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 8/5/22 - 8/11/22 to stay ahead of the curve:
After Google’s recent announcement that it will delay third-party cookie deprecation to 2024, ad execs have been putting 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.
Speaking of Google, the US Justice Department’s antitrust division is reportedly getting ready to sue the tech giant as soon as next month over claims that it illegally dominates the digital advertising market. Digital advertising regulators sure are bringing the heat this summer!
Buckle up, advertisers! Earlier this week, Uber’s main competitor announced the formation of their own media network: Lyft Media. The move positions Lyft to better capture digital advertising dollars through formats like digital rooftop screens, in-car tablets, and their mobile app.
Ahh data—it's a blessing and a curse for many modern marketers (though likely more of a curse for those who don’t know the joys of data consolidation). See how interactive, graphic data visualizations can help improve KPIs and ROI while enhancing collaboration.
Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery announced plans to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into one branded streaming option and detailed their forays into making some of their library accessible on a free, ad-supported TV (FAST) platform. Both developments are expected to further complicate the fragmented connected TV landscape.
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Marketers today have access to an array of analytical tools to make sense of their data and accurately measure performance metrics—from customer data platforms (CDPs), to bespoke homegrown systems, to good old Google Analytics. For advertising professionals, few such solutions have more valuable features than AI-powered custom dashboards, which can dynamically showcase brand stories and help you finetune your campaigns for optimal performance.
With tools like custom dashboards, marketers can get a more robust read on their data to better understand consumer behavior and anticipate next moves. And at a time when economic storms are putting brand loyalty on the line, and mis- and dis-information is a constant threat to brand safety, marketing organizations that can stay agile and data-driven will be best equipped to succeed and earn consumer trust. Let’s explore how bringing data to life through interactive graphic visualizations can help you improve your KPIs and ROI while simultaneously enhancing collaboration—both internally and externally.
Dashboards provide a visual summary of the metrics that are most important to your marketing operations, empowering you with a quick and easily-digestible overview of how the main elements of your program are performing—all in real-time. This ease-of-use means you can access critical insights without having to rely on your IT department or data analysts to parse and interpret the information for you. Advanced dashboarding tools also include discovery features that can help you explore data far beyond the most basic metrics.
Creating reports manually is an incredibly time-consuming process. You need to gather data from disparate sources, organize and stitch it together in spreadsheets, run your analyses, create visuals, and then distribute them to the appropriate stakeholders. The intricate process can often lead to calculation errors and analytical inconsistencies that themselves translate into potential wasted costs.
Automated custom dashboards, however, do all that menial work for you. And, against the backdrop of the Great Resignation, relieving your talent of manual tasks—and subsequently empowering them with more time to focus on higher-value strategic initiatives—can help your organization avoid higher rates of cost-sapping staff turnover.
Recent research revealed that advertising professionals use an average of nine platforms for a typical ad campaign and touch seven of those platforms in a typical day. The fragmentation makes it all the more difficult for marketing organizations to develop the kinds of fluid, cross-channel, hyper-personalized experiences their consumers expect—particularly when it comes to drawing meaningful holistic conclusions from multichannel campaigns.
Custom dashboards can help solve this problem by allowing you to bring all your data together in one centralized location. From there, you can determine the best metrics and graphics for showcasing your campaigns’ performance and results.
Marketing professionals can often feel pressured to make changes to improve campaigns before they’ve even had a chance to fully analyze and dissect performance. By utilizing custom dashboards, you can ensure you’re always making informed decisions based on the latest insights while boosting confidence in the data you’re using to make those decisions. You can also easily see how current and projected performance compares to your overall goals and then confidently reallocate budget and resources to optimize your media spend.
In the new work-from-anywhere reality where teams are often scattered across the country (or around the world), it’s important to consider how your tools can help foster cross-organizational collaboration. With the right dashboarding tools in place, marketing teams can simply create a report and seamlessly deliver it to any relevant internal and external stakeholders through one file or shared login. Gone are the days of needing to manually process spreadsheets or rely upon third-party programs, which inevitably slow down decision-making.
Whether your challenge is data consolidation, preparation, crafting presentations, or analysis, automated dashboards remove the barriers to collaboration and essentially act as a facilitator for ongoing discussions—if/when stakeholders ask questions, you can provide answers on the fly—streamlining the feedback process and allowing you to develop quick, actionable plans. The result: a simpler path to profitability.
Custom dashboards can help fuel employee fulfillment and productivity by replacing once-complex analytical approaches with powerful graphic storytelling that makes it easy to analyze and understand performance. Compiling data from all relevant reporting sources in a single location and highlighting the most relevant insights for your team can help them see how their work directly relates to results and overall business goals. For many employees, this is a huge motivating factor that can guide their work in the areas that matter most.
Traditionally, digital marketing success has meant demonstrating your team’s impact on revenue and the robustness of your marketing-generated sales funnel. But new research shows that KPIs like customer satisfaction, content engagement, customer acquisition costs, customer retention rates, mobile analytics, and customer referral rates are all growing increasingly important to modern marketers.
With basic reporting technology, it’s difficult to fully drill down into what initiatives are powering those aspects of business performance. Intuitive, data-rich visuals can change that, however, empowering marketers with better visibility into aggregated marketing impact and ROI. Suddenly, it’s possible to see what products, offers, and creatives are resonating with specific customers and segments across individual devices and channels.
Key players in sales and marketing often utilize performance reports to illustrate the effectiveness of their strategies and secure buy-in from their superiors. With custom dashboards, you don’t need to sift through dull, static spreadsheets while preparing your presentations—the dashboard has all the features you need to automate the illustration of those insights to your audience. And the engaging nature of the visuals can help you keep decision-makers informed with the most relevant insights.
Whether you’re speaking with a manager, board members, investors, or clients, custom dashboards make it easier to demonstrate performance and (ultimately) earn that much-desired buy-in.
Custom dashboards can offer users an array of benefits, but when it comes to improving KPIs and ROI, not all dashboarding tools are created equal. Here are a few key features to look for if you’re in the market:
Easily change parameters and uncover hidden insights from your data sets.
Create bar graphs, pie charts, boxplots, data maps, and other forms of visual reporting illustrations.
Move your dashboard elements around to keep the most important ones front and center. A drag-and-drop editor also allows you to easily add or remove graphs so you can focus on the data that best suits your business needs.
Instead of creating dashboards from scratch, choose from a list of predefined templates and then adjust it according to your specific needs.
Use more than one custom dashboard for the different aspects of your marketing initiatives. Examples include campaign performance with delivered spend, groups and tactic performance, and location targeting performance, among others.
Easily export your dashboards into PDF, PNG, or CSV files, or create logins for your internal and external stakeholders to view your dashboards on their own time.
Create alerts that inform you when any key metrics you’re tracking on your dashboards experience volatility.
Step back in time to see which behaviors led people to click on your ads.
Change is constant in marketing. Getting access to tools that can help you better manage and interpret data will set your organization up for future success in this fast-moving landscape. Custom dashboards offer the flexibility, portability, and insights marketers need to optimize their strategy for today’s world.
Data Canvas from Basis Technologies empowers users to create customizable, live dashboards that help tell the stories of their campaigns, simplifying the reporting processes and eliminating errors from manual calculation. Curious? Visit our dashboards page to find out more.
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 7/28/22 - 8/4/22 to stay ahead of the curve:
Is it just us, or are legislators across the globe hitting the gas pedal when it comes to digital advertising regulation? While the American Data Protection and Privacy Act is still in draft, if this federal legislation does pass, it will pre-empt state data privacy regulation.
When Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency (which lets users decide if they want to be tracked on the apps they visit) as part of iOS 14.5 last year, it felt like a paradigm-shifting event for mobile advertising. However, a new report suggests the impact has been less dramatic than expected.
Speaking of Apple, after years of increasing privacy standards to curb targeted advertising on iPhones, the tech giant is adding a curious new addition to its App Store homepage: ads. The move will almost certainly ruffle some feathers among competitors—and, potentially, anti-trust regulators.
You made it through three data-privacy-related and thus slightly-stress-inducing articles—here's a cookie! (No, not that kind...) Advertising automation is poised to help advertisers navigate the changing landscape of targeting and data with agility and scale. Here’s what all the excitement is about.
Warc’s bi-monthly Global Advertising Trends analysis reveals that media inflation has fully infected linear TV: Advertising costs have increased a whopping 30% from pre-pandemic levels! (P.S. In the U.S., record midterm ad spending is also a factor here.)
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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.
Isn’t it strange that, in the age of Alexa and robot waiters, the majority of advertisers have to wrangle nine separate platforms to manage a typical ad campaign?
It’s true that our industry has seen great advancement in the realm of automated media buying, namely via the adoption of programmatic advertising. But along with programmatic’s many benefits has come the need for more talent, platforms, and integrations. The marketing landscape is fragmented and complex, yet few brands and agencies have adopted technology designed to manage that complexity.
Enter the missing link: Advertising automation. What is it, what benefits does it offer, and what does it look like in practice? Read on to find out.
The phrase “advertising automation” describes a variety of technologies and methodologies designed to streamline the entire lifecycle of a campaign. That’s right—the entire lifecycle! These tools encompass everything from planning and buying, to optimization and analytics, and even reporting and financial reconciliation.
What does advertising automation look like in action? Here are a few examples:
The cumulative effect of these automated solutions creates organizational agility, cost-efficiency, and time savings for brands and agencies. It also makes marketers’ jobs more enjoyable by eliminating frustrating manual tasks.
Now that we know what advertising automation is and what it looks like, let’s dig a little deeper into the benefits it offers. The combined impact of tools like bid shading, machine learning, and automated reporting produce two main benefits: Time savings and cost-efficiency.
Advertising automation technologies save time by eliminating the need for humans to perform tedious and error-prone tasks, handing those tasks off to technologies that can execute them quickly and without error. Marketing teams that invest in advertising automation platforms are more efficient: Case in point, Forrester Research found that agencies who implement Basis see, on average, a 35% increase in digital team efficiencies.
Take, for example, the consumer expectation for personalized media. According to Salesforce, 70% of consumers report that a company understanding how they use products and services is very important to winning their business. Yet delivering personalized customer experiences in the age of ever-increasing media fragmentation and complexity is a tall order. Marketers must build creative variations, target audiences precisely, and deeply understand cross-channel campaign performance. Here are a few examples of how the process of personalization is streamlined in an advertising automation platform:
First, marketers can use dynamic creative optimization (DCO), combined with customer data, to automatically generate thousands of ad variations. Once the campaign is live, they can leverage automated reporting to quickly communicate performance to stakeholders. Best of all, workflow automation unites the entire campaign process—planning, negotiating, buying, reporting, analytics, optimizations, and billing—into one platform, removing the need for marketers to waste time switching between systems as they balance the nuances of a personalized approach.
Beyond freeing up time for marketers to tackle more high-level, strategic tasks, advertising automation increases cost-efficiency for brands and agencies in a variety of ways.
Consider the impact of the following automated solutions across a campaign’s lifecycle: First, automated bidding solutions assess the optimal dollar amount to spend on each impression. While the campaign is running, AI-powered budget pacing monitors budget spend and alerts advertisers of significant over- or underspend. Simultaneously, built-in protections automatically safeguard against ad fraud. Together, these and many other aspects of holistic advertising automation ensure precision in campaign bidding, performance, and optimization.
The cost-efficiency offered by advertising automation extends to reducing the high costs of employee turnover as well. Organizations that implement advertising automation reduce the number of hours marketers must spend each week on tedious, manual tasks, and provide the opportunity for strategic, fulfilling work. In turn, organizations retain their best marketers for longer periods of time.
For over twenty years, Basis Technologies has been on a mission to create a better industry for advertising professionals via advertising automation. Our team is constantly working on new platform tools and features that eliminate manual tasks and boost efficiency for our partners.
Want to learn more about how automation will shape the future of digital advertising? Check out our guide, Meeting the Moment with Advertising Automation.
A telecommunications company boosted its brand awareness and app installs within the Hispanic community by leveraging programmatic video, display and social resulting in 1,160 new customers.
Our client, a telecommunications company, has been empowering its customers with free phone service technology for over a decade. Before working with Basis Technologies, the telecommunications company focused solely on lower-funnel campaigns with Google Universal App Campaigns (UAC) and other platforms that focused on driving app downloads. For 2021, the client's goal was to expand their efforts and reach a wider audience, specifically the Hispanic community.
The customer evaluated a variety of solutions, ultimately selecting Basis Technologies due to its unique blend of digital media services and owned and operated technology, Basis. The client utilized Basis Technologies' Media Strategy and Activations team to deliver front-to-end support and drive their first-ever full-funnel digital media strategy that incorporated programmatic video pre-roll, display, and social. The campaign ran for three months and focused on the top five Hispanic DMAs, including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, and Chicago. The campaign also provided the opportunity to test different audience segments within the Hispanic community and ad creative elements such as language, emotion, and cultural nuances needed to mirror and authentically reflect bilingual individuals' experiences.
Programmatic
Video pre-roll was a great compliment to the display campaign that drove awareness and supplemental app installs. Video pre-roll achieved a high 65% VCR (video completion rate), exceeding the goal of 60%. It was noted that Basis DSP campaigns achieved a 138% increase in impressions and a 36% increase in app installs vs. Meta (formerly Facebook).
Audience Targeting
The team implemented various targeting tactics such as demographic, behavioral, contextual, and retargeting while leveraging data partnerships with Adstra and Cuebiq to efficiently reach the Hispanic community. For further audience segmentation, the team layered in targets to reach consumers that were identified as mobile device users (Android and iOS), young adults, searching for phone services, small business owners, and low income to see which audiences engaged the most.
The campaign helped establish the telecommunications app as a young, fun brand and attracted new customers who then went on to install and use the app. Between June - August 2021, the ad campaign achieved:
Over the past several years, connected TV (CTV) advertising has skyrocketed. Though linear TV still takes up the majority of ad spend in the US, CTV is making significant gains: from 2017 to 2021, US CTV advertising grew from $4.7B to $14.19B, and it’s projected to hit $38.83B by 2026!
Networks and platforms are embracing this digital evolution, with premium platforms like Disney+ and Netflix making plans to join other streaming giants like Hulu and Roku in offering in-video advertising opportunities.
Amidst all the excitement, you probably have some (very understandable!) questions. Things like: What exactly is CTV? What are all these weird acronyms I keep seeing? Why is this CTV advertising surge happening? And what does it mean for marketers? Read on to find out!
CTV, OTT, ACR—oh my! The world of digital video streaming sure has evolved (and that’s putting it lightly!) What just a decade ago seemed like an overwhelming and unattainable piece of a digital marketing portfolio has become a must-have in every brand’s digital repertoire.
In recent years, connected TV has emerged as one critical aspect of that landscape as viewers and advertisers alike move beyond traditional linear TV or streaming video on laptop or mobile devices.
So what actually is connected TV? Simply put, a connected TV is a TV that is connected to the internet. CTVs include Smart TVs; TVs used in tandem with devices like Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast; and TVs hooked up to gaming consoles with build-in streaming capabilities like PlayStation. And CTV ads? Well, they’re those that run on CTV devices.
“Wait, hold up,” you might say. “What the heck is over-the-top (OTT) then? And how does it relate to CTV? Are all these different from linear TV? And didn’t you say something about ACR? Seriously, what is with all these acronyms?”
These are all fair questions! The evolution of digital video has been accompanied by a plethora of terms and acronyms, many of which are closely connected:
Advertising on CTV devices gives marketers the ability to scale beyond traditional TV commercials and reach audiences who are watching content on their TV, but via the internet instead of cable. Next, we’ll dive into the great CTV boom—from both a consumer and advertiser perspective.
Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane (we promise we won’t stay there too long). It’s March 2020, and the world is in the throes of unknown waters: the COVID-19 pandemic. The uncertainty, fear, and anxiety are all real, heightened by quarantines and stay-at-home protocols.
You, along with 64 million other households, turn to the latest Netflix craze for a much-needed escape: Tiger King. Maybe you watch it over the course of several days, or perhaps you binge all the episodes at once (no judgment here).
This is just one example of how streaming video services have exploded over the past few years. During the pandemic, online video subscriptions soared 26%, with revenues exceeding $1B worldwide. And though subscriber growth has since slowed, streaming has surpassed traditional TV as consumers’ video viewing method of choice.
It makes sense, then, that connected TV advertising would follow suit. Brands want to ensure they’re reaching consumers where they are spending the most time. And with 41.6% of the US population using ad-supported video-on-demand services (not to mention that the average time spent watching CTV is approaching 2 hours a day), CTV is a crucial part of any omnichannel marketing strategy.
Now that we’ve tackled what a connected TV device is and how CTV has grown, let’s dive into the nitty gritty of how CTV ads work.
Once a user is streaming video on a CTV device, content distributors such as Hulu, YouTube TV, Roku, and other apps can then serve advertisements, similar to traditional TV commercials. These ads can be placed at the start of streaming (pre-roll), during ad breaks in the middle of the content (mid-roll), or once the video has finished (post-roll).
Depending on their method of purchasing CTV ads, marketers can target audiences based on a variety of factors. When purchased programmatically through a DSP, advertisers can leverage both first-party data available through the CTV vendor, as well as any third-party data that’s accessible through the DSP. This gives marketers more control over precisely who they are targeting, as well as the ability to retarget effectively.
CTV advertising can take a variety of forms and lengths. The most common connected TV ads run anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds, but they can be as quick as 10 or as long as 60 seconds. CTV ads also lend themselves to interactive content, such as those where a user selects their “ad experience” from a selection of two or three options—helping empower the user and giving the advertiser additional insights for use in both A/B testing and retargeting purposes. The length and format of the specific video commercial is up to the brand that is placing the advertisement, and marketers can make adjustments based on strategic priorities for their brand or product.
Connected TV advertising partners like Hulu, YouTube, Sling TV, and Roku have offered CTV ad inventory for a while, and other major streaming players like Netflix and Disney+ have announced they’ll be rolling out new ad-supported tiers as well. For advertisers, this means increased ad inventory available though their CTV advertising platforms and the opportunity to reach more consumers where they are viewing video.
Stay tuned (oof, we’re really dating ourselves with this pun…) for updates on what these new offerings will look like, and how advertisers can gain access to this premium inventory!
As is the case with all digital marketing channels, staying ahead of the changes and progress in CTV capabilities is an ongoing task. Basis Technologies has all the tools and resources necessary to place and execute sophisticated CTV advertising campaigns, from basic content to complex targeting parameters.
As is the case with all digital marketing channels, staying on top of all the changes and progress in connected TV capabilities is an ongoing task. That said, as a channel that’s currently booming, more and more advertisers are turning to CTV ads as part of their omnichannel strategies and seeking out platforms that help them make the most of the CTV opportunity.
Interested in learning more about CTV—including how advertisers can plan an effective CTV campaign, protect their campaigns against ad fraud, and leverage PMPs to effectively target consumers? Check out our guide for an even deeper dive on all things connected TV.
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 7/22/22 - 7/28/22 to stay ahead of the curve:
Google has once again announced it will delay third-party cookie deprecation, giving digital advertisers some additional time to test and explore cookie alternatives. What it doesn’t mean for advertisers: that privacy is no longer an urgent priority for our industry.
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.
This election cycle is going to be a doozy. To help digital advertisers from all industries plan for the inevitable rise in ad spend ahead, we break down when election dollars will be spent, and where the key battleground geographies are located.
Chipotle, an institution that’s tried out-of-the-box marketing strategies ranging from web series to haiku contests, is using cryptocurrency in their latest incentive to increase loyalty program members. Will customers bite?
Data clean rooms have exploded onto the programmatic advertising scene. But despite their rapid adoption, the definition of what a data clean room is—and all the related nuance—is not well understood.
What the heck is up with the economy? Though more and more signs point to a recession, many economists are hesitant to say we’re in one. For marketers wondering how economic upheaval will impact them and their business, check out this thorough breakdown of the situation.
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Here we go again.
In what is starting to feel an awful lot like a Groundhog Day-like phenomenon, Google has once again announced it will be delaying third-party cookie deprecation in its Chrome browser—this time until the second half of 2024. The search and digital advertising giant said it was doing so to provide advertisers, adtech companies, and other stakeholders more time to evaluate and test its proprietary Privacy Sandbox tools.
So: what does this mean for digital advertisers?
In the short term, the new Chrome target date gives individuals in the industry a chance to catch their breath, continue evaluating their options, and (as Google itself noted) test the Privacy Sandbox API before they’re fully cut-off from cookies. Chrome has significant market share (65% worldwide as of June 2022) so this delay likely provides a little breathing room and, for many, a small sense of relief.
What it does not affect, however, is the larger mission of creating a digital ad targeting solution that satisfies all parties and, most importantly, respects consumers.
As we’ve noted in an open letter from our founder and CEO, Shawn Riegsecker, Basis Technologies believes that third-party cookie deprecation is a unique opportunity for the advertising industry to address its consumer privacy shortcomings. Many of the privacy solutions under development are simply exploiting loopholes and circumventing legislation—not targeting the real issue. And since they are not actually respecting the rising calls for increased data privacy, the success of these loophole-solutions will inevitably be short-lived.
But the truth is that, like it or not, the advertising industry will have to wean itself off of third-party cookies. Whether that means embracing Google Topics, tapping contextual targeting more often, or hunting for that as-yet-illusive “magic solution” that will replace cookies while affording more online anonymity, consumers and regulators alike have made it clear that privacy must be an industry priority.
2022 has seen an array of new privacy-focused regulation and legislative proposals, both in the US and abroad. Meanwhile, non-Google browsers like Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and others have long since given third-party cookies the boot, and a remarkable 86% of consumers say they feel a growing concern about data privacy.
As for what we’re doing, Basis Technologies is proactively adapting to the changing needs of the industry and consumers, and we are prepared for embracing the shift toward a privacy-first future. Our software and services teams are filled with strategic leaders, digital media domain experts, and technical authorities—all well-versed in targeting and identity—and we are committed to implementing real solutions, not just stopgaps.
So, does this latest delay change how marketers should think about (or prepare for) third-party cookie deprecation? Not really. It just means we’ll have an extra year to make sure we get it right.
Unprecedented ad spending in this mid-term election will have broader impact across the advertising ecosystem, increasing demand and driving up rates in multiple areas. However, understanding the timing of when the bulk of election dollars will be spent, and where the key battleground geographies are located, will help provide guidance to non-political advertisers on how to plan for the inevitable rise in ad spend ahead.
Political ad spend has increased massively in each of the last several campaign cycles, and this trend shows no sign of abating in 2022. The 2020 election cycle was the first to exceed $9B in spending, a 244% increase over 2016, and the 2022 cycle is expected to reach these same heights and top $9B again—even without a presidential race at the top of the ticket.
Sure do! Check out our blog post on the challenges and opportunities around targeted political advertising in 2022. Or, if you’re interested in learning how you can best capitalize on all this information, reach out to our award-winning Candidates and Causes team here are Basis Technologies to see how you can make the most of your spend this season.
Wishing you successful campaigns this fall, whether political or not!
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Sources:
2022 Political Video Advertising Projections
Political ad spending for 2022 midterms to reach $7.8 billion
Connected TV Households, US, 2022-2026
Basis internal rate data, 2016-2022
