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It’s a tale as old as time (in the digital age): You wake up with a scratchy throat and a slight headache. At first, you ignore it—maybe it was those extra few minutes (okay, hours) of TikTok scrolling or the fact that your dog woke you up at 3:00am to go outside. Best to ignore those symptoms and get on with your day…right?
But they persist as the day progresses. You start to overthink. Likely a cold, maybe allergies—or did your friend say they thought they might have the flu? You initially resist the urge to turn to the internet for guidance, but eventually give in.
You type your symptoms into a search engine and are met with varying results. From websites claiming your symptoms indicate a problem far more extreme than what you’d imagined, to home remedies, to ads for at-home COVID tests, you’re bombarded with information. Amidst this overload, you find yourself wondering: What is true? And what can I trust?
Today, we’re exploring the issue of digital misinformation, why healthcare marketers should care, and what they can do to protect themselves from its implications.
In an increasingly digital world, more and more people are turning to the internet to meet their healthcare needs. Whether they’re looking for information about specific symptoms, researching available treatments for a new diagnosis, exploring options for healthcare providers, or reading up on how to live a healthier lifestyle, the internet has become a crucial part of how people take care of themselves.
Here are some key stats marketers should know about the current state of digital healthcare:
The takeaway? Digital healthcare is a growing sector, and one that will only become more significant in the years ahead.
The catch to this explosion of digital healthcare? The simultaneous explosion of digital misinformation—an issue that’s doubly impactful to healthcare brands, given the personal (and sometimes highly politicized) nature of healthcare decision-making.
As misinformation has proliferated in recent years, the public’s understanding of the issue has grown, as well as their sentiments in favor of tamping down on the threat. According to one 2021 Gallup poll, 59% of US adults say tech companies should take measures to restrict online misinformation, while 48% say the US government should take those same measures.
All in all, misinformation is a threat that digital marketers can’t ignore. But healthcare marketers in particular need to be proactive and intentional to protect their brands, avoid controversy, and advertise ethically.
This might be obvious, but we’re going to say it anyway: All advertisers have a responsibility to advertise ethically. Misinformation has negative impacts on internet users, and advertising dollars spent on sites that peddle misinformation support that. In addition, consumers are concerned by the spread of misinformation: A recent study showed that 80% of consumers agree misinformation is a serious problem in digital media, and 73% of consumers feel unfavorably toward brands that have been associated with misinformation.
In a 2022 McKinsey Health Institute survey, approximately 85% of total respondents rated mental and physical health as “very important” or “extremely important” to them. Health is a huge factor in determining happiness and overall quality of life, and people need reliable information to inform how they take care of themselves. So for healthcare marketers, misinformation is especially problematic.
Now, more than ever, consumers need to be able to trust the information they’re getting online when it comes to healthcare. And healthcare brands that are trying to build relationships with consumers need to be especially mindful of where their ads are displayed, what comments are generated on their social media posts, and other brand safety measures. How can you expect a consumer to trust you with their health and wellbeing when they just saw an ad for your brand on a website peddling misinformation? Or if a Facebook ad for your product is riddled with misleading comments?
When misinformation spreads about health-related topics, it’s both unethical and dangerous. Besides the moral implications of advertising alongside it, healthcare brands risk their reputations and consumer loyalty when their ads are shown in the context of mis- and dis-information.
For healthcare marketers, then, combatting misinformation should be a priority. But what should that look like? Let’s dive in.
Let’s start at the very beginning (we heard somewhere that it’s a “very good place to start”). Healthcare marketers can avoid the controversy of advertising alongside misinformation by crafting a strong brand safety plan. These plans might include:
Advertisers know their jobs aren’t finished when a campaign goes live. In healthcare marketing, this is especially true. The most effective campaigns are those that are closely monitored and optimized based on data and trends.
This monitoring for misinformation might look different based on the channel(s) you’re advertising on. For programmatic media buys, given the vastness of inventory available and the speed at which these buys occur, it’s important to have a plan to pay attention to where your ads are being placed and the content they’re running alongside. For social media, monitoring likely includes looking through posts, comments, and other activity to ensure your page or post isn’t a host for unclear, untrue, or misleading information.
Though it might feel overwhelming to plan for this degree of monitoring, the alternative is far worse. Healthcare marketers cannot afford to lose audience trust, damage their brand’s reputation, miss out on revenue, or contribute to the toxic and potentially dangerous spread of misinformation related to peoples’ health.
Finally, marketers can’t make strategic adjustments if they aren’t agile.
What this agility might look like, however, will vary depending on the situation. If you realize your ads are running alongside misinformation via programmatic buys, it might involve updating blocklists or allowlists, adjusting creative, and removing assets from sites. For social media, it could include deleting comments, actively addressing misinformation, or even removing posts.
Whatever the case, it’s critical that healthcare marketers have the flexibility to respond when these instances occur. Ignoring them or turning a blind eye could prove harmful for your brand, and for your potential consumers.
That said, it can be a challenge to stay quick on your feet in today’s fragmented and complex media landscape. One solution that can enable agility is advertising automation technology. In particular, tools like workflow automation software can streamline the media buying process, freeing up the time healthcare marketers need to make adjustments on the fly.
All advertisers want to build connection with consumers. For healthcare marketers, trusting and meaningful relationships are especially critical. One way healthcare marketers can ensure they’re building this trust is by proactively addressing misinformation when it arises (and, even better, having consistent systems in place to do so!). In doing so, they can prioritize relationships with their consumers, build brand trust and loyalty, and help to foster a safer digital environment.
The developing issue of misinformation is just one example of why advertisers need to be up to date on what’s happening in digital advertising. But researching and finding the best content can take time and resources that not everyone has.
Luckily, we’ve got you covered. Each month, we put together Basis Scout, a digest of top digital content and news. It’s a great way to stay up to date on misinformation and other evolving topics in the world of digital advertising.
As a media planner, several targeting tactics are available to you for every digital initiative you’re working on. Each programmatic campaign type brings its own unique set of challenges. Certain targeting strategies are more helpful against specific end goals and KPIs, but there’s one tactic that will always add to the overall performance of your digital program: retargeting.
Let’s kick off with the basics: What is retargeting, and why is it so crucial?
In broad strokes, retargeting is a form of online advertising that uses data to re-engage consumers who leave a website without converting and/or whose information you already have in your database. It empowers advertisers to create a series of customized touchpoints around the digital universe—be it via display, search, social, connected TV, or wherever—that are tailored to that one specific user, reminding them of products or services they once expressed an interest in.
When done right, retargeting campaigns can potentially serve a range of benefits, including:
So, how does it all work? It’s pretty simple, really. When someone ends up on a company’s website, an unobtrusive piece of code (often referred to as a tracking pixel) sends a string of text (otherwise known as a cookie) from a web server to the user’s browser. Then, when said user leaves the site to continue surfing the web, that cookie will sync with the company’s retargeting systems to serve up ads on other platforms based on the pages they visited on the website.
The classic example of this in action—and one we’ve all no doubt experienced—is when an ad for the exact product we just looked at, added to our virtual cart, and then abandoned suddenly, magically appears all over our social feeds. It’s a tried-and-true tactic, but a dramatically different operating landscape is on the horizon...
Yes, the elephant in the retargeting room: the impending deprecation of third-party cookies.
For years, third-party cookies have been the bedrock of retargeting, but they are slowly and surely fading from view. Last year, Google announced (yet again) that’s it’s delaying third-party cookie deprecation in its Chrome browser, this time until the second half of 2024. The event has been widely seen as the de facto deadline for the industry to shift to alternative targeting solutions. But, in reality, the volume of identifiers accessible to advertisers has already dropped significantly—by some 50 to 60% according to some estimates. In other words, this “cookieless future” everyone is talking about is already here.
Why, you ask? Here are just three of the reasons:
Add it all together, and marketers are now compelled to reimagine and overhaul their data, targeting, and retargeting strategies. Moving forward, it will be critical for advertisers to adopt new, privacy-friendly addressability and measurement solutions. The key here though is not to procrastinate. After all, the process of building, managing, and activating a stockpile of first-party data is long and complex, so there’s no time to waste!
Of course, there will be times when marketers may not be able to place a tracking pixel and capture specific visitor data. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t workarounds. With the right technology in the toolkit, there are still a number of ways to execute retargeting campaigns. Here are five:
A note here as well on FLEDGE (or First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment) API, a post-cookie advertising alternative in Google’s Privacy Sandbox dedicated specifically to the retargeting aspect of performance advertising. It works by storing information on users’ devices, as opposed to making it broadly accessible—the theory being that it protects user privacy by limiting the amount of data flowing around ad systems and bid streams. Early results have been, shall we say, mixed, and early adopters are in short supply. But those invested in cookieless retargeting strategies may want to keep an ear to the ground for updates on how the experiments progress.
Retargeting has the capacity to increase the effectiveness of other marketing efforts and raise brand awareness. It allows users who recognize your brand to see your ads all across the digital ecosystem—creating the impression of a large-scale advertising campaign, but for a fraction of the budget. And it’s a targeting tactic that increases brand recall and drives consumers down the sales funnel, allowing multiple opportunities for conversion.
By molding the online experience around consumers’ recent behavior, brands can stay top of mind with uses and re-engage someone who might otherwise have turned into “the one who got away.”
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Looking for advice about how to get your retargeting campaigns off the ground, but don’t know where to begin? Our Media Strategy & Activation team can point you in the right direction.
Welcome to Scout! Each week, our team tracks down the best digital marketing articles, POVs, and reports—so you don't have to. Here’s what to read from the week of 1/13/23 - 1/19/23 to stay ahead of the curve:
TikTok has managed to float above the ad spend slowdown, growing its ad revenues by 139.9% during a year that was a more than a bit chaotic for social media. But flying so close to the sun has its consequences, and under pressure from regulators, TikTok has promised the US government “some degree of oversight” into its algorithm.
With five new US state-level privacy laws taking effect this year, privacy compliance officers have their work cut out for them. To aid companies in complying with the varying requirements, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has created a framework called the Multi-State Privacy Agreement. This video from Digiday demystifies the situation.
A new programmatic transparency study from PwC and UK-based trade org ISBA shows that transparency in programmatic advertising has increased since 2020, with unattributable spend dropping from 15% to 3%. The study also found that advertisers have gotten more sophisticated in terms of managing supply and adtech, so go on! Give yourself a pat on the back.
Sky-high costs. Misinformation online. The rise of digital care. In the wake of COVID-19, healthcare marketers have a variety of challenges (and opportunities!) to grapple with. What they shouldn’t lose sight of: building trusting relationships with their consumers.
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Healthcare is personal—incredibly personal. It’s an industry that shapes people’s daily experiences and determines consumers’ quality of life. As something so critical to our overall wellbeing, you’d think (or at least hope!) healthcare would be straightforward and simple to understand. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
The United States healthcare system is particularly complex, challenging to navigate, and often a source of hidden or unforeseen costs. Couple this with the stresses brought about by COVID, rising healthcare costs, skyrocketing inflation rates, and increasing economic uncertainty, and it’s clear the current healthcare landscape is complicated—if not downright overwhelming.
What’s a healthcare marketer to do? Here, we’ll explore how building strong relationships with consumers is critical for healthcare advertisers and examine how those relationships can foster empathy and trust in the face of an ever-evolving, complex healthcare system.
As we noted earlier (and as anyone who’s been to an urgent care clinic can attest), the healthcare scene in the US can range from “complicated” to “messy”…but why? Let’s dive in:
To begin with, healthcare costs in the US are significantly higher than in most other countries—and they’re only continuing to increase:
These high costs affect everyone, but they have an outsized impact on those who are uninsured or underinsured. As the US healthcare industry grows and becomes more expensive (to say nothing of the additional pressures brought on by inflation), it’s no surprise that more than 30 percent of Americans report skipping care because of its cost and another 30 percent report that, if they needed quality healthcare, they would not be able to afford it.
The COVID pandemic not only affected healthcare costs, but also consumer sentiment towards health and healthcare. In its wake, consumer awareness about health has significantly increased, coupled with a greater push for trust, reliability, and accessibility in healthcare. According to a survey of more than 15,000 adults, trust is more critical in healthcare than in any other category.
Throughout COVID, experience with healthcare (particularly in the US) varied by individuals of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Hispanic individuals, for instance, accounted for a disproportionately high share of COVID-19 cases during some periods. And, though vaccine confidence has improved for Black Americans, mistrust has played a role in the community’s lower and slower rates of vaccination, stemming from historical and ongoing discrimination and racism faced by Black communities. According to one study, “Vaccine-related mistrust is a multifaceted construct that includes distrust of health care and health care providers (to be equitable), the government (to provide truthful information), and the vaccine itself (to be safe and effective).”
Healthcare systems and brands must be cognizant of the level of trust, or lack thereof, in the system—whether related to COVID, or otherwise. By building relationships founded on empathetic messaging and discussions of inclusivity, healthcare marketers can begin the process of rebuilding that trust.
Beyond these complex and varied consumer sentiments, the past several years have seen an acceleration in digital healthcare: While the percentage of healthcare visits done virtually has declined since the peak of the pandemic, it remains higher than it was pre-pandemic. And, according to a recent survey, nearly two-thirds of patients said they prefer telehealth to in-office visits because of convenience, and 44% of Gen Z and millennials said they may switch providers if telehealth visits are not offered.
This indicates that consumers (especially millennials and Gen Z) are continuing to look for more reliable, convenient ways to manage their health, and that the demand for digital tools and resources has increased.
For healthcare brands with digital offerings, this is a major opportunity—and one that digital advertising can help fuel (and track for better attribution). By using strategies like contextual placements on pages related to certain conditions or health-conscious content, or placing ads alongside complimentary search terms, healthcare marketers can direct people to a website or app that serves as the hub for their brand or organization’s virtual operations.
That said, with great opportunity comes great responsibility (cliché, we know). As noted earlier, many Americans still feel a good deal of distrust toward the medical system due to past experiences, while others have trust issues with technology (especially when it comes to fraud and safety). Additionally, digital appointments curb the ability to develop strong in-person connections. Healthcare marketers will need to keep these distinct challenges in mind as they work to foster trust-based relationships with consumers.
With this knowledge of how complex and personal healthcare is, advertisers might be left wondering, “How can I effectively advertise for something so intimate and personal?” The solution: approaching consumers with empathy, seeking to understand them, and building relationships.
In 2021, the majority of US adults said that what they wanted most from a healthcare provider was for them to be a good listener. This same principle can be extended to marketing in the healthcare landscape: approach consumers with empathy and understanding and make them feel heard.
To dive into the critical work of building relationships with consumers, marketers in healthcare first need to understand who those consumers are. Here are some key stats to know:
Once healthcare marketers understand their audience, they can ensure their messaging and strategies are grounded in empathy and meeting consumer expectations.
One way to build relationships with potential patients is through long-form media, like digital audio and video. These formats allow marketers to showcase testimonials that highlight when patients experienced great empathy from their providers—in their own words and with their own voice.
Another way to establish trust and form relationships with consumers is through transparency. Hidden and unexpected costs are a significant driver of consumer behavior in healthcare, with many patients opting to skip care, avoid filling prescriptions, or explore over-the-counter products to avoid these costs. By being upfront about rates, which insurance providers are accepted, and payment plans, healthcare brands can ease some consumer anxiety.
Further, healthcare marketers can build trust by applying a critical eye to their brand messaging and strategy. Here are some questions advertisers can ask themselves to ensure they are prioritizing consumers’ needs and experiences:
By keeping diversity front of mind and developing creative from a place of empathy and understanding, healthcare brands can build stronger relationships with consumers.
Building relationships on a foundation of trust and empathy takes consistency and intentionality. Marketers cannot afford to lose time to duplicative, tedious tasks—these take their creative energy away from what’s most important, especially in today’s complex healthcare landscape.
Fortunately, there are some time-friendly solutions. Embracing an automated advertising strategy, backed by an automated and comprehensive DSP, can give healthcare marketers the ability to focus on strategic priorities, like forming stronger connections with consumers and proactively adjusting campaign messaging to better meet the moment. Leaning into technological developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning—especially those focused on brand safety—can free up the time and efficiency healthcare marketers need to get to know their customers and create consistent, empathy-driven, personalized experiences for them.
Interested in learning more about how advertising automation can help healthcare brands and agencies reach the right customers, with the right message, in a brand-safe environment? Check out our guide and see how automation is one possible solution to help marketers to create strong relationships with consumers in today’s complex healthcare landscape.
Welcome to Scout! Each week, our team tracks down the best digital marketing articles, POVs, and reports—so you don't have to. Here’s what to read from the week of 1/6/23 - 1/12/23 to stay ahead of the curve:
The 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was characterized by a certain sobriety—not at the restaurants or craps tables, of course, but certainly in the spaces where marketing and media were discussed. Read why in this piece.
Two more bonus pieces of CES coverage: Data clean rooms were a big theme (check out Digiday’s recap on those conversations here), while Walmart laid out its vision for the future of grocery (more on that here).
Here’s some good news for marketers struggling with the chaos of the connected TV landscape: Four of the biggest U.S. network TV players are collaborating to create the Joint Industry Council, which will set standards, coordinate the collection of streaming data from programmers, and certify third-party providers to measure streaming audiences.
You know the saying “the best defense is a good offense?” Well, according to AdWeek, “If 2022 was the year marketers, agencies and platforms played defense on brand safety and suitability, 2023 is shaping up to be a time when marketers go on the offense.” Read on to understand the latest threats to brand safety, and see how advertisers are protecting their brands.
2022 may have started off as a year of shiny objects in emerging tech, but 2023 will take a more practical approach. Which of these latest tech trends have staying power and which are on the backburner (for now)? This piece separates the hype from reality.
Did someone order an entire buffet of 2023 trends content? No? Well, then it’s on the house! This page is your one-stop shop for everything 2023—from our trends report and webinar to a host of industry-specific rundowns.
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We enter 2023 coming off a record-breaking year for digital ad spending in political circles. At a time when many brands were pulling back on advertising because of fluctuating consumer spending habits, political advertisers—comparatively immune to those economic concerns—poured so much money into campaigns that they buttressed the otherwise slow-moving US ad market.
Total investment in political ads last year hit a projected $9.7 billion, representing a staggering 144% gain over 2018’s election cycle and $660 million more than 2020—all despite no Presidential race at the top of the ticket. Given that midterms traditionally have lower voter turnout, these vast sums indicate that advertisers are willing to spend more per vote than in the past, establishing a precedent that will likely ripple into 2024 and push the US to a stunning new norm: the $10+ billion election.
As we start building towards that through 2023, there are three key trendlines for advertisers to watch:
Programmatic advertising is the bread and butter of any political team—92% reported it was an important component of their 2022 campaigns. However, premium placements and sponsorships with key thought leadership publications and newsletters still play a crucial role. The emergence of new players (Punchbowl, Semafor, and Pluribus, among others) alongside the mainstay publications has created more fragmentation in this space than ever before.
Advertisers can’t buy real estate in every online news outlet, so carefully choosing the right placements and partners per available budget is imperative. Against a climate of decreasing trust in social media among policy influencers, securing a footprint adjacent to reputable journalistic content is vital to engaging audiences.
Here at Basis, we observed a whopping 1,500% increase in political spending on connected TV devices in the first half of 2022 compared with H1 2020, and this powerful shift into streaming is set to be the most impactful trendline through 2023 (and 2024). There was tremendous adoption of CTV up and down the ballot through the 2022 midterms, and that is starting to carry over to public affairs and corporate reputation advertising. As consumers continue to cut the cord and new streaming inventory becomes available at scale, CTV is an increasingly viable channel for reaching even niche influencer audiences—provided advertisers are tapping into the right targeting and buying options.
Advocacy and public affairs advertisers are inherently tasked with reaching very specific audiences via the precise targeting capabilities of digital. But as we get closer to a cookieless future, those capabilities are facing an evolution.
2023 is going to be the targeting proving ground, where winners and losers will likely emerge among the alternative ID solutions, and having the ability to tap into multiple options will be essential to continued success. Exploring other solutions outside audience-based strategies is also increasingly important—contextual targeting, for example, offers opportunities across desktop, mobile, and connected TV. As usual, the only constant in digital media is constant change, and it’s all about how you navigate it.
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Want to learn about some of the macro trends affecting digital marketing more generally? Check out our 2023 Trends Report to stay ahead of the curve as you plan for the year ahead.
Welcome to Scout! Each week, our team tracks down the best digital marketing articles, POVs, and reports—so you don't have to. Here’s what to read from the week of 12/30/22 – 1/5/23 to stay ahead of the curve:
Will 2023 bring the death of the duopoly? With Google and Meta accounting for less than 50% of US digital ad spend for the first time since 2014—and with TikTok and retail media networks gobbling up more and more market share—we may be looking at a sea change in digital advertising.
Caution seems to be the name of the game for marketers heading into 2023. With economic uncertainty still looming, many advertisers are looking for creative and flexible ways to connect with consumers without amping up their budgets.
Today, programmatic advertising is a medium that touches nearly every facet of digital marketing. This piece details seven trends marketers need to know as we head into the new year—as well as how to capitalize on them.
The conversation surrounding artificial intelligence went from a rumble to a roar near the end of 2022, and experts see 2023 being another year of breakthroughs. This article breaks down predictions for what the year ahead could hold and flags questions those potential advancements might raise.
New year, new privacy regulations—five, to be exact. While advertisers juggle state-specific compliance requirements, the ad industry and US federal government continue to work toward universal standards and legislation to ease compliance woes.
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Looking for top programmatic advertising trends for 2024? Check out our post here.
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Digital advertising is recalibrating.
It seems like at every turn, there is something new, unpredictable and unfamiliar. Content platforms are adding commerce, and commerce platforms are adding content (and ads), all in an effort to boost revenue. Meanwhile, privacy enforcement is heating up, online platforms might lose essential legal protection, and consumer behavior continues to transform.
Amidst all that change, though, there is one reliable constant: programmatic, a medium that, at this point, touches pretty much every facet of digital marketing. Its penetration in digital display is forecast to reach a massive 91.1% in 2023 (up from 90.2% last year), and it’s growing in other maturing media formats, too—the likes of connected TV (CTV), digital out-of-home (DOOH), and digital audio.
Not that this is surprising. At a time when marketers are scrutinizing budgets and searching for operational efficiencies against economic headwinds and increased complexity, investing in programmatic makes perfect sense. And even despite the turbulence caused by the loss of the third-party identifiers upon which programmatic was built, the medium is standing its ground as advertisers embrace a raft of new, versatile, privacy-friendly targeting solutions.
By all indications, 2023 is set to be (yet another) dynamic year in programmatic advertising. Here, we’ll dive into seven programmatic trends that are set to shape the programmatic landscape and explore some of the ways advertisers can capitalize on those trends to power growth.
Our everyday lives are jampacked with technology—in 2022, the average US household was equipped with 22 connected devices—so it’s increasingly important for brands to serve up unified cross-channel experiences. Consumers today are watching TV while on their phones one minute, then listening to podcasts while working on their laptop the next—and they expect a seamless advertising experience across all of them.
Adjacent to that, brands have less and less time to win consumers’ attention. Gen Z and millennials, in particular, have grown up in the short-form video worlds of Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube—they won’t hesitate to skip past content and ads that don’t engage them from the get-go.
All this is to say: marketers have it tough.
To combat the challenges and complexities, marketers will need to nail the fundamentals. Powering programmatic media performance entails complicated processes, so advertisers should look to evaluate whether they’re taking advantage of the resources already at their fingertips. That means stewarding budgets responsibly, investing in campaign planning, maintaining media hygiene, optimizing optimizations, and, critically, embracing technology that breaks down silos and accelerates digital media execution. Adopting a passive position in these areas will only expose marketing organizations to crisis and lead to strategies defined more by fire drills than brand values and needs.
The macro trend within the TV landscape is clear—streamers are slowly dethroning linear TV:
Consumers are increasingly tuning into the biggest screen in their homes digitally. And, in the fight for their time and wallets, streaming platforms have been busy—finalizing mergers, securing content rights, and rolling out ad-supported tiers in pursuit of subscriber growth and diversified revenue streams.
Amid these forays into the world of advertising, the streaming platforms are placing an emphasis on how they’re enabling ads via intentional partnerships (think Fox and Magnite, Netflix and Microsoft, Roku and Nielsen, and NBCUniversal + iSpot). This is creating consolidation across a complex ecosystem, unifying some of the fragmentation and opening opportunities to execute digital TV investments more cost-effectively—and programmatically. Indeed, in 2022, 74.4% of CTV ad dollars flowed through programmatic pipes, and that number is expected to rise to 78.6% by 2024.
The development of programmatic in CTV naturally depends on how the various streaming providers want to monetize their vision for ad-supported environments. But programmatic affords vastly more flexibility than upfront or scatter markets, so where there is inventory available, it should continue to gobble up market share.
There’s no question that digital audio is growing in importance, commanding an increasing share of our day and engaging audiences in ways few channels can. It’s an absorbing, emotional, and different experience—and one that drives results (75% brand recall rate, anyone?). It’s also got reams of untapped growth potential. Podcasting advertising alone is estimated to be undervalued by as much as $40 billion relative to other channels. Clearly, it’s time for advertisers to get involved in this opportunity.
The numbers around digital audio make for some compelling reading: Podcasts are projected to account for 5.1% of total time spent with digital media in 2023 (up from 4.7% in 2022). Music streaming has increased 27.5% from three years ago and averaged 1 hour 56 minutes in daily listening time in H1 2022. The penetration for digital audio is currently 78.5% of internet users. And that’s just scratching the surface.
The programmatic share of digital audio ad spending continues to deepen and is estimated to hit 23.2% this year. In times when audiences can be oversaturated with visual advertising, audio offers a great way to diversify programmatic budgets, evolve omnichannel strategies, and reach a highly targetable (and mobile) audience in a brand-safe environment. Those that embrace this medium as a soundboard for creativity and lean into expanding consumer listening habits will likely set themselves up to cut through some of the marketing noise in 2023 and beyond.
If you’re looking for innovation, you may want to get up and get out of the house.
Indeed, some 47% of US agency and ad execs think digital out-of-home (DOOH) is developing the most innovative ad opportunities, behind only social media and mobile. And with TV and radio audiences fragmenting under the force of digital, DOOH is helping advertisers fill the one-to-many void.
Traditionally, DOOH media owners have sold their inventory via time-limited packages that promise a minimum share of voice or number of playouts, essentially guaranteeing budgets per campaign. But as more and more screens pop up across cities worldwide, programmatic DOOH is prospering. Back in 2020, only 6.9% of DOOH ad spending in the US was transacted programmatically, but that share is forecast to rise to 22.6% this year, then 29.0% in 2024.
It’s quite profound growth, and it’s easy to understand the drivers behind it. By tapping into a range of real-time data such as live sports scores, weather fluctuations, traffic updates, or local in-store retail discounts, advertisers can create dynamic messaging and capture the attention of large, relevant audiences. Programmatic DOOH also opens the door to unique creative through full motion video, social media engagement, syncing and touch screen interactivity, augmented reality, QR codes, and more.
While undoubtedly a nascent medium, DOOH is gaining traction through its versatility and ability to successfully drive brand awareness—solidifying itself as a fixture in marketers’ omnichannel media mix.
Google may well have pushed back the deprecation of third-party cookies from Chrome until 2024, but advertisers should understand that between 50 and 60% of signal fidelity from third-party identifiers has already been lost through the actions of other platforms and browsers (such as Firefox, Safari, and Brave). In other words: we’re living in the cookieless future right now.
This, coupled with expanding regulations and stricter enforcement of existing data protection laws (eyes on you, Sephora and Kochava!), necessitates immediate privacy-forward action from stakeholders across the entire advertising ecosystem. Everyone has a role to play: Adtech itself needs to help activate tactics, consult on solutions, and facilitate partnerships; publishers must create a positive CX to empower quality data capture; and brands should be implementing compliance frameworks and advanced data management systems.
What does this mean for targeting and measurement in programmatic? In short: we’re still very much in the innovation and trial stage. New proposals are entering the market all the time and existing solutions that have taken a back seat for a while are garnering renewed attention (hello, contextual targeting!) Eventually, once publishers and advertisers have run their tests, the industry will likely coalesce around a small selection of agile and scalable options. But the point here is don’t sit around and wait for the problem to go away. The time to act is today!
Over the past two years, brands of all sorts have been launching retail media networks (RMNs), opening new real estate for ad placements and promising the proliferation of their privileged first-party data. The revenue success of Amazon has awoken others to the opportunity, with Walmart, Target, and Kroger getting particularly active in ramping their retail network and advertising capabilities. CVS, Walgreens, Dollar General, Ulta Beauty, Petco, eBay, Lowe’s, The Home Depot, Marriott, and Dick’s Sporting Goods (to name just a few) have also gotten into the game.
The growth of RMNs in the US could equate to $45.05 billion in ad spending in 2023, and the ripple effect of this evolution is significant. The ability to match unique customer IDs and ad impressions to SKU sales—all in a privacy-protected way—is compressing the marketing funnel and creating a paradigm shift in digital advertising not seen since...well, the rise of programmatic! All signs suggest the space is likely to scale, and with retailers inking deals with publishers, DSPs, and SSPs that want in on the action, the implications could be far-reaching across programmatic and beyond.
They’re still in their early days, but RMNs are certainly something to watch carefully and leverage accordingly.
It’s been a tumultuous time for social networks—so much so that The Atlantic recently questioned whether the age of social media is indeed ending. The growing levels of social ad spending would indicate not, but there are undoubtedly some interesting, shifting dynamics at play.
In 2022, we saw:
TikTok has been a shining light, but even this golden child of social media should watch its back with emerging competitors like BeReal gaining traction. The key to the future of social is essentially Gen Z—the changing of the social guard is founded upon this generation embracing a social experience rooted in more interaction, entertainment, and authentic communication. Sixty percent of US teens also report that feeling “welcome and safe” is more important than a space to speak freely online.
2023 will be a year for recalibration in social circles as the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter look for new ways to kick-start their businesses. Marketers should look to the younger cohorts for a glimpse into where they should be making sound social investments.
The advertising industry is poised to undergo a digital sea change in the year ahead. And the micro world of programmatic will be in the thick of it. Defining and reaching audiences, what those audiences care about, the channels and tactics employed, and how performance is measured—it’s all changing. Marketers who can stay agile and nail the basics will be in the best position to navigate all the headwinds the industry is running into, and perhaps even turn them into tailwinds!
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Want more tips and tricks to navigate the year ahead? Check out all our 2023 trends content designed to help you stay ahead of the curve.
The end of the year: It’s a time for reflection, planning, and…presents. Lots of presents. Preferably, presents we actually like, and will use, instead of stashing them in our regifting closets for the next holiday season (what, you don’t have a regifting closet?)
So, in the spirit of the season, we wanted to give our readers a little something that should fire on all those aforementioned cylinders. Not only is our gift to you useful for both reflection and planning, but it’s also categorically impossible to store in a closet, because it’s digital. We know, so on brand!
Now, without further ado, please accept this humble offering of 22 think pieces, explainers, and news stories that helped capture the past year in digital marketing. The best part? Regifting this list is not only allowed—it’s encouraged!
2022 was a landmark year for consumer privacy. We saw a slew of new regulations introduced and passed across the globe, increasingly strident data privacy crackdowns from regulators, and yet another delay of third-party cookie deprecation in Google’s Chrome browser. Here’s what to read to make sense of it all:
Advertisers may soon have to confront a new challenge in the realm of data privacy: “digital sovereignty.” But with the global digital economy built on a foundation of free-flowing data, could this concept break the digital supply chain and inhibit a seamless customer experience?
Privacy regulations are tightening, third-party cookies are (eventually?) going away, aaaaaand it appears the advertising industry is largely underprepared. At least, that’s what new research from the IAB’s State of Data 2022 (Part II) reveals. Here, Adweek breaks down the biggest takeaways from the report, as well as what marketers can do to close the “gulf in preparedness.”
Data privacy regulators are not playing around: In September alone, Zillow, Expedia, Chewy.com, and Lowe’s were all fined for alleged data privacy breaches. In response, marketers are reevaluating their data practices and partnerships with renewed urgency—but that’s easier said than done, thanks to collection and sharing processes that are many-layered and difficult to audit.
Privacy changes pushed by Apple and Google have made first-party data all the more important. But one side effect of this shift is that it tilts the playing field towards large digital ecosystems like Google, TikTok, Amazon, and Pinterest, who can easily gather information on their millions of users.
The American Data Protection and Privacy Act, which has been sent to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote, would pre-empt state data privacy regulation if passed. Here are three big things advertisers should know about this piece of legislation.
After Google’s announcement that it will delay third-party cookie deprecation to 2024, ad execs put the “pro” in procrastination. It’s understandable given everything on marketers’ plates right now, but the trend doesn’t speak well to our industry’s future-proofing abilities.
While traditional advertising formats like linear TV, radio, and newspaper have historically been on the decline, new data shows marketers predicting that traditional ad spend will increase in the years ahead thanks to benefits like breaking through digital clutter, tapping into consumer trust, and avoiding third-party cookies.
This past year was so dramatic for Big Tech, it could have been a soap opera. Here are a few of the biggest events and ideas to come out of a year in which lawmakers took some significant swings in service of keeping tech giants like Facebook and Google in check:
Meta’s housing advertising system has been under fire for discriminating against Facebook users based on demographics like race and gender. In June, they reached a settlement with the Justice Department that will compel the social giant to address algorithmic discrimination—a landmark decision for digital advertising regulation.
European lawmakers approved two new pieces of sweeping digital regulation, paving the way for clashes between regulators and the world’s biggest tech companies over how those rules should be applied.
In the past decade, newspaper ad revenue has dropped by an astonishing 50% as advertisers shifted their dollars to the internet. This Q&A explores some of the novel proposals aimed at propping up the news industry—including a “journalism tax” on digital ads.
Social media’s golden child continues to dazzle users and advertisers alike. Here’s what you should know:
TikTok has changed the way people search, buy, watch, communicate, and advertise. Not too bad for a platform once written off as a “silly video-dance fad!” So, how did it grow so dominant, and what are the consequences of that dominance? This in-depth piece touches on all the details.
In this op-ed, George Sharpe argues that as TikTok comes closer to surpassing Facebook’s viewership, viewers will come to prefer “non-perfect video” over produced, polished media. The era of the Instagram filter is coming to an end, and advertisers would do well to consider the cultural shift towards TikTok-style, “real-life” video.
It makes sense that the DTC MVP would encroach upon the territory of social platforms like YouTube and Instagram…but Google, too?! According to the New York Times, many Gen Z TikTokers are now using TikTok as their primary search engine—and that may be kind of a red flag, given that one-fifth of the platform’s search results have been found to contain misinformation.
What a year for connected TV advertising and digital video as a whole! These were a few of the biggest pieces of news in the streaming arena:
All eyes were on Netflix when their ad-supported tier launched on November 3. Though their COO and chief product officer told investors there has been “very strong” demand for ad inventory leading up to the launch, only time will tell if the platform will be able to give advertisers what they want.
Hut, hut…hike! In an effort to expand their streaming audiences, Apple, Amazon, and Google are competing for the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket (with Apple the current frontrunner). See what Big Tech’s dominance of live sports could mean for media companies, leagues, and streamers.
It wasn’t the first time monthly streaming exceeded broadcast in terms of viewership, but it was the first time that streaming also surpassed cable. The downturn in both sports programming and new content on traditional television likely contributed to the shift. Just another day in the rise of OTT and CTV…
The economy. Climate change. In-game advertising. Misinformation. Overwhelmed yet? Never fear—these articles will get you up to speed on all the other big topics 2022 threw our way:
As brands continue to grapple with inflation and economic uncertainty, more and more of them are having to raise prices just to stay afloat. How are marketers approaching inflation-borne challenges? Here, the New York Times explores the “new playbook” for weathering the storm.
Plenty of marketers have worked with their company and/or client on campaigns focused on climate change, but what about the impact of the ads themselves? Between greenwashing, funding climate misinformation, and the media creation process itself, advertising-related emissions have reportedly increased by 11% since 2019—leading some agency leaders to call this moment a “wake-up call.”
As hype around advertising in the metaverse builds, many brands seem to have forgotten all about gaming—a channel that’s intimately connected to the metaverse, but largely untapped (plus, it actually, you know…exists?) This deep dive covers all the bases on how to tap into gaming’s vast and diverse audience.
In the wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover—and the subsequent blue checkmark debacle in which several brands were impersonated on Twitter—online misinformation is top of mind for digital advertisers. New research, outlined here, shows how consumers feel about mis- and disinformation, and how they think brands should address it.
As advertisers pull money out of Twitter due to aforementioned brand safety concerns, where exactly are those dollars going? While some marketers are reallocating spend to social platforms like Snapchat and TikTok, others are saving them for a rainy day (we are in an economic downturn, after all). What’s certain? Media organizations are making their plays for advertisers’ newly available cash.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA)’s effort to audit the US programmatic advertising industry has been rife with complications and controversy (and understandably so, given the nature of programmatic advertising itself). Here, peek behind the curtain into the ANA’s attempt to give marketers some transparency into their programmatic budgets.
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Did you like our present? Did you?! If you didn’t, we’ll be so sad we might just go hide in our regifting closet…
If you did, we’ve got another to share: Each month, our team of digital marketers rounds up the all the best news, tips, and insights from around the adtech industry, and delivers them straight to marketers’ inboxes. Want in on the fun? Sign up for Basis Scout today!