As a marketing professional, one way to impress a friend who doesn’t work in the space might be to have them look at any current LUMAscape.
“Wait...there are that many categories, tools, and companies just for audio advertising?!” they might exclaim as they ponder the complexity of your chosen profession, followed quickly by: “Are you OK?”
They wouldn’t be remiss in asking, given that more than half of marketers say they want to quit their jobs.
Since its debut in 2010, the marketing technology LUMAscape has served as a symbol of both the innovation and the complexity that have come to characterize the digital media and marketing space. Lately, though, the Great Resignation has brought renewed attention to that complexity as a driver of decreased job satisfaction and professional commitment. Buried under mundane, repetitive tasks and an ever-increasing number of tools and point solutions, marketers are burning out fast.
As if recruiting wasn’t enough of a problem on its own, complexity in digital marketing and media presents additional crises for brands, agencies, and publishers alike. Transparency, speed, and cost efficiency are all hindered by a rapidly expanding list of channels, formats, technologies, and solutions—all of which require new skill sets, guidelines, rules, and standards for marketers to learn. “Walking through mud” would be an apt analogy for how increases in complexity have impacted companies in the space.
To solve these colliding dilemmas of staffing, transparency, speed, and cost-efficiency, the advertising industry must better understand their underlying causes. Read on to learn about the factors causing this complexity, and the solutions that are poised to usher in a better future for everyone working in the marketing space.
According to a recent Advertiser Perceptions report, the factors contributing to media complexity for advertising professionals include:
The reported causes fall into two main categories: disparate technologies (number of tools necessary to run a campaign, consumer technology, increase in number of media channels, increase in number of media transaction methods, etc.) and disparate data (inconsistent measurement tools, walled gardens, etc.)
Marketers use an average of nine different platforms to run a typical campaign. That's nine different sets of analytics, customer support teams, and pricing methodologies to manage! And, as more and more media buying professionals leave their jobs, it’s also nine different programs on which companies must train their replacements. Simultaneously, marketers engage an average of six media vendors for a typical campaign.
Speaking of pricing methodologies, media buyers most frequently listed the “increase in number of media transaction methods” as a factor in media complexity. A single campaign often demands a variety of combined buying methods, a practice that hinders transparency and results in increased human error.
The convoluted nature of the ad tech supply chain also creates opportunities for fraud. Ad operations professionals have long noted that “How hard it is to track down bad actors in the supply chain” is one of the biggest challenges in addressing issues with ad quality. Put simply, in addition to the time media complexity steals from media companies, it also creates opportunities for fraudsters to steal their dollars.
All those different tools marketers use for their campaigns produce different sets of data, which are then organized by different sets of metrics. It’s not uncommon for marketers tapping into multiple advertising channels and vendors to have to stitch together precious campaign data from various separate Excel files. They’re then tasked with the near-impossible work of communicating progress to stakeholders and identifying holistic strategies based on their findings.
Attempting work like manually unifying disparate data sources results in an average of six hours spent per week on low-value, repetitive tasks. According to a 2020 4As report on workflow automation, "Tricky and error-prone tasks such as tagging, taxonomy, naming conventions and invoice reconciliation are falling on the shoulders of non-specialists, spread across teams. This results in issues such as labelling inconsistencies that can exist even within the same team or organization."
The same report found that agency media teams waste an average of three hours per day copying and pasting data from one program to the other. Frustrating tasks like these are primed for human error and practically ensure dissatisfaction among any team of highly skilled marketers.
Even more, the need to consolidate marketing data goes far and beyond employee satisfaction—with the deprecation of third-party cookies on the horizon, quality consolidated analytics are all the more critical.
Disparate technologies and disparate data have fostered a fragmented marketing landscape. The consequences of that fragmentation range from high rates of employee turnover to low-quality data, ad fraud, and valuable working hours lost each week.
This complexity shows an urgent need to consolidate, streamline, and automate the media buying process—from planning, to buying, to optimization, reporting, and financial processes. Let’s take a look at some of the opportunities marketing and advertising organizations have to streamline processes within the landscape:
Many industries—including finance, healthcare, and manufacturing—have already implemented broad automated processes to improve efficiency, while the marketing industry lags behind. In fact, global robotic process automation is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.8% from 2021 to 2028.
For digital advertisers, the upside to embracing automation manifests as time savings. A recent study found that advertising automation saves media buyers an average of 90 minutes per campaign. That's time they could spend on high-value pursuits like media strategy, education, and innovation instead of monotonous, repetitive tasks.
Advertising automation offers a better future for our industry and, importantly, its people—one where media professionals can work out of a single platform instead of nine per campaign, where they can use a single analytics dashboard to pull insights and craft strategies based on trustworthy, consolidated data, and easily reconcile invoices from multiple sources to boot. With automation, brands and agencies can have the time and resources with which to craft campaigns driven by real-time insights gleaned from trustworthy data and defined by quality creative, at scale.
To learn more about media complexity in the marketing landscape, check out Complexity, Job Satisfaction, and Automation in Digital Media. Or, to see how Basis can help simplify the media buying process, check out our Basis User Study Report.
Halloween season: It’s the only thing that can convince me to accept the fact that summer is over. My autumn anxiety is soothed by brainstorming costume ideas, eating too much candy corn, and ticking off titles on my list of horror movies to enjoy before the 31st.
If you’re a fellow horror fan, you know that one of the most frustratingly enjoyable parts of watching a new horror flick is seeing how directors play with the genre’s many tropes. Even if you’re new to horror, you’d likely recognize some of these conventions—the jump scare or the final girl, for example.
Sadly, horrors are not confined to the movie screen. The fragmentation and complexity of digital media, combined with the point solutions many marketers use to manage that complexity, can make navigating the space feel like trying to escape a haunted house. And while I have a love/hate relationship with watching horror tropes unfold on screen, I have no love at all for watching digital marketers trip over stumbling blocks that are entirely avoidable.
But never fear: If you’re an adtech user looking to avoid such horrors, this post will help you steer clear of four big ones. Just think of me as the friendly neighbor who, upon hearing that you’re thinking of purchasing a certain decrepit mansion that goes on the market every few years, refers you to a different realtor.
Even if you’re not a horror fan, you’ve probably heard the famous “Jaws” quote, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” In the movie, a police chief, an oceanographer, and a pro shark fisherman set sail to find and kill a deadly shark. There’s a turning point in the movie when the trio lays eyes on the shark for the first time, and... well, it’s a lot bigger than any of them expected. Despite the police chief’s reasonable request that they go back and return with a bigger boat, the ego-driven fisherman insists they pursue the shark with their limited equipment. (Spoiler alert: neither the fisherman nor the boat in question survive).
In the advertising world, digital marketers often set up ambitious campaigns without using all the tools available to them. There’s nothing more terrifying than seeing a well-thought-out campaign with killer creative go live without taking advantage of all the resources available to optimize it, including time- and money-saving features like:
All no-brainers, right? Tap into all the optimization features available to you, and your campaign has a considerably better chance of reeling in the big fish—without capsizing.
Not getting a bigger boat, drinking on the job—who hired this man?!
The horror trope I personally find most frustrating is when the protagonists decide to split up in the process of trying to escape and/or defeat the villain. Apparently, a significant percentage of horror movie protagonists never heard the phrase “safety in numbers.” This poor decision-making plagues characters in films like “Fright Night” and “The Cabin in the Woods,” plus an alarmingly high number of Scooby-Doo episodes.
Sadly, similar missteps sometimes pop up in the advertising world—particularly when it comes to conversion-based campaigns. Conversions, as advertisers know, are kind of the holy grail of marketing. However, in today’s increasingly complex media environment, tracking those conversions can be a challenge.
Cross-device ad targeting allows marketers to not only reach users across their many devices, but track user activity across all of them—so if Jill sees your ad on a CTV device, but converts via her mobile phone, you still get credit for that conversion.
Moral of the story? If you’re running a conversion-based campaign, don’t be the group that splits up! When the whole team works together (read: when you enable cross-device), there’s no enemy you can’t vanquish (read: conversion you can’t track).
After 40 episodes, Fred never learns.
If you work in advertising, you’ve probably heard the “right time, right place” adage more times than you can count. And, like in advertising, timing is a critical factor in scary movies because it creates suspense. In “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” for instance, there’s an almost three-minute-long chase scene where one of the protagonists, Helen, is trying to escape from a hook-wielding assailant. At the end of the chase scene, she’s so close to safety...but her decision to hesitate for just a second seals her fate.
In digital advertising, timing is especially important when it comes to retargeting. It’s a strategy that delivers strong results for awareness, site traffic, and conversion rates alike—but when done thoughtlessly, it can haunt consumers rather than reach them in the right moments. Imagine purchasing a new car, for instance, and then being followed by automotive ads for months on end. It’s not only annoying for consumers, but a waste of ad spend for media buyers.
To avoid this horror, marketers should think through retargeting timeframe rules in relation to whatever product they’re running. If you’re advertising for a coffee brand, then sure: retargeting daily might make sense. For larger and more infrequent purchases, however, marketers should probably not retarget converted customers quite so soon.
Our retargeting campaign knows that you purchased a gym membership last summer, and we’re here to suggest a different option before you renew...
Prepare yourself, because this last adtech horror might legitimately give you a bit of stress. But first, the corresponding trope: the character that’s in denial. I’m talking about those singular characters who have the power to do something about the antagonizing murderer/monster/ghost, but refuse to believe the threat exists until it’s too late.
A classic example? Sheriff Brackett from “Halloween.” When the sheriff is warned about an escaped murderer wreaking havoc around town, he scoffs, telling the character warning him that “I have a feeling you’re way off on this.” As with many other non-believers in the horror canon, karma ensures that the sheriff is ultimately punished for his failure to act.
You probably know where I’m going with this one, right? Yup: it's time to talk about third-party cookie deprecation. I know, I know, cookie loss has been delayed until next year (after previously being delayed to 2022, after previously being delayed…) But consumers and regulators alike want marketers to transition to more privacy-friendly targeting methods ASAP. Right now, advertisers have the opportunity to explore a world of existing privacy-friendly advertising solutions, rather than being forced to implement them without any prior experience. So even if you’re not in denial about third-party cookie loss, it pays not to procrastinate.
Don’t be a Sheriff Bracket: start testing and learning with solutions like contextual and geo-based targeting now! By getting a head start, you’ll protect yourself from falling into the bucket of digital advertising procrastinators who risk karmic punishment (or just old-fashioned, non-karmic consequences from consumers and regulators, which might actually be a scarier prospect!).
The death of third-party cookies, that is...
While dabbling with tropes is a horror director’s birthright, marketers must learn from the mistakes others have made. To that end, I hope this post has scared you enough that you steer clear of the media missteps outlined above!
Another terrifying prospect for marketers? Not being up to date on the latest digital marketing news and developments. Luckily, we’ve got a team of digital marketing experts working around-the-clock to bring you the best digital marketing content and news. Sign up for Basis Scout to get it all delivered straight your inbox each month!
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 10/7/22 - 10/13/22 to stay ahead of the curve:
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.
Not only are marketers dealing with the threat of repercussions from misused data, but the loss of third-party cookies also looms on the horizon. While Google’s delay makes it tempting to procrastinate, marketers who test and implement alternatives early will be better off in the long run. (P.S. There’s a pun in that sentence, but you’ll have read the article to get it!)
This article from The Drum lays out five consumer trends that brands will need to grapple with in 2023—from increased competition for consumers’ time, to decreased brand trust. Thought we were done talking about the many challenges facing marketers, huh? Don’t worry, the next couple of links are much friendlier.
It seems that Apple is set on taking a bite out of the ad industry: Just a few months after rumors first started circulating around an Apple DSP, the tech giant is reportedly ready to start running ads alongside its original video content. With Netflix and Disney+ already planning to jump into the ad-supported pool, 2023 is shaping up to be a year for premium video inventory.
That inventory doesn’t come worry-free, though! In addition to brand safety concerns that have been exacerbated with the backlash around Netflix’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the lack of independent measurement offered by the platform has made advertisers uneasy. In response, the streaming giant has partnered with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to reassure advertisers that their ads will run where and how they're expected to.
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I hated PE as a kid. Don’t get me wrong, I was quite active—how my parents balanced my involvement in basketball, softball, swimming, volleyball, and soccer at the same time, I’ll never know. But PE (aka physical education, aka phys ed, aka my worst nightmare)? Hard pass.
Why? My hatred boiled down to one thing: forced lap running.
Each day in class, my teacher would bring out a box filled with purple slips of paper and dole out several to each person. As class progressed, there were more “opportunities” to “earn” these slips—namely, by not following the rules.
Before class ended, the lap running would begin: run one lap for each slip, drop one in the box when you pass the teacher. For a kid who was a bit of a rulebreaker and not very fast, this routine was, quite simply, the worst.
What annoyed me most was that I had zero choice in the matter! If you’d asked me then if I would ever willingly take up running, the answer would have been a resounding “NO.”
Fast forward a few decades, and—alas!—I was wrong. As an adult, I’m an avid hiker and spend as much time in the mountains as possible. And in the past few years, my outdoor activities have expanded to include (drumroll, please) trail running!
The difference now? I choose to run, give myself opportunities to “play” and try new things as I train, and (perhaps most importantly) there have been zero purple slips involved. Turns out, I have completely different feelings about running when it’s my choice.
But enough about me—it’s time to let you in on how my journey with running relates to digital advertisers.
Right now, advertisers are in a position where they can choose to explore privacy-friendly solutions. That means the process can be done in a way that’s intentional, experimental, and even playful. Today, I’ll make the case for why advertisers should start testing third-party cookie alternatives early, and explore some of the identity solutions currently available for doing just that.
I know, I know: third-party cookie deprecation has been delayed to 2024. Plus, marketers already have plenty to juggle with inflation, economic instability, and ever-shifting consumer sentiments. But while it makes perfect sense for advertisers to want to procrastinate, there are significant benefits to testing solutions now.
If my relationship with running has taught me anything, it’s that doing something by choice is far more pleasant—and effective—than doing it because you “have to.” Still not convinced? Here are the two biggest reasons digital advertisers should get a head start on testing alternative identity solutions:
Consumers have made it clear that privacy must be a priority for the advertising industry. With 86% of Americans saying data privacy is a growing concern for them, and a variety of privacy-focused regulations being introduced over the past year, it’s clear that consumers and regulators alike want the status quo to change ASAP. Brands and marketers who embrace this sentiment now can reach consumers in innovative, creative ways that align with demands for increased digital privacy. Beyond that, addressing customer demand for privacy is a great way to build brand trust and loyalty, both of which are increasingly important in this time of shifting consumer behaviors.
I mentioned this above, but it’s worth restating: doing something when you can choose how and when to do it is a far better experience than being forced into change. Browsers like Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and others have long since bid “adieu” to third-party cookies, and, despite Google’s many delays, the metaphorical bottom of the cookie jar is in sight. Eventually, third-party cookies will no longer be an option, whether advertisers like it or not. By starting to use cookieless solutions now, marketers can avoid the unpleasantness of being forced into the change unprepared.
Let’s start with the bad news: there is no silver bullet to fix all our third-party cookie loss problems...yet. However, there are many strategies that marketers can play with to help them reach the right audiences in privacy-friendly ways.
Here are some of the solutions marketers can explore when it comes to effectively crafting personalized customer experiences in a world without third-party cookies:
Have you “run” out of patience for my extended metaphor? No? Great, 'cause I’m not done yet!
One of the most impactful lessons learned along my running journey has been the importance of trying new things, especially things that are intimidating or unfamiliar. As a mountain-activity-loving adult, I spent years watching those around me dive into trail running, but didn’t participate because of the negative associations I had with running—and also because I feared being terrible at it.
Eventually, I realized how much I was missing out. By taking the risk, I developed a newfound sense of confidence: sure, I was sometimes (maybe even often) the last one up the mountain, but I made it to the top! And I enjoyed it along the way!
For advertisers wary of trying new strategies in their campaigns—especially when it comes to adapting to the identity crisis—a similar lesson applies. In preparing for third-party cookie loss, it’s better to make progress imperfectly than to get left behind.
And the great news? Exploring these new solutions is far more controlled than throwing on a pair of high-tread shoes and hoping they don’t slip as you barrel headfirst down a steep slope. Here are some of the ways advertisers can intentionally explore these new approaches:
A few weeks ago, my partner and I were trail running through the Wind River Range in Wyoming, in some of the most rugged, awe-inspiring mountains I’ve explored. As we followed the winding trail up and over rocky passes, beneath jagged cirques, and around stunningly blue lakes, I found myself reflecting on my growth as a runner: how much had changed since I was that kid living in fear of being handed an extra purple slip and forced to run another lap around the gym!
You know where I’m going here: while transitioning away from third-party cookies may seem daunting now, starting to test privacy-friendly alternatives is the first step to using those alternatives confidently when third-party cookies are finally gone. By being proactive and trying new privacy-friendly strategies now, marketers can avoid being stuck with that dreaded pile of purple slips when third-party cookies are no longer an option.
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Basis Technologies is here to support brands and agencies as we approach third-party cookie loss. To learn more about our perspective on the identity crisis, get a deeper dive on what led the adtech industry to this point, and explore novel solutions in greater depth, check out our guide.
Each month, Basis Technologies’ Programmatic 101 series tackles a different facet of programmatic advertising—from best practices for buyers, to competitors in the space, to trends you should know.
Looking to kickstart a career in digital media? You’ve made a good choice: from the metaverse, to live sports, to TikTok, there’s a lot to get excited about. Plus, it’s an industry that’s forecasted to see steady growth in years to come.
For digital media associates, understanding the basics when it comes to programmatic is a must. To help guide your career journey, we’ve outlined the top three skills digital media associates should have in order to run successful programmatic campaigns:
The most important part of any programmatic campaign is ensuring that a client’s business outcome (increasing market share, driving more traffic to a website, etc.) is translated to the correct digital key performance indicator (KPI).
For example, a client’s goal may be to increase their reach in a new market—but reach isn’t a key performance indicator you can optimize towards within a DSP. You can achieve a similar goal by instead using KPIs like eCPM, which estimates how much revenue is generated per thousand impressions, or delivery, which shows how effectively your ads are being delivered within your chosen tactics.
For a traffic or consideration campaign, the business outcome may be to increase site traffic, but if you don’t control for cost then you’ll likely end up spending a lot of money on just a couple of site visits. To track traffic while controlling for cost, a DSP campaign can be optimized towards a cost-based KPI such as cost-per-click or cost-per-landing page view.
For the same reason, it’s important to control for cost if you hear a client say they want to drive more sales. To avoid spending your whole budget on just a few sales, you can use KPIs like Return on Ad Spend or Cost-Per-Acquisition to track sales while spending efficiently.
Let’s discuss three of the main formats to consider when building out a programmatic strategy: audio, video (this includes CTV), and display (this includes interstitial and native advertising). We’ll break down why each format should be used, when it should be used, and some of the strategy red flags to keep an eye out for.
Use Case: According to eMarketer, digital audio will account for 12.7% of overall media time among US adults. That’s more time than US adults will spend on social media networks or watching video on their mobile devices! No wonder audio is digital advertising's fastest growing category. Plus, it's one of the last ad types that isn’t affected by ad blockers.
Best Used For: Awareness campaigns whose KPIs are focused on reach or completion rates.
Strategy Red Flags: Audio shouldn’t be used as the main ad format to drive conversion. While significant progress has been made with campaign-specific promotional codes and custom landing pages, advertisers should always complement audio placements with display ads to help drive efficiency and scale.
Use case: In 2022, nearly 84% of all US households will use a connected TV. And according to eMarketer, 2022 is the first year that video will surpass non-video formats in programmatic ad spending, largely due to the rise in connected TV ad spend.
Best used for: Like audio, video is best used for awareness campaigns whose KPIs are focused on reach or completion rates. In addition, video is great for brands and products that benefit from visual storytelling to communicate brand differentiators or explain a nuanced product.
Strategy red flags: Comparing programmatic video performance to social video performance is a big red flag. Unlike other channels (who have companion banners or specific call to action buttons), programmatic video and connected TV are consumed before or in the middle of other content. While these videos are great for awareness, consumers are unlikely to leave their content to go complete an action on a website, making them an inefficient way to drive conversions.
Use case: Display ad spend saw huge growth in 2021, and is forecasted to increase by 20.9% in 2022, according to eMarketer. Native ads are particularly well-positioned to deliver higher click-through rates, because their blended-in feel helps to combat banner blindness.
Best used for: While display can be used for any objective, it’s best suited for driving an action, as consumers are used to clicking on a display ad to learn more about a product.
Strategy red flags: When display creative doesn’t have a strong call to action or when the same display creative is being used month-over-month. As a best practice, display creative should be updated every 4-6 weeks, even if it’s a simple CTA or image change.
There’s nothing worse than taking the time to build out a campaign, upload and map all the creative, and set it live…only to find it isn’t spending. If your daily budgets are not being met, we’ve created this helpful checklist for you to run through.
Want more resources to achieve your digital media career goals? AdTech Academy provides curated learning paths that are designed to bolster your industry knowledge around certain topics and industry roles.
Check out AdTech Academy’s learning path for Digital Media Associates here!
The digital media campaign process is in-depth, complex, and relentless. Today, marketers are spending too much time on small, repetitive tasks—time they could be spending on things like media strategy, education, and innovation.
It can be difficult to understand how the right media platform can impact a team’s day-to-day and overall output. So we partnered with Directions Research to study how Basis can help marketers simplify and save time throughout the campaign process.
Among the findings:
Want to learn more about how Basis can help save you time? Download the Basis User Study Report today.
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 9/30/22 - 10/6/22 to stay ahead of the curve:
Hold on to your hats, folks: for the first time ever, the US advertising industry is on track to surpass $300 billion in total annual ad spending. A key driver of this growth? The trifecta of this year’s Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and midterm elections.
Gen Zers are a force to be reckoned with—especially as they continue to enter the workforce and exercise their purchasing power—and advertisers are learning that the “glued to their phones” stereotype is…incomplete. As brands seek connection via different channels, many are turning to the channel of the moment: CTV.
Speaking of CTV: according to Basis Technologies’ 2022 Digital Media Insights in Political Marketing survey, growth in the channel is considered the most prominent development for digital campaigns. Read on to learn more about the trends and factors shaping this year’s political advertising landscape.
As marketers react to consumers’ new holiday shopping habits, political campaigns are gobbling up pre-election ad inventory—and potentially driving up prices. Find out what roles are being played by the economy, connected TV, and this cycle’s “more vituperative political environment.” (No judgment if you had to look that one up—we did too!)
Although Google delayed its third-party cookie cut-off, the adtech industry is going through a drastic evolution as it explores new and effective ways to address consumers in an increasingly privacy-compliant world. This piece breaks down 10 of the most prominent alternative ID solutions.
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Connected TV (CTV) adoption has skyrocketed over the past few years, giving rise to some new and exciting advertising opportunities that offer digital-like targeting and measurability on the big screen. But the channel also comes with unique adtech and business considerations which differ enormously from those of traditional online video.
So, just what do marketers need to know about CTV, and how can advertisers of all sizes drive success in advanced TV more broadly? In this webinar, Beachfront’s Head of Demand Sales Katie Long and Basis Technologies’ VP of Product Marketing Britni Gallello join host Ryan Manchee to unpack these questions. They provide an overview of the CTV landscape before diving into all the various ways advertisers can harness the channel to their advantage.
In July 2022, Basis Technologies surveyed 50+ progressive, conservative and non-partisan agencies, consultants and advocacy organizations specializing in political marketing. According to their responses, connected TV and programmatic advertising continue to gain popularity among political marketers. While the total amount of TV consumption has remained consistent in the past year, the amount U.S. viewers have streamed has increased 22.6%, compared to declines in cable and broadcast of 8.9% and 9.8% respectively, according to Nielsen. Of our survey respondents, 80% consider connected TV as the most promising development for their digital campaigns. This was up from 63% in 2020 and just 40% in 2018. In programmatic advertising, premium inventory access is drawing almost equal excitement. The growing availability of premium CTV ad inventory through demand-side platforms (DSPs), versus buying CTV ads directly with streaming platforms, is likely driving this excitement.
Popularity of using voter file data also made a big jump. This is consistently among the top five selections in the three election cycles Basis Technologies has conducted this poll. This typical tactic for finding voters still has opportunities to innovate because of continued fragmentation of audiences in digital channels. This can also mean that political advertisers aren’t concerned about cookie depreciation, especially when Google is delaying the blocking of 3rd party cookies on Chrome to 2024. However, the industry may be in for a wake-up call as they are forced to re-think voter targeting right before a big 2024 election year.
Survey data from past elections (when our company was ‘Centro’) are available for 2020 and 2018.
There seems to be a movement towards balance in digital budgets. A majority of respondents say they are allocating between 25 to 55 percent of budgets to digital. Compared to previous years, there are now fewer political advertisers saying they budget 25% or less to digital, but there are also fewer who say they allocate more than 55% of budget to this channel (14% now versus 30% in 2020). These projections are in-line with forecasts from analytics firm Cross Screen Media, which predicted roughly 34% of 2022 midterm spending would be allocated to digital. As an aside, more respondents from Democrat-aligned firms think that their digital budget allocations are too low (48% of Dems compared to 38% of Conservative respondents).
Full-service buyers that have competency in both TV and digital, as well as digital buyers, are winning CTV budgets at a higher rate than traditional TV specialists. Full-service firms saw the highest jump from 2020, when only 29% of respondents stated that full-service buyers won more CTV budgets. The advertising industry is still learning CTV, and it bridges two worlds, which explains why there isn’t a clear-cut winner in approaches. It can be a challenge for traditional linear TV buyers to learn programmatic tactics in general, and an even larger hurdle to understand CTV ad buying within the discipline. There is still more development in the technology so these percentage shares may not move much in the next election cycle.
Programmatic advertising is absolutely a key component for any digital political team. It is almost universally used, with 92% saying it is important to digital campaigns, which is a significant jump from 78% ‘Yes’ responses in 2020. The dispute on programmatic is waning in each election cycle—there are zero “I don’t know” responses, which is down from 5% in 2020 and 13% in 2018. As political marketers increase programmatic usage, they are likely to encounter the complexity of the platforms and options, quickly realizing that there are numerous ways to activate the various tactics under its umbrella. That’s on top of all the underlying elements that need to be managed, such as creative approvals, data usage, service models, and interconnection to non-programmatic digital tactics.
As referenced earlier, the use of programmatic and CTV among political advertisers is likely correlated. Respondents say CTV scale is now the most important capability in programmatic platforms—up from No. 2 in 2020. There is much more inventory available in CTV this year than in the previous election cycle. Additionally, they are available through various tactics within programmatic.
Another change is ‘Customer Service Support’ jumping from No. 7 in 2020 to No. 2. More value is being placed on hands-on interactions with partners in programmatic. We can deduce that some of this is related to the general complexity in the data, inventory, creative approval and measurement used for this technology. Creative approval is not yet fully automated and much of programmatic-driven campaigns still rely on the expertise of people and the activation of partners on behalf of candidates and their agencies.
In every election cycle survey, Basis Technologies asks a question unique to this moment in time. In 2022, staffing is a challenge for numerous organizations, but this doesn’t seem to affect the majority of marketing teams for political organizations—58% say that the Great Resignation hasn’t impacted their firms. In this segment of politics and marketing, fluidity in staffing may be the norm especially before and after elections season. Perhaps agencies and consulting firms are ready to weather the activity and the lulls. However, it should be noted that more than 40% say they are being affected with turnover in some form.
The shifting of policies is the top concern again, although it is down from the number of respondents that noted it in 2020 (81%). The pace of new restrictions being announced to target political advertising has indeed slowed. Targeting specific voters was again No. 2, although also down from its 2020 percentage (66%). Digital teams noting cookie depreciation as a concern indicates that this is still a concern even if Google’s deadline is a few years away. Marketers could be using this year as an opportunity to try tactics that don’t reply on third-party cookies, knowing that this may be the norm in 2024. As always, finding the right talent will be a concern for a significant portion of the respondents. Staffing is generally a challenge for political cycles, but there is likely increased difficulty because of the complexity of digital, the increased use of programmatic technology, and high competition for experienced buyers.
There is relatively less uncertainty and less concern of how the current political environment will impact outcomes. In 2020, an overwhelming majority said they were not sure and only 6% stated there will be no impact. This year’s responses to this question is more in line with 2018, with 21% saying there will be ‘No impact,’ and 51% saying ‘Yes, but not sure which way.” These questions were posed to marketers after they’ve been able to observe how major events such as the Russian war in Ukraine, Roe vs. Wade decision, inflation and the Uvalde shooting were affecting sentiments in different communities. The numbers that closely reflect 2018 responses could be due to factors such as this election being a midterm much like 2018, or that 2020 was a unique confluence of a Presidential Pandemic Year Election.
Basis Technologies asked respondents to write-in the topics or issues that will impact their work the most. Clearly, digital buyers have inventory and premium media on their radars. Actual voter issues are not the main concern for marketers. However, ultimately, they want voter turnout because elections have only two outcomes—you win or you lose.
As a thank you to our industry peers and partners, Basis Technologies is donating $250 to Feeding America, Autism Speaks, and the International Red Cross, as selected by survey respondents.
Basis Technologies is a leading provider of cloud-based workflow automation and business intelligence software for marketing and advertising. It’s Candidate and Causes team has been trusted by agencies and consultants in politics, public affairs, and advocacy. Its Basis platform is composed of integrated applications that automate manual operations, standardize business processes, and improve marketing and advertising performance. Basis provides a comprehensive selection of unique buying methods across all channels and devices, utilizing all major creative types and formats. Since 2008, Basis Technologies has helped power digital media for over 1,500 political campaigns and independent expenditure committees, and over 2,000 issue advocacy advertisers. In 2020, among the 400+ U.S. elections campaigns working with Basis Technologies, 70% had winning outcomes.
