning into Gen Z's strengths as digital natives, prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion, creating flexible work environments, and providing meaningful mentorship opportunities, organizations can enhance productivity, boost engagement, and improve retention.
As the industry evolves, embracing change and investing in Gen Z's success will be key to navigating future challenges and driving long-term outcomes. Plus, embracing these approaches not only supports Gen Z's professional growth and well-being, but also fosters a vibrant, inclusive, and resilient workplace for all employees.
As seismic shifts reshape the advertising industry, marketers are reinvesting in strategies that have stood the test of time.
What shifts, exactly, are pushing advertisers back towards these old-school approaches? To start, there’s the matter of signal loss, driven by factors such as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, data privacy regulations, the consumer demand for data privacy, and Google’s plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome in 2025. And, of course, there’s the rapid development of generative AI, which is both presenting new challenges and introducing fresh possibilities for marketers.
To meet these challenges, advertisers are testing new technological solutions to help them adapt. But they’re also reaching back into their toolkits to rediscover legacy tactics and strategies like direct buying, contextual targeting, and brand lift studies. And, as it turns out, these legacy strategies haven’t just been sitting in the corner gathering dust: They’ve grown more sophisticated to meet the needs of today’s agencies and brands.
The advent of programmatic advertising brought advertisers a level of speed and scale that they couldn’t access via direct buying. In doing so, programmatic swiftly became the default digital buying method, accounting for a projected 91.3% of US digital display advertising in 2024 totaling $157.4 billion.
While programmatic isn’t going anywhere—online programmatic ad spend growth will slow this year, but is still expected to increase YoY—some advertisers are investing more of their budgets into direct buying methods as a way to prioritize consumer privacy and brand safety, and to protect themselves against fraud.
The factors driving signal loss and pushing the industry towards a privacy-first advertising model are rendering some of the main data sources that drive real-time bidding in the open exchange either unavailable or inadvisable due to privacy concerns—specifically, third-party cookies and mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs). As a result, in 2023, 53% of buy-side ad investment decision-makers said they plan to increase their focus on placing ads with publishers using first-party data.
Direct buying also boasts lower risks of fraud and fewer threats to brand safety than the open web—challenges that are growing more pressing as generative AI transforms the internet. In 2023, approximately 22% of all online ad spend was lost to ad fraud, and mitigating fraud ranked as one of the biggest concerns around media investment this year by US brands and agencies. AI-driven ad fraud is particularly problematic when it comes to ads served via the open exchange, due to the complexity between the purchase of a traditional programmatic ad and its delivery. At the same time, generative AI makes it easy to create low-quality websites, like made-for-advertising websites (MFAs)—where brands have squandered as much as 15% of their digital ad spend.
To protect their programmatic spend, advertisers can implement safeguards like allow lists and block lists (such as dynamic MFA block lists) and leverage third-party safety segments to exclude sensitive content and increase inventory quality. But adding direct buying gives marketers the ultimate control over their ad dollars—both in terms of audience and for minimizing risk.
“By contracting with publishers on their own inventory, media buyers know exactly what inventory they are running on and have the added benefit of leveraging the publisher’s first-party data—which is not only privacy-friendly, but empowers more accurate targeting and measurement,” says Lindsey Freed, SVP of Media Investment at Basis Technologies.
While direct cannot offer the same speed and scale of the open exchange, it has evolved considerably so that advertisers can benefit from the privacy-friendly and premium placements it offers in a more automated way. In addition to insertion orders (IOs), advertisers can turn to private marketplace deals (PMP)—ensuring exclusive, premium placements—or programmatic guaranteed, which combines the quality and assurance of direct with the efficiency and automation of programmatic, making it easier for media buyers to make data-driven decisions in real time. Advertisers can also leverage curated publisher lists for direct deals to mitigate some of the tactic’s scale-related drawbacks.
Programmatic advertising on the open exchange will, of course, remain a mainstay for marketers, especially as technologies advance to help them avoid AI-driven fraud and advertising on low-quality websites. However, making the most of all that direct buying offers will help marketing teams adapt to the cookieless world, and mitigate some of the brand safety and fraud risks that come with real-time bidding on the open exchange.
Signal loss is also driving a huge resurgence in contextual targeting. Contextual advertising spend is expected to double from 2023 to 2030, and as of late 2023, almost 94% of marketers were either already using the tactic or had plans to begin using it within the next 12 months.
And, like direct buying, contextual has advanced considerably in recent years.
“Advertisers can now tap into AI-powered contextual targeting, which analyzes and categorizes page content, allowing buyers to align creative messaging to the content their audience is consuming,” says Freed.
Contextual technology has also progressed to incorporate natural language processing, which ensures that ads are not only placed in environments relevant to their topics or keywords, but also where the overall sentiment and tone of the content match the ad being served.
Contextual targeting offers a variety of benefits beyond its cookieless nature—in fact, that only ranks fourth on the list of what US agency and brand marketers find most beneficial about the tactic, behind “aligns with audience interests”, “improved ROI/ROAS”, and “increased ad engagement.” When used for display ads, contextual also serves to protect brand safety by ensuring that ads are placed in premium digital environments. Plus, notes Freed, “with the integration of curated contextual segments within advertising platforms, media buyers can search and select contextual segments across various advertising mediums more seamlessly.”
Of course, contextual can’t be the only privacy-friendly targeting tactic advertisers use to address signal loss in a cookieless world. And contextual does have its drawbacks, such as the fact that it can be difficult to retarget people who have seen contextual ads, which in turn makes it difficult to measure their performance. As a result, contextual is best used as one part of a multi-tactic cookieless targeting approach.
In a world driven by third-party cookies, advertisers were granted a lot of transparency into the performance of their campaigns. They could easily get an idea of their consumers' purchasing journeys and generate precise reports on view-through conversions and ad frequency.
Once third-party cookies are fully deprecated in Google’s Chrome browser, one of the preeminent challenges for advertisers will be to find new ways to measure campaign performance and attribution. In this context, advertisers are leaning into legacy measurement tactics, like brand lift studies, to gauge the success of awareness-driven campaigns.
“Brand lift measurement and brand health tracking is becoming more important, and we’ve seen an uptick in investment in these studies to understand the holistic impact of advertising efforts on a brand,” says Kelly Boyle, Group VP of Client Strategy and Insights at Basis Technologies. “Marketing mix modeling is also making a comeback, and these tools are evolving. Newer offerings are more robust, more precise, and some are even more affordable than traditional models were years ago.”
Zach Moore, SVP of Digital Media Operations at Basis Technologies, agrees that brand lift studies have grown easier and more streamlined, and that they’ll have an important place in the campaign measurement process in a cookieless world. “Brand studies have gotten a little smarter over the last decade or so,” says Moore, “with many being built into the various buying platforms directly, integrating actual sales or transaction data into their metrics, and having the ability to encompass multiple channels to provide a much wider view.”
Brand lift studies aren’t without their challenges, the biggest one being the size of the control and exposed groups used in these studies (which can be relevant if an advertiser needs the results to reach statistical significance).
“The issue with brand studies is you must have strict control and exposed groups, typically running lots of impressions,” says Moore. “The guideline is that 10-20% of impressions for all a brand’s media should be set aside for brand lift studies. However, since many brands request those impressions as ‘added value’ from partners, that can be a hard sell, since they’re essentially asking for free impressions.”
In situations where brand lift studies aren’t viable, Moore recommends prioritizing a model-based approach, such as a diminishing returns analysis.
As with contextual targeting, brand lift studies aren’t a comprehensive solution. Advertisers will need to tap into a variety of alternative measurement and attribution tools in a cookieless world, from brand lift studies to model-based approaches, to cookieless conversion attribution, and more. In light of this, advertising leaders should prepare for the measurement process to be much more time- and resource-intensive once third-party cookies are fully deprecated in Chrome.
All in all, embracing approaches that have served advertisers since the industry’s beginnings will be a critical way for advertising teams to find success—and security—amidst major paradigm shifts. Advertising leaders should also keep an eye out for technological innovations and advances related to these strategies, as it’s likely that these older tactics will continue to grow “newer” (i.e., more automated and sophisticated) as the industry—and technology—evolves.
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Want to learn more about how your peers are preparing (or not preparing) for one of the industry’s biggest paradigm shifts? Check out our report, Identity vs. Privacy: Digital Advertising in a Cookieless World, to get all the top findings from our survey on how advertising teams are preparing for the cookieless future.
Here we go again…
After months and months of promises, pinky promises, and stone-faced utterances of “No, we really really mean it this time!”, Google has officially announced what in recent weeks appeared increasingly inevitable: Third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome will be delayed. Again. This time, to an as-yet unannounced time beyond Q4 2024.
The deciding blow to this latest missed deadline came after a damning report by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) indicating that Google’s Privacy Sandbox would fall short of meeting the country’s regulatory standards.
Per Google’s announcement: “We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”
The news was met with a mix of intrigue, side eye, and shrugs from an industry that has grown increasingly frustrated with Google’s approach to the issue and largely unsatisfied with the Privacy Sandbox’s inconsistent rollout.
“The entire ad industry can’t be ready for change if Google isn’t ready for it,” said Noor Naseer, VP of Media Innovations & Technology at Basis Technologies. “As things stand today, there’s a lot of ambiguity around the application of Privacy Sandbox tools—almost everything the average advertising professional knows about Privacy Sandbox is hearsay. Few have tested it, and they’re all waiting for more reviews on who else has done it, how they’ve done it, and to what degree of success. So this update is not a surprise, but a welcome sigh of relief, even if it’s just a temporary one.”
For now, it appears that Google is eyeing 2025 as its latest target for deprecating cookies from Chrome. But the delay is expected to be temporary, with the goal of giving the company, industry partners, and regulators enough time to work through their laundry list of concerns with the Privacy Sandbox APIs.
“While the industry is getting a bit more time—which certainly provides some relief—the way I see it, this isn’t a reason to take the foot off the accelerator,” said Ian Trider, VP of Product – DSP at Basis. “No matter what, the status quo will not persist forever, and there's basically zero chance that third-party cookie deprecation doesn’t happen at all. At this stage, it’s a matter of making sure that there are sensible technical solutions, and that Google is addressing any risk of anti-competitive behavior to the satisfaction of regulators.”
At Basis, the news of Google pushing back the third-party cookie phase-out to early 2025 is being seen as an opportunity for further refinement. “The delay isn't ideal, but it's an opportunity,” said Robert Kurtz, Group VP, Search Media Solutions at Basis. “We were prepared for the initial 2024 deadline, but with this extended runway, we can double-down on our cookieless targeting strategy, with more in-depth testing and optimization of privacy-focused solutions, first-party data initiatives, and additional partnerships to ensure a smooth transition.”
“By utilizing this delay strategically," said Kurtz, "the industry can emerge stronger in the cookieless future.”
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While third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome may be delayed, the advertising industry is already working to embrace a more privacy-friendly future. Learn more about how marketers are confronting signal loss in our report, Identity vs. Privacy: Digital Advertising in a Cookieless World.
Amidst all the networking, socializing, and poolside festivities at this year's Possible in Miami Beach, there was one topic that dominated all the rest: AI.
Throughout the event, artificial intelligence was on the top of attendees' minds and the tips of the speakers' tongues. How are you using it? Where can it provide the most (and least) benefits? What are the keys to harnessing AI’s power successfully? And how can business leaders fully exploit the potential of AI at their organizations while mitigating its safety risks?
The clearest takeaway from the industry's thought leaders? Marketing's AI revolution has officially commenced.
Here are some of the top insights to come out of the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach at this year's event.
Early usage indicates that AI could lead to a productivity boom, allowing marketers to get more done in less time. A Microsoft study found that users of its Copilot AI tool spend less time writing emails, summarizing long documents, and completing first drafts of documents. AI can “attend” meetings for us and summarize the key findings and takeaways. It can also provide new context around how those meetings are conducted, combing through transcripts to identify blind spots in the conversation and capture the tone and sentiment to help people improve the way they show up to work. When used all together, AI can help make us not just more productive, but better marketers and professionals.
In just the last few years, AI-powered capabilities grown at an extraordinary rate, and the idea of AI disrupting every aspect of our lives appears to be on the horizon—including marketing.
Rex Briggs, Chief AI Officer at Claritas and author of the forthcoming book “The AI Conundrum,” noted that marketing is, in many ways, an “ideal use case” for AI.
With AI, marketers can now optimize campaigns in real time and with greater precision, leveraging AI’s proficiency at recognizing patterns and creating hyper-nuanced segments dynamically and on-the-fly to drive desired outcomes. The individual results of these optimizations can be small, but when added up, they can result in huge gains over baseline performance. What’s still to come (but appears to be just on the horizon) is enhancing the technology so that it can get better at explaining precisely what—and why—the AI is optimizing ads based on various criteria for more real-time transparency and clarity.
However, despite all the hubbub around technological innovation, we mere mortals still have a very valuable and unique role to play. Human marketers will be essential in making the final decisions around what to use—and what to change—throughout the campaign process. To skilled marketers, AI represents a powerful new tool to help them move faster, be more productive, and grow more effective.
Google re-iterated its commitment to both the Privacy Sandbox and to deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome by the end of 2024. But Amit Varia, Director of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, emphasized that Privacy Sandbox APIs are not intended to be a 1:1 “replacement” for third-party cookies, and that marketers are best suited to leveraging a range of identity solutions in unison as part of a larger privacy-friendly toolkit. And while initial users of these Privacy Sandbox APIs are seeing effective results, we are still effectively operating in a test environment, where just 1% of Chrome users are playing in the Privacy Sandbox sans third-party cookies, and even Privacy Sandbox evangelists noted there are still ample questions about how these solutions will perform at scale.
So, what value can AI provide marketers in a cookieless environment? MMA data showed that AI-powered personalization drove a 35-65% increase in ad performance within contextual environments. And AI can optimize first-party data to better target existing audience and to create new lookalike audiences.
Audio and display ads both play to generative AI’s current strengths, making them ideal channels for marketers looking to experiment with AI-generated assets and campaigns.
Progressive, for instance, has begun using AI to create more personalized audio ads. The insurance giant incorporated AI across every step of the campaign process, allowing them to go from brief to approval in just 6 weeks (vs. the 22 weeks it previously took them without AI). Leveraging AI-generated scripts and voice talent—after training the AI on Progressive’s brand and an extensive content archive—Progressive’s team was able to create 96 ads in a single week, then run and test them using dynamic creative optimization (DCO) to progressively adapt the ads as market conditions changed. In doing so, they were able to assess different ad parts and predict the right combination for the right audience.
“You can train AI on your own content, hit a button, and end up with different scripts, and then when you are happy with the scripts, you can hit another button to develop the audio, and then when you are happy with those, you can move on to approvals,” said Remi Kent, CMO at Progressive.
Though AI generated the scripts, the personas, and the background music ads, humans were involved and instrumental in every step of the process, in what Kent described as a “collaboration” between humans and generative AI. The result was a process that allowed Progressive to move faster and create more ads with more personalization—all at scale. By using AI-generated ads and leveraging AI-powered optimizations, Progressive was able to drive a 197% lift in quotes over baseline.
Effective utilization of AI for targeting, attribution, and optimization relies on high-quality (and high quantities) of data. The problem? Silos. So very many silos. Disconnected channels, siloed platforms, walled gardens, and a general lack of transparency and data centralization is all too often resulting in organizations having an incomplete picture of their data.
In a session on how marketers can “hack their adtech,” Richard Brandolino, Global Media Channels & Adtech Leader at IBM, recommended that agencies and brands keen on exploring (and exploiting) AI’s benefits should look to facilitate cohesion and interconnectivity across their tech stacks. Streamlining and unifying data flows can yield significant improvements in profitability, cost efficiency, and strategic agility.
Beyond even efficiency and improved campaign results, Possible speakers addressed one other aspect of AI in marketing: the balance between AI’s promise of innovation vs. its inherent risks.
Jaime Teevan, Chief Scientist at Microsoft, noted that the decisions we make with AI today will influence the future of jobs, our industry, and our world. Since introducing its AI-powered Copilot last year, Microsoft has strong feedback that the technology is making people more efficient and saving them time. What’s left to determine is what will people do with that time.
At its best, AI has the potential to create a generational opportunity for innovation, but marketers’ experimentation should always be accompanied by careful consideration about not just the immediate impact of those decisions, but the third- (and fourth- and fifth-) degree effects of those decisions.
Teevan noted that, when first beginning to explore how Microsoft could incorporate OpenAI’s GPT 4 into its products, she began from a place of “How do we bring this technology to people, and do so in a responsible way?” Perhaps tellingly, Teevan’s implication throughout a session on AI seemed to be that the “responsible way” Microsoft has landed upon is to outsource much of this responsibility to its users, imploring them to do their own research, experimentation, and exploration with the technology and hoping they do so responsibly.
Curious about how leading marketers are using generative AI? Basis surveyed over 200 marketing and advertising professionals from top agencies and brands, brands, and publishers to see how marketers are feeling about AI today and gauge how they think it will shape the industry going forward.
In recent years, the digital advertising industry has come face to face with a barrage of new policies and regulations. With concerns mounting over data privacy, consumer protection, and AI, new laws have sprung up at a variety of levels—from state, to federal, to global. This regulatory frenzy underscores a complex balancing act between commercial interests and consumers’ needs.
Consumers accept ads’ presence in our digital ecosystem, with 95% saying they would prefer ads to paying higher costs for an ad-free online experience. A further 88% say they want ads that are personalized to their interests and needs—personalization that is largely dependent on the personal information that consumers do (or do not) share.
However, that being said, there is still a strong desire among consumers and regulators alike for increased transparency and consent around data collection and usage that’s built upon deep distrust of companies’ data practices, with 81% of Americans saying they are concerned about how companies use the data they collect about them and 67% admitting they have little to no understanding of what those companies are doing with that data once they collect it.
Advertisers, then, are faced with a daunting task: Prioritize consumer privacy and adapt to new and ever-evolving regulation, while simultaneously delivering personalized digital advertising experiences that resonate with audiences.
This challenge was at the forefront of conversations at the IAB’s recent Public Policy & Legal Summit, where industry leaders explored this juxtaposition and shared critical considerations for advertising teams. Whether in discussions around bias in AI, presentations on state-specific privacy legislation, or conversations on how to address kids’ safety online, navigating this complex landscape demands not only attention, but conscious action.
While federal regulation has remained largely in limbo, there’s been a flurry of enacted legislation at the state level. In 2023, new consumer data privacy acts took effect in California, Connecticut, Colorado, Utah and Virginia. By early 2026, the number of state-level laws will grow to 14 states.
In the absence of a federal framework, advertising teams are left with a patchwork of regulation—and one that varies significantly from state to state. These laws range from relatively baseline (for instance, VCPDA), to enhanced (like the Colorado Privacy Act), all the way to business-friendly (such as the Utah Consumer Privacy Act).
With such significant variation, a one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice. Many advertisers have attempted to find the strictest regulation—namely, California’s regulation, the CCPA and CPRA—and simply adhere to that in the hopes it will cover all their bases. However, regulation is evolving so rapidly—and there are many different types of consumer data—that trying to find and adopt the “strictest” laws will likely hinder teams and create self-imposed limits where they are not necessary. Instead, those organizations that prioritize flexibility, bolster their legal and technical teams, and take the time to truly understand these different policies and regulations will be most well-positioned for success.
Generative AI was, unsurprisingly, another major topic of conversation. The technology has garnered significant attention since its public debut in late 2022, generating considerable buzz within the digital advertising ecosystem. However, its oversight and regulation pose challenges, given the rapid pace at which this technology is evolving and becoming accessible.
Though the US has yet to enact widespread laws governing its use, President Biden signed an executive order in late 2023 aimed at addressing the “safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence.” Additionally, the House introduced a bill that would create a commission to spearhead AI regulation.
Despite a lack of codified regulations, FTC leaders shared a few primary focus areas that should be top of mind for advertising leaders as they navigate AI. First, they encouraged teams to conduct AI-focused risk assessments and to ask their vendors to do the same, so that they can evaluate and mitigate any potential risks, such as privacy, security, or bias. They also flagged that advertisers need to be particularly attuned to the risk of bias in AI, since the data and content these models are trained by is generated by humans—and humans, inherently, have biases. Though these tools can prove useful across many aspects of digital advertising, it’s crucial that they be consistently and critically evaluated.
As the technology continues to develop, regulators are certain to prioritize its oversight to ensure that AI is employed in ways that safeguard human safety and prioritizes trust.
Regulation of the advertising industry appears to be focused on simultaneously protecting consumer privacy and ensuring their safety and security online. But regulators are also using these laws to address larger societal risks and issues that inevitably arise in an increasingly digital world. This convergence of privacy, trust, and safety was a major theme throughout the summit, and advertisers must recognize the significance of this overlap as they navigate today’s complex regulatory landscape.
The balance of power around user data in marketing appears to be swinging away from corporations and toward consumers, and companies will be well-served to take notice and act accordingly. Take, for example, the FTC’s recent action against Amazon: The agency’s complaint relates specifically to consumer data, but it goes beyond standard privacy protections and accuses the company of using data to manipulate people into unwittingly spending more than they intend, alleging that Amazon’s “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as "dark patterns” essentially “trick” customers into auto-renewing their Prime subscriptions.” The move indicates a new regulatory outlook where protecting consumers’ data isn’t enough, and companies must also ensure that data isn’t being used in a way that harms consumers or goes against their best interests.
This shift in power between consumers and corporations is also evident in regulators’ approach to children’s data—a particularly pressing issue, given that one in three internet users globally is a child under 18 years old. Marketing leaders must remember that kids’ data is, inherently, sensitive data, and that there are strict regulations aimed at safeguarding both this data and the kids themselves. This has been especially evident in social media, where regulators are concerned not only with the collection of children’s user data, but also the digital environment that data is subsequently used to create. Social media algorithms, in particular, have come under fire for their role in increasing mental health concerns, with some states passing legislation aimed specifically at restricting algorithms that target young users.
The FTC has also proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) that would shift the onus from parents to providers for ensuring that all digital spaces are safe and secure for children. Though only recommended changes at present, the rules can serve as useful guidelines as advertising teams consider how they’re collecting, storing, and using kids’ data to create experiences for these users online.
Navigating ever-evolving regulation can be challenging, though there are certain strategies that can help.
First, advertising teams should constantly assess their relationships with vendors and third-party partners and review the processes they have in place to ensure they’re meeting all necessary laws and regulations. The IAB recently launched a new tool called the IAB Diligence Platform, which aims to guide these assessments by sharing a set of standardized privacy diligence questions for professionals across the digital advertising industry.
It also helps to have a strong legal team that can stay abreast of new regulatory developments and craft internal guidance and best practices. When regulations inevitably change, these legal teams can assess the implications for your organization, compare them with existing protocols to develop updated guidance, and share these changes in a way that is clear, consistent, and accessible.
Additionally, marketing and agency leaders should invest in internal training and education to ensure teams' compliance with any new rules or regulations. Leaders should ensure they establish clear communication channels to relay regulatory changes affecting their teams, conduct thorough briefings on updated legal guidance and clearly outline the implications of these changes for day-to-day operations.
Advertisers should also be deliberate when selecting vendors and partners to ensure they share similar values and priorities around data privacy and regulatory adherence, but organizations cannot simply rely on their vendors and assume that they’re checking all the boxes when it comes to adhering to regulations—all of this is a shared responsibility, and teams that acknowledge and embrace that can meet today’s regulatory demands proactively and effectively.
In today’s complex digital ecosystem, prioritizing consumer privacy and safety isn’t simply a best practice—it’s a necessity. Balancing consumer data privacy and online safety with the delivery of personalized advertising experiences poses a unique challenge. However, by staying informed on the latest regulation and legislation, maintaining flexibility, and committing to making decisions centered around consumer needs, advertising teams can cultivate trust while still delivering tailored messaging that resonates with their target audiences.
When it comes to US voter sentiment, there is a clear generational divide that extends across feelings on hot-button political issues, local vs. national political involvement, optimism about the upcoming election season, and the overall state of the country.
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In 2020, many leaders committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at their organizations in response to the movement for racial justice set in motion by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Four years later, some those commitments appear to be wavering, with forecasts estimating that organizational DEI investments will fall by 13% in 2024 compared to 2022. In the advertising sector specifically, recent layoffs at Google and Meta resulted in downsized DEI programs, and investment in diverse-owned media companies has slowed.
It seems that for many companies, amidst continuing economic uncertainty and in the lack of acute public pressure such as that felt in the wake of Floyd’s murder, DEI has been relegated to a “non-mission critical” investment.
Despite these trends, much of the advertising industry remains committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and there is ample opportunity for continued prioritization and growth of DEI efforts.
To further explore how leaders can make meaningful strides toward DEI at their organizations, we sat down with Lois Castillo, Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Basis Technologies. Lois, a veteran of both DEI and advertising work, recently wrapped up Basis Technologies’ first virtual IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility) summit, an event aimed at integrating IDEA principles more deeply into Basis’ organizational culture. Below, she shares what companies can be doing better in their DEI work, how DEI leaders can anchor themselves amidst the complexity of that work, and how the IDEA summit served to advance Basis’ DEI-focused goals.
Lois Castillo: First, the obvious answer: Not doing it.
By this point, leaders should understand that DEI is not just an ethical imperative, or good for business, but something organizations can’t survive without. The world is a diverse place that’s only getting more diverse, and if companies don’t reflect that increased diversity, they’re just not going to make it. When businesses don’t change with the times, they perish—for example, look at what happened to Blockbuster’s once streaming TV became the norm. The same thing goes for leaders: If you’re not doing your own work and development around DEI and bringing that into your organization, you’re not going to be leading for much longer.
When it comes to companies taking action, a common mistake I notice is treating DEI as solely the responsibility of HR. While fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion among employees is crucial, that’s just one aspect of the work. Companies that fail to make a real impact are likely fixating solely on this aspect instead of adopting a holistic approach that extends beyond their own workforce.
My team takes a three-pronged approach, addressing DEI in the following areas:
Additionally, I think it’s worth noting that companies that don’t include accessibility in their DEI work are missing the mark. To be truly inclusive of diverse team members, we need to work towards an accessible workplace—one that considers the spectrum of ability and neurodiversity and works to ensure that everyone on those spectrums can succeed.
LC: Well, I start with transparency and honesty—I don’t pretend I know everything. But I love people, and I’m curious about people, and I’m committed to constantly learning about the issues that people experience so that I can better address them in my work.
It’s true that all the axes of diversity among us can get overwhelming if you start to think about it, and that there’s a lot of work that must be done to address those axes individually. At the same time, there are ways we can address all of them at once, like creating shared language and behaviors for interacting with each other in the workplace that are rooted in respect and accountability—for example, calling someone in instead of calling them out when they make a mistake.
This isn’t easy work, that’s for sure. It’s not for the faint of heart. But that doesn’t mean you give up!
LC: First, let me break down what the summit looked like. We organized a variety of sessions, each with an expert speaker who shared stories and insights based on a specific aspect of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA). We had sessions on topics including how ageism shows up the workplace, how to foster inclusive environments for neurodivergent folks, and what great allyship looks like in practice. In addition to presentations from our experts, the sessions provided space for dialogue, where our employees could share personal experiences, ask questions, and engage with each other.
One of my main goals behind the event was to help move our culture forward by grounding everyone in the same language and knowledge. There are so many people with so many different life experiences at our company, and I wanted us to get grounded around the complexity and the multifaceted nature of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think when people hear the word “diversity,” they’re often thinking of gender and race. But we’re diverse in so many ways, and they all intersect. So, advancing our people’s knowledge and vocabulary of those differences was a big part of the event.
LC: I hope people walked away with curiosity about all the different ways people exist in the world, and with actionable tools that can help them in their own learning journeys around inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. Many of the topics at this specific event were geared around self, encouraging people to investigate their own experiences. I hope the sessions inspired people to get curious about their own experiences of difference in the world, as well as their triggers, blind spots, and biases. It’s important to get curious about yourself, because that will more than likely translate into curiosity about others’ experiences.
I think my favorite part of the summit was just watching the chats in these sessions and seeing all the engagement and the different questions and contributions people had. I loved seeing how participants felt free and safe enough to share their vulnerability. It’s really meaningful to see presentations and conversations resonating with people, and to see them feel secure enough to bring their personal lives and experiences into conversations with their colleagues.
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Learn more about Basis Technologies’ commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility here.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world of social media advertising—and fast. But when it comes to a channel where backlash can be particularly swift and unforgiving, just how fast should brands adopt these new technologies?
Social advertisers are seeing a boom in AI-powered advertising tools, and teams are facing increased pressure to embrace them to harness the speed and efficiency they promise. At the same time, some of these tools—particularly those powered by generative AI—have come accompanied by new concerns around both quality and brand safety, as the race to bring new AI solutions to market has resulted in many of them feeling like they’re still works in progress.
Advertisers worry about the quality of AI-generated ads, given events like Google’s recent suspension of its Gemini AI chatbot’s ability to create images of people after it generated historically inaccurate images. And a recent study found that only 38% of consumers have a positive view of AI, calling into question how AI-generated ads will be received.
A healthy dose of skepticism is, well, healthy. But these concerns, while well-founded, don’t mean advertisers should avoid testing and learning with AI-powered tools that fit their goals. There are a variety of ways advertisers can begin adopting these technologies to tap into their benefits while maintaining caution around things like brand safety. As automation- and AI-led solutions become the new normal in digital advertising, it’s critical that teams start developing their skill sets and increasing their familiarity with these tools to ensure they can use them with confidence and enjoy the increased efficiencies they provide.
AI has already started to change how advertisers target audiences on social media. Many platforms—including Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn—are beginning to pull back on the number of manual controls they’re giving advertisers to connect with target audiences. Instead, they’re moving advertisers towards AI-powered tools that identify the most appropriate target audiences for their campaigns. For instance, Meta’s Advantage+ Targeting feature automatically identifies targetable audiences based on factors like performance data, consumers’ interactions with other ads in the same vertical, and the content consumers are looking at across Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook.
In some ways, this is a very exciting development. We’re seeing solid results from our own use of these tools, so the numbers are speaking for themselves. On the other hand, it’s a bit nerve-wracking: Advertisers aren’t used to letting platforms take the wheel like this, and if you have a very specific target audience in mind—and you're spending an enormous amount of money trying to reach them—you want to know that you're serving ads to the right people. The shift toward AI-powered audience targeting may end up creating yet another black box to baffle and frustrate advertisers desperate for transparency.
However, this is the direction these platforms are going in, which means we’ll eventually reach a point where advertisers won’t be able to revert to those very specific, manual settings they’d grown accustomed to. Because of this, it’s critical for advertisers to at least begin testing and learning with these tools to grow more comfortable with this shift.
Of course, having AI handle the targeting doesn’t mean advertisers should just set and forget these campaigns. It’s critical to review performance data and assess whether the AI-powered tools are actually accomplishing their goals. For example, if an advertiser is running a lead gen ad, and Facebook is recommending some fairly broad targeting settings, is that actually driving quality leads? Maybe… or maybe not. In this new, AI-driven social world, advertisers will need to carefully assess and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Social platforms are also empowering advertisers to create assets like copy, images, and entire ads via AI. There are a number of significant benefits to these tools, the biggest being simplicity, speed, and ease of launch. This type of built-in efficiency could radically transform how advertisers develop and scale their social campaigns. Advertisers can generate and test new creative variants across different audience segments for more fine-tuned campaigns, or even experiment with entirely different creative approaches to see which resonates more strongly with consumers.
However, efficiency without effectiveness is ultimately inadequate, and many advertisers have real concerns around this shift towards AI-generated content. Without sufficient quality control and campaign monitoring, advertisers using AI-generated ads run the risk of wasting money on ineffective creative—or, worse yet, garnering some serious backlash from consumers.
There’s also some concern that we’re going to get to the point where most (if not all) of the ads on social are generated by AI, and we may well hit a point where consumers don't want to see AI-generated assets, but will instead desire something that feels a little more authentic. Considering this, advertisers should start to think about how they can strike a balance and find the right opportunities to use these tools, but not necessarily allow them to dictate all their social media advertising and messaging efforts.
Social listening is an increasingly key advertising tool, providing insights that can significantly impact a brand’s strategic approach. Manual social listening can be time-consuming and tiresome, but new AI-powered social listening tools can review and process huge amounts of data and sentiment and automatically pull out the top takeaways for advertisers’ immediate use. For instance: What are the top concerns of consumers in a certain category? What does overall sentiment look like? And why is it negative or positive?
Comparatively speaking, these AI-powered social listening tools are also a safe and impactful way for social teams to leverage AI, as they aren’t generating anything that is subsequently going out to consumers. As a result, this is a solution that’s seeing a high rate of adoption: In Q4 2023, social listening was the third-most popular use of AI (after chatbots and copy generation) among brands and retailers, with 40% saying they use AI-powered social listening tools.
All in all, social listening offers even the most AI-averse advertisers a low-risk, high-reward avenue for harnessing the power of AI.
The best ways to leverage artificial intelligence-powered tools for social media advertising will differ from agency to agency and brand to brand: Some are ready and willing to go all-in on generative AI, for instance, while others may approach adoption at a slower pace. Whatever pace you choose, the important thing is to test and learn in some way on tools that fall into each of these three categories. The future of social advertising is AI-driven, and advertisers who don’t start getting comfortable with these technologies will lack a competitive edge as these solutions grow more commonplace and become more advanced in the coming years.
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Want to learn more about how advertisers are approaching AI? We surveyed marketing and advertising professionals from top agencies, brands, non-profits, and publishers to better understand advertiser sentiments around the technology, as well as how they’re leveraging AI-driven tools in their work. Check out the top takeaways in our report, AI and the Future of Marketing.