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Misinformation, disinformation, alternative facts, and big lies—all are uncomfortable realities that advertisers must contend with in the Post-Information Age. With brand safety at stake, how can marketers sidestep questionable content and position their brands responsibly?
Cedar Milazzo and Matt Rivitz of NOBL Media join the webinar this month to help us delve into the issue of misleading content from an advertising perspective. Tune in to learn how marketers can use tools like NOBL to ensure that their campaigns avoid misinformation and propaganda while supporting high-quality journalism.
NOBL Media and Basis Technologies have partnered to provide solutions that empower advertising clients to run campaigns on highly trustworthy content.
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.
One of the most complex aspects of programmatic buying is the ability to decide how much you’re willing to pay for an impression. As the advertising industry has evolved, so too have the bidding models and strategies available. Below, we dive into the evolution of bidding models, from waterfall auctions and header bidding to first- and second-price auction models and bid shading.
Before we get into the different bidding methodologies, let’s get clear on the meaning of real-time bidding, or RTB. Contrary to common misconception, RTB is not synonymous with programmatic!
RTB refers to a buying method used to purchase a single impression via an auction-based system in real-time. Programmatic, on the other hand, is a broad term that represents the automated technology infrastructure that enables media buying.
So, you can use RTB to buy inventory programmatically, but there are other ways to buy inventory that are not in real-time, such as programmatic direct and preferred deals. In other words, RTB is always programmatic, but programmatic encompasses more than just RTB.
Now that we’re clear on what RTB entails, let’s talk about the various models under the RTB header.
When RTB was first introduced, inventory was sold to one ad network at a time. The term ‘waterfall auction’ describes the norm for bidding during this time.
In a waterfall auction, publishers reach out to ad networks one by one, giving priority to larger networks and networks that have yielded more revenue for a publisher in the past. This means that major players like Google Ad Network receive more exposure to auctions, even if there are other networks willing to pay a higher cost.
Header bidding was introduced to address the inequitable nature of waterfall auctions. In the header bidding model, all buyers bid at the same time. This model provides an equal playing field for all buyers despite their size or revenue yield. Today, header bidding has almost achieved the level of an industry standard.
First-price and second-price bidding models are yet another variable to be considered in RTB. In the first-price bidding model, the buyer pays the exact amount they placed for their bid. For example, let’s say Advertiser A bid $4.00, Advertiser B bid $3.00, and Advertiser C bid $3.75. Advertiser A would win the auction because their bid was the highest, and they would pay $4.00. Since buyers have no idea what their competitors are bidding, this method leads to higher bids.
In the second-price bidding model, the buyer pays $0.01 more than the second-highest bid. Using the example above, in a second-price auction, Advertiser A would pay $3.76, or $0.01 more than the second-highest bid.
While second-price bidding has historically been the standard, giants like Google Ad Manager have moved to the first-price model in recent years.
For buyers to remain competitive in a world of first-price auctions, bid shading has emerged as an automated method for bidders to better determine bid amounts. Bid shading algorithms analyze historical bid data, looking at factors like site, ad size, exchange, and competitive dynamics to inform bid recommendations. Bid shading is so nuanced that it can help predict bid prices by tactic, which allows publishers to receive the highest bid while ensuring buyers keep their bids as cost-effective as possible.
To learn more about the benefits of bid shading, check out Why Bid Shading Should Be Part of Your Programmatic Strategy.
There you have it: from waterfall auctions to the introduction of bid shading, RTB has seen many evolutions since its beginning.
Hungry for more? Check out Basis’ Programmatic Advertising Essentials Certification to gain a fundamental understanding of the programmatic landscape.
Plus, keep your eyes peeled for next month’s installment of Programmatic 101 to learn more about Private Marketplace deals, another form of real-time bidding!
The following is adapted from the Basis Audio Advertising Guide. To get even more audio advertising insights, strategies and statistics, download the guide today.
Have you heard the latest on audio?
This year, US adults will spend an average of 99 minutes per day listening to digital audio. That’s a 20% increase compared to just three years ago and almost a half hour more than they’ll spend on social media.
Whether you’re a podcast-binging fiend, a workout playlist obsessive, or a regular on Twitter Spaces, audio advertising is increasingly finding its way into our everyday lives. Accordingly, it is also accounting for an increasingly significant slice of many digital advertising budgets, with marketers eager to reach audio consumers on their platforms of choice.
Want to find out more about the different audio channels you can use to reach your target audience? Let's dive right in!
Think traditional radio is a dinosaur? Then we might as well be living in Jurassic Park, because ancient or not, traditional radio is still a beast in the audio world.
Traditional radio includes both terrestrial (AM/FM) and satellite (SiriusXM) radio. While perhaps not as new or sexy as digital audio, traditional radio still makes up the majority of audio ad spending.
About three-quarters (76%) of total time spent with ad-supported audio happens on AM/FM radio. However, the number of Americans who are regularly listening to traditional radio is ever-so-slowly creeping downward, dropping from 88.3% of the population in 2019 to just 84%— and it’s projected to slip even further in the years ahead.
Of course, this is still a sizeable portion of the population, making it a sensible part of any marketing mix. If impressions are your KPI, then terrestrial radio is still a premier audio channel, with Nielsen finding that AM/FM radio generates 3x the impressions of Pandora and Spotify combined. However, due to the nature of terrestrial radio, the impact of those ads is harder to track than, say, ads placed on a streaming service.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the downward trend in traditional radio listeners and, with it, radio ads’ share of the overall audio ad—from 66.7% in 2021 to an estimated 59.7% in 2025—as advertisers begin to shift their budgets elsewhere.
Streaming platforms like Spotify and Pandora are to radio what CTV is to cable: a disruptive digital force that offers advertisers new opportunities to target and reach specific audiences. Whether it’s rocking out to a favorite band in the car, working out to a high-tempo playlist at the gym, or discovering a new artist while you cook, streaming music is a welcome companion to millions.
After an initial dip at the start of the pandemic, streaming music has taken off in recent months. People are streaming more and more music from a variety of devices, including phones, work computers, smart speakers, and smart TVs. The result: in 2021, digital audio finally surpassed traditional radio in total audio time. Indeed, as Bob Dylan might croon from your Spotify playlist: the times, they are a-changin’.
While many streaming platforms offer ad-free listening (or, in the case of Apple Music, are entirely ad-free), a 2020 survey found that 55% of Spotify users and 79% of Pandora users opted for ad-supported tiers. Overall, the number of US digital audio listeners is growing—from 218.6 million in 2021 to an estimated 230.8 million by 2025. Spotify is expected to grow by nearly 20% in the next four years to 100 million US listeners. And US ad revenue for both Spotify and Pandora is on the rise: in 2022, Spotify ads are expected to take in $685 million, and Pandora’s an astonishing $1.25 billion.
Active listening has rising steadily risen since the start of COVID, as people spent more of their time at home instead of commuting. Behold: podcasts, an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device for easy listening. They can tell a story, educate and inform, incite emotion—or do all three at the same time. They’re a perfect place for audio ad placement/spend, and right now, podcasts are booming.
An estimated 116 million Americans, or 41% of the U.S. population over 12 years old, are now monthly podcast listeners—an 11% increase over 2020, according to Edison Research and Triton Digital.
Podcast ad spending in the U.S. will cross the $1B mark this year, and its ascent will continue in the years to come: projections state that ad spend will exceed $2B by 2023.
While the podcast realm is undoubtedly a huge opportunity for marketers, only about a quarter of large advertisers are investing at scale in this space today. However, programmatic podcast ad spending is expected to more than double between now and 2025, so advertisers would be wise to work podcasts into their digital audio advertising strategies soon rather than later.
Audio on social media is still gaining traction, but it’s already providing new ways for users to stay connected. It seems that almost every social platform is considering their own take on the function and how it could be integrated into their respective app. While social audio inventory is not yet available programmatically, this is a fast-growing space and definitely one to watch in the years ahead.
Meet some of the latest and greatest players:
Clubhouse is an audio-based social network where people can spontaneously jump into audio chat rooms together. Users can view unlabeled “rooms” of all the people they follow and join to talk, listen along, or just look around to see what piques their interests. High-energy rooms attract larger crowds, while slower ones notice more participants slipping out to join other chat circles. Worldwide downloads of Clubhouse soared to 10.1 million in February 2021, but appear to have mostly slowed in the months since.
Reddit is currently testing its own take on audio social with ‘audio rooms’ in subreddits. The self-proclaimed ‘discussion website’ has been working on more options to boost real-time engagement and interactions over the past few years, with the additions of live-streaming, in-app messaging, and random group discussion to better connect users with similar interests. Audio social rooms provide a way for Redditors to enhance community connection and engagement by dropping into real-time chats about their favorite topics among other Redditors whom they already know and follow in the app.
Facebook also wants you to start talking and listening on its platform. The platform’s audio plans include an array of new products, including:
• An audio-only version of Rooms, a video-conferencing product it launched a year ago (amidst the mid-pandemic race to Zoom)
• A Clubhouse-like product that lets users listen to and interact with speakers on a virtual stage
• A voice message product that allows users to post audio in newsfeeds
• A podcast discovery product that will be connected to Spotify.
Twitter launched its own version of social audio, dubbed Spaces, in April 2021.
LinkedIn, Discord, and Instagram are also starting to embrace social audio, as well as a variety of startup apps, like Fireside and Stereo.
Audio is everywhere, and the advertising opportunities are endless. Check out our Audio Advertising Guide to learn more about the world of audio and see why digital audio advertising should be a larger part of your media conversation.
Historically, programmatic advertising has operated on a second-price auction model. In recent years, however, giants like Google Ad Manager have moved to a first-price auction model, citing transparency and simplicity as reasons for the switch.
So, what’s the difference between first-price and second-price models, and what does it mean for programmatic marketers?
Let’s say you want to get your best friend something really special for their birthday. You find the perfect gift on an auction website—a signed, out-of-print record from their favorite band.
You see that a couple of other people have already bid on the record—Bill bid $50, and Jane bid $75. Your maximum budget is $100, so you bid that amount. Depending on whether the website uses a first-price or second-price auction model, here’s how your bid will play out:
First-price auction model: You’ll pay the exact amount that you bid—$100.
Second-price auction model: You’ll pay $0.01 more than the second-highest bid, or $75.01.
That second-price bid sounds a heck of a lot better, right? The question is, in a world where first-price auctions are the standard, how can buyers save money while still submitting winning bids?
Let’s back up a few steps and say that you’ve developed an algorithm to assess the optimal bid. You tell the algorithm your maximum budget is $100. It then analyzes historical bid data for vintage records and estimates the lowest possible bid within your budget that’s sure to win the auction. With the help of your algorithm, you end up bidding $85—a price that’s lower than your maximum budget, but higher than the highest current bid. You win the bid, get the record, and your best friend is elated.
In media buying, the vintage record is an impression, and the algorithm you use to assess the optimal price is a bid shading algorithm that lives within the DSP you’re using to buy media. DSPs that offer bid shading automate the bid optimization process and aim to reduce the bid price that a buyer pays to win an auction.
So, why utilize bid shading? For brands and agencies, the benefits come down to time savings and cost efficiency.
Bid shading reduces the time that media buyers spend manually analyzing bid pricing to find the perfect bid and updating that bid throughout a campaign. This frees them up to do more of the high-skill, strategic and, frankly, enjoyable work that it takes to run effective campaigns.
In addition to the time efficiency bid shading affords media buyers, it also creates opportunities to win more impressions at lower prices, resulting in more efficient CPMs and more impressions at the same budget. As a result of lower CPM’s, bid shading can improve CPC, CPA, and CPV. According to AdExchanger, buyers save about 20% on average with bid shading.
Like programmatic advertising itself, bid shading is an example of automation at work. By automatically optimizing bids, it saves brands money and frees up media planners’ valuable working hours.
Bid shading is just part of Basis’ optimization suite, which saves time and increases efficiencies through AI and workflow automation. Learn more about how Basis is transforming the media buying experience.
Marketers in the cannabis space face a host of unique challenges. From navigating advertising regulations, to reframing stigmas, to understanding under-researched audience segments, the opportunities presented by cannabis are accompanied by significant hurdles.
Sam Hollander, Chief Digital Officer at Enlighten, joined the podcast this month to share what he's learned building an advertising framework for the largest digital retail and digital marketing company in cannabis. Listen in to learn why consumer education should be a priority for cannabis marketers, what first steps marketers should take before launching a campaign, which consumer profiles they should pay attention to, and more.
What’s new in the realms of paid search and social media? Basis’ Senior Vice President of Paid Search and Social compiles all the latest news, trends, and resources each month for easy access.
Report: Amazon Prime Users Increasingly Start Shopping with Google Search
eMarketer found that more than 57% of online shoppers begin their journeys on Google platforms—an increase of 3 points from May of last year, and a shift that's even more prevalent among Amazon Prime members. This is likely a result of Google’s recent focus on shopping-related initiatives, like offering free listings and allowing people to check in-store inventory directly within Google search.
How Google Uses AI in Google Search
Google continues to lean into machine learning to help Google Search return relevant results for users. Here, Search Engine Land offers an in-depth explanation of all of the different behind-the-scenes tools that work together (along with natural human search behavior) to influence ranking within the SERP. Learn when and where AI comes into play, as well as what search marketers need to know about AI’s influence on Google search.
YouTube Outlines Key Areas of Growth, Including the Rise of Shorts and its Expanding Creator Economy
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has shared an overview of the platform’s key areas of focus for 2022. These include a renewed focus on Shorts (Youtube's TikTok-like short form video platform), which recently hit 5 trillion overall views. Wojcicki also highlighted how creators can make more money on YouTube, which is key to attracting content developers and in turn capturing additional engagement from viewers.
With New Shopping Lenses, Browsing Products is Simple with a Swipe
Snapchat lenses have long been used to help Snapchatters engage with, try on, browse, and shop for products through their device’s camera. This new type of shopping lens also lets users see details on color options, sizing, similar items from the retailer, and price, as well as swipe through multiple products all in one place. Currently in early BETA, Shopping Lenses should be expanding in the coming months.
Pinterest Introduces AR Try On for Home Décor Shopping Experiences
Pinterest's new feature allows Pinners to shop for home décor inspiration using AR technology to virtually place items from US retailers into their homes. With millions turning to the platform for home décor inspiration monthly, this new experience aims to shorten the decision-making process for home décor in the same way that AR technology lets users try on beauty or retail products with your camera.
TikTok Partners with Zefr on Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement
Basis' TikTok reps recently shared the news that Zefr is launching new measurement solutions for in-feed ads in North America, the UK, and the EU to provide third-party reassurance that their investment is being delivered next to suitable content for their brand. Post-campaign video-level insights and analytics are available against all of the GARM suitability risk categories, in addition to TikTok’s built-in pre-campaign inventory filters that can be applied to qualify content in advance of placement.
Pinterest: 6 Tips for Idea Pins
Idea pins, though launched globally last year, are still a relatively under-utilized content format within Pinterest. An evolution of the story format, idea pins allow for full-screen video, designed to engage and inspire Pinners. With more people gravitating toward shorter-form video content, Pinterest released these new tips to help brands looking to test the format to get started.
eMarketer Reports: How Platforms Perform for Influencer Marketing
Recent surveys show that Instagram is the top channel for influencer marketing in the US, because of their creator-friendly environment and well-developed branded content tools. While Facebook sits in the #2 position, Twitter and Snapchat also made the list, with 25% and 17% of influencer marketers planning to use their platforms this year. Not surprisingly, TikTok has risen drastically since 2020, with two-thirds of influencer marketers reporting that they plan to use the platform in 2022.
US Social Network Users 2022 Statistics Report
eMarketer recently updated their forecasts for 2022 usage across Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tiktok, and Facebook/Instagram. By 2025, they predict TikTok will remain the third most-popular social network in the US, behind Instagram and Facebook in internet user penetration, followed closely behind by Snapchat.
Side note: eMarketer also published a new report highlighting which social networks excel at holding users’ attention, finding that TikTok tops the scales in average time spent per day on a social networking platform.
LinkedIn: Record Engagement Continues Amid the “Great Reshuffle”
As people continue to evaluate how and where they work, LinkedIn reports that the platform continues to be “mission critical” in helping to connect communities, job seekers, employers, skills, and sellers/buyers. Microsoft also reported increases in LinkedIn events, and announced some new tools within the events space.
People rarely achieve career success in a vacuum. Throughout our long and labyrinthian journeys, we encounter colleagues, managers, executives, and—for those of us lucky enough—advisors and mentors who provide us with valuable external perspectives and open avenues to greater business pursuits.
At their best, meaningful mentoring relationships in the advertising industry are a two-way street. They represent opportunities for the mentee to expand their professional network and develop social capital while simultaneously helping the mentor keep the pulse of the perpetually changing trends that characterize the advertising landscape. Navigating the AdTech industry can be overwhelming and complex, and tapping into as many outlets as possible is a great way to do so more effectively.
With employees the world over coming up on two years of working from home, there may be a sense these once commonplace, all-too-critical career-building moments in the workplace are a thing of the past. In a workplace ecosystem where the majority of our interactions take place in Slack channels or formal Zoom meetings, it can feel increasingly difficult to gain access to senior leaders, have spontaneous conversations with a peer, or simply squeeze in time to seek out advice. This has left many employees—especially those earlier in their careers—afraid of being isolated or left behind in the career stakes.
By prioritizing mentorship, companies can effectively (and productively) fill the ongoing connectivity and community void that currently exists both within, and beyond, the walls of AdTech.
Building a personal advisory board can be integral to career growth, particularly for those at the outset of their working lives or in mid-level roles. By engaging in conversations and developing relationships with experts, young professionals can garner fresh ideas, develop reputational currency, and ultimately build for their future.
In our latest AdTech Unfiltered podcast, long-time mentor and thought leader Matt Barash speaks on this subject at great length. “I think it’s really important to look to a variety of different people and surround yourself with diversity to be able to become smarter and better at what you do,” he says. “There’s a big, growing AdTech ecosystem, (and) if you’re curious, and if you’re entrepreneurial, and if you’re willing to assume a little bit of risk, then there’s incredible reward to be found.”
Finding a great mentor is, of course, not always a straightforward undertaking. It takes time and commitment on the part of the mentee. Matt recommends starting simple and going to someone who’s already well-positioned to offer pertinent advice. “I say look at your manager first. If you’re bought into your manager and your manager is bought into you, that’s the first step toward success. Odds are that they’re a little bit more senior, they’re a little bit more experienced. And so perhaps they can impart some words of wisdom to help you be better at what you’re doing in your core competency, in your core role.”
Looking for a mentor inside your organization comes with other benefits, too—it is a move that can foster long-term friendships, trustworthiness, and mutual respect among colleagues that can contribute to a healthy and inclusive culture in the workplace. Meanwhile, from the company’s perspective, endorsing and facilitating opportunities for employee-management mentorship can help in nurturing and developing a cohort of future business leaders from within.
However, this is just but one option available to professionals who are seeking guidance. Mentors don't inherently have to share the same corporate circles as their mentees. Sometimes, having someone look at things from an entirely unrelated perspective can help provide an additional layer of clarity. “Get out and go to networking events if you can,” Matt says. “Get to know people. Have a cup of coffee with someone. Don’t be shy. Ask people for their time. You’ll be surprised—people will give it back."
The term “mentoring” itself carries different connotations for different people, so setting clear expectations is essential to the success of any mentee-mentor relationship. To Matt, that process starts with the mentee asking themselves some honest questions and clearly establishing their personal and career goals. “Where are you today? What are the things that you need to focus on? What are the areas you need to shore up and invest in to be better to get to where you level up? Having a good sense of where your curiosity is, of where your strengths are, of where you feel you have vulnerabilities, will help you to recognize how to best frame the conversation.”
Matt also stresses that mentoring doesn’t necessarily have to be about the big picture. “It’s really important to have conversations where you also look for the best practices in terms of the tactical part of your day-to-day to ensure that you’re handling things properly and you’re well-positioned. Conversations can range from having a strategic conversation around something that might be a multi-hundred-million-dollar M&A discussion to something as simple as, ‘Should I keep Slack notifications on at night?’”
The rapid shift to remote working has reshaped many aspects of business life, not least of which is how accustomed we've become to communicating with each other through digital forums. While it may feel somewhat paradoxical, in many ways, that virtual inter-connectivity makes this a perfect environment for pursuing mentorship.
“Saying ‘What if?’ is my biggest fear,” Matt says. “I never want to say, ‘What if?’ I want to say, ‘How do I have as many options as possible? How do I have as much understanding as possible?’” Mentorship is an effective way to attack those questions and unlock doors that would otherwise remain closed.
To hear more insights from Matt Barash, check out his conversation with Basis Technologies’ VP of Media Innovations and Technology, Noor Naseer. Matt describes how he became a mentor himself, talks about the tough side of being a mentor, and details the importance of thinking about your career development from a macro perspective.
In recent years, workplaces of all kinds have faced a reckoning. As people across industries call out their experiences of bias and microaggressions at work, and racial diversity reports demonstrate continuing systemic injustice, employers have renewed their commitments to create diverse, equitable, and inclusive organizations.
In the advertising industry, Black professionals have faced countless barriers due to racism. Despite this, Black individuals have made paradigm-shifting contributions to advertising throughout its history. Below, we look at five exceptional advertisers who have disrupted the marketing space in amazing ways:
After earning an M.A. in musicology from Yale, Roy Eaton began his career in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He worked as a concert pianist, performer, and lecturer before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, where he wrote and produced radio programs. After leaving the military, Eaton was hired at Young and Rubicon as a copywriter and composer. He is now believed to be the one of the first Black professionals to work in advertising.
Eaton made a huge impact on advertising from his post at Young and Rubicon, writing iconic jingles for brands like Chef Boyardee and Texaco. Eventually, he struck out on his own and created Roy Eaton Music Inc., which handled music production for various advertising agencies. There, Eaton went on to collaborate with Michael Jackson and produce even more iconic advertisements for companies like Coca-Cola and the Ad Council. Eaton was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame in 2010.
When Vincent T. Cullers returned to the United States after serving as a Marine in World War II, he applied for an art director position at an advertising agency. He spoke on the phone to a hiring manager who told him to come in and start work, but when he arrived, he was told there was no position for him. This experience inspired Cullers to start his own agency in 1956—Vince Cullers Advertising, the first Black-owned advertising agency in the U.S.
Cullers’ agency provided a training ground for Black advertising professionals who faced many racist barriers to entry and success at other agencies. Additionally, marketers have Cullers to thank for the concept of targeted multicultural advertising, having pioneered the practice of serving ads designed to speak specifically to differentiated audiences. Cullers was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame in 2007.
Carol H. Williams started her advertising career in 1969, at a time when Black women professionals faced extraordinary prejudice that significantly limited their opportunities in the field. Williams rose in the ranks at Leo Burnett and, in less than 10 years, became the agency’s first female and first Black Creative Director and Vice President.
Like Cullers and Eaton, Williams eventually founded her own Black-owned agency. Started at her own kitchen table, Carol H. Williams Advertising is now the longest-running independent multicultural marketing shop in the U.S., serving brands like Disney, General Motors, and Kraft.
Williams has been called the "most decorated woman in marketing,” and her awards include the AAF’s David Bell Award for Industry Service, Chicago Advertising Federation’s Advertising Person of the Year, and the National Association of Women Business Owners’ Women Entrepreneur of the Year. Williams was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame in 2017.
Haitian-born Gary Coichy worked with agencies and brands like WPP Mediacom, Omnicom Resolution Media, BMW, and Dell for 16 years before striking out on his own. In his years in the advertising space and throughout the rise of audio, Coichy recognized a gap in the podcast market when it came to sourcing content from non-white, LGBTQ, and women creators.
Coichy's creation, Pod Digital Media, is the world’s first multicultural podcast network, and allows advertisers to tap into a diverse podcast audience while custom-aligning creators from underrepresented groups with blue chip brands. When COVID struck, Pod Digital Media got even more innovative, meeting podcaster’s needs by creating an in-app virtual recording studio. Coichy was included in Ad Age’s 40 under 40 list in 2019.
Natalie Gullatt may be earlier in her career than some of the other leaders on this list, but she’s accomplished a striking amount in her eight years as a marketing professional. Currently employed as a Customer Marketing Manager at HubSpot, Gullatt worked as a paralegal and planned to go into law before pivoting into marketing with the help of an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.
In 2017, Gullatt founded the Black Marketers Association of America, a group that works to “empower, elevate and educate Black marketers financially, mentally and emotionally through their marketing careers.” Her work to support and connect Black marketers while strengthening and diversifying the marketing industry earned her a B2B Innovator Award in 2021.
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The individuals on this list represent the thousands of Black individuals who have shaped the marketing industry with their talent and innovation. This Black History Month, we at Basis Technologies are grateful to these innovators and to all the Black marketing and advertising professionals who continually enrich, transform, and lead this industry into a better future.
Programmatic advertising is firmly on the path to becoming the default framework for digital media buying. Even when the world has had to press a large pandemic-shaped reset button, the medium has proven flexible and effective enough to continue asserting its profound dominance over the landscape.
Back in early 2020, facing a wholly unfamiliar reality, marketers were forced to scramble as they sought to determine what mechanisms would most effectively support their advertising efforts in the “new normal.” While programmatic ad spending was initially hit hard because brands could simply pause campaigns instantaneously, it rebounded quickly to continue growing at double-digit rates year-over-year. In 2022, eMarketer predicts that a shade more than 90% of digital display ad dollars will be transacted programmatically, with the dollar volume of programmatic display close to doubling the 2019 figure ($115 billion and $61 billion respectively).
These are not insignificant milestones and point to the fact that opportunities for expansion and refinement within the programmatic sector still abound despite its prevalence and popularity. With connected TV (CTV) adoption showing no signs of slowing down, the digital out of home (DOOH) market back and booming, and the use of audio platforms rising rapidly, advertisers are awash with new programmatic inventory to better connect with their audiences.
Naturally, venturing into these emerging forums will present novel technical and strategic challenges, ones that will sit alongside broader industry goings-on—most notably those pertaining to the impending deprecation of third-party cookies and the growing prioritization of consumer privacy. To help marketers strategize and structure their organizations to embrace the next stage of programmatic evolution more effectively, we’ve compiled a list of the latest trends within the space that point to where 2022 priorities ought to lie.
With the removal of third-party cookies from Chrome lingering just over the horizon, 2022 will be a make-or-break year for the development of new identifiers and technologies that can either reimagine the concept of tracking codes or replace them entirely. This is very much a watershed moment for the advertising industry—one in which organizations must seize the opportunity to become more transparent with their audiences. It is vital that new identity solutions put consumers in the driving seat and empower them to control how, when, and where their data is used.
These changes, of course, do not need to incite any panic. The end of targeted campaigns is not upon us. Programmatic advertising—even in the absence of many once-relied-upon persistent IDs—will continue to give media buyers access to publishers and placements, with contextual targeting likely re-emerging as an integral piece of the puzzle.
There is actually a huge opportunity here for savvy brands to deepen their relationships with consumers in ways cookie-based tactics never truly allowed. Recent research by Deloitte Digital exploring emotion-driven engagement revealed consumers prefer contextually sensitive brand experiences since they tap into their more immediate concerns, rather than over-relying on past behavior or browsing habits. By embracing the use of contextual data in programmatic campaigns, marketers can foster meaningful connections with consumers that inspire and frame the depth of brand loyalty and brand advocacy.
A mere decade ago, only a handful of brands were managing their own programmatic ad buying. Today, however, the story is considerably different. A 2020 IAB report dissecting the general state of programmatic found more than two-thirds (69%) of marketing organizations globally have partially or fully brought their programmatic campaigns in-house in a bid to remove the medium’s black box aura.
The primary driver behind this trend is a desire among brands to strengthen consumer bonds and control first-party data and operational functionalities that relate to both legal and regulatory compliance. In other words, advertising teams want increased transparency into the buying process. At a time when consumer sentiment changes like the wind, media buyers must be closer to the action with direct access to the raw, real-time data they need to react in the moment, create relevant content at a faster clip, and run off-the-cuff A/B testing. In-housing programmatic comes with other benefits, too, not least monetary savings and resource efficiency. By cutting out managed service fees and eliminating associated data consolidation and integration costs, advertisers have more dollars to throw at campaigns and more time to optimize strategies. The end result: greater ROI.
The process is not all rosy, though: it can often be many years in the making and extremely complex, involving much more than just a deal with a DSP provider. Business leaders need to think about the set-up, change management, data centralization, tools, and talent (which is scarce). You can learn more about the nuances associated with this subject here.
With the worlds of TV and digital gradually coming together over time, more and more consumers have chosen to unplug from traditional linear TV options and embrace online streaming—a move that’s fueled the connected TV phenomenon. Then, as the pandemic gripped the world and forced people to spend more time at home, the media landscape was set perfectly for CTV adoption to soar to new heights and, now, what was once a “nice-to-have” programmatic channel is unequivocally a “need-to-have."
Programmatic's penetration of the CTV arena reached a massive 70% in 2021 and it is expected to surpass 78% by 2023. However, while there is undoubtedly momentum here, there are still some obstacles to further growth. Unlike, say, mobile app advertising, where the vast majority of inventory is available within just two operating systems—iOS and Android—the CTV space is infinitely more fragmented in terms of different devices and providers where an ad could be displayed. Think streaming sticks (Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku, Android TV), games consoles (PlayStation, Xbox), and Smart TV devices (Samsung, LG, and other manufacturers), each of which have distinct standards and advertising capabilities. In 2022 and beyond, programmatic CTV has huge potential, but to maximize campaign success, advertisers must carefully consider where they are serving their ads and which devices to embrace.
Following what has been a challenging period for the medium, digital out of home is spiking again as advertisers search for creative ways to target consumers who are back on the go. US DOOH spending will reach $2.58 billion in 2022, and with more and more digital advertising screens dotting cities across the country (and the world), programmatic looks poised to take an even a bigger slice of that pie in the future.
The appeal of investing in programmatic DOOH ads is multi-faceted. First, they offer the obvious benefits of wide reach, being impervious to ad blockers, and dwelling in non-invasive environments. And second—and perhaps more importantly—this media newcomer should be a major beneficiary of the cookieless future due to its alternative means of audience targeting and the opportunity it presents for contextual marketing to come to the fore. To put it another way, PDOOH is not executed on a one-to-one basis, yet rather one-to-many. Brands employing this technology can tap into fluctuating societal, cultural, and environmental trends in real-time, and reach consumers en masse with relevant ads as they navigate their daily journeys.
It also opens up new creative opportunities, great examples of which include when Renault bought OOH inventory to promote its latest electric car whenever air quality dropped below accepted levels, or when Flonase ran DOOH campaigns anytime pollen levels rose in target areas. Brands that adopt PDOOH have an opportunity to create meaningful, head-turning experiences that leave a marked impression on consumers. There is no doubt that this channel is emerging as a compelling disruptor to brands and advertisers looking to develop their presence during uncertain times.
After a decade that’s been dominated by visual media, audio advertising has surfaced as an important outlet for brands. It is a channel that empowers marketers to evolve their omnichannel strategies naturally through its capacity to reach highly targetable and mobile audiences in brand-safe ecosystems where screens are removed from the equation.
In recent years, fatigue from spending too much time glued to our smartphones has become real. More than half of millennials and Gen Z—the holy grail of advertising demographics—say audio represents a welcome escape from too much ongoing ocular bombardment. These sentiments have become tangible as well, with eMarketer predicting that, per day, listeners will spend 97 minutes with digital audio—nearly a half-hour more than the average user will spend on social media (70 minutes). Unlike their visual equivalents, audio ads are served one at a time in places where consumers are not typically connected to a screen—be that listening to a podcast during their commute, listening to a playlist during a workout session, or unwinding with Pandora after dinner. In essence, audio ads are both unique and highly valuable as they offer premium environments and an effective way to fill otherwise untouchable voids in the user’s buying journey.
Beyond that, programmatic audio offers remarkable granular targeting capabilities. Media buyers can tap into a range of advanced audience segmentation parameters, including location, point of interest, device, weather, user, agent, format, genre, day parting, mood, and more. Through this channel, the ability to engage a user in the right place, at the right time, and within the right context becomes just that bit more accessible.
Compelling, insightful, captivating creative is one of the foundational pillars of effective advertising, but, for a host of reasons, this age-old connection has been badly severed. Unprecedented technological advancements over the last 10 years have led many advertisers to shift focus toward media optimization as opposed to creative optimization: smarter targeting, omnichannel expansion, algorithm hacks, and evermore granular reporting have all become top priorities... often leaving creative behind as an unfortunate casualty.
It is an approach that has bred general content erosion and brand dilution. Without any creative spark, performance ceilings become much lower, and regardless of how good advertisers are at maximizing media outcomes, they will never be able to mitigate the shortcomings of ads exhibiting underwhelming creative. This is particularly pertinent with the cookieless future looming. The digital marketing industry as a collective must now reappraise all the levers that contribute to driving results and no area is riper for improvement than creative delivery.
This is not to say advertising teams should constantly be creating new swathes of creative concepts. Instead, they should focus on building a library of assets and then tweak and refine them depending on the nuances of their targeting strategy. By generating a high volume of creative iterations, programmatic marketers can better react to market changes, tailor their messaging for audience personalization, and A/B test on every channel they are invested in. They will essentially be able to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Advertisers today must navigate an ethical minefield on a permanent basis. While programmatic brings untold opportunities to the table, it also presents some perpetually evolving challenges—namely ad fraud, concerns around brand safety, and ads appearing in disreputable contexts.
Consider these statistics from a 2020 survey by the Brand Safety Institute:
What these numbers highlight is the value consumers now place on how and where brands intersect with society. As such, it is more important than ever that digital messages appear in safe, trustworthy, and suitable environments—not just to avoid risk, but also to effectively reach the right audiences. Ultimately, this is a call to action from consumers: “Be proactive about where you put your ads, or we’ll take our business elsewhere.”
The fact that this phenomenon is actually influencing buying decisions has pushed it to the top of the marketing priority queue. The industry has made tremendous improvements in this area over the last two years, with top DSPs integrating brand safety mechanisms into their platforms, but agencies and brands must continue to be scrupulous in their programmatic media planning to ensure brand suitability is upheld day in, day out.
If 2020 was marked by uncertainty and 2021 was all about the rebound, 2022 is the year programmatic marketers can return to focusing on growth initiatives and begin capitalizing on the opportunities that have sprung from the pandemic—specifically, the rise of connected TV, digital out of home, and audio advertising. Now is the time for advertisers to stare down the challenges they face and implement media solutions that are going to really move the metaphorical needle.
If you’re looking to level up your programmatic game, check our Programmatic Readiness Guide, which breaks down the barriers to success with the medium.