5 Ways to Prepare Your Digital Marketing For 2023

A growing number of articles claim to have 2023 predictions for almost every topic you can think of, so I dusted off a list I made last year about five predictions for digital media in 2022 to see how they fared. Expect revised data with helpful links for further reading, topics to keep an eye on and practical strategies to kickstart or pivot your digital media in 2023.

1.????Omnichannel Advertising

2.????Retail Media Networks

3.????AI and Predictive Modeling

4.????The Future of Audience Targeting

5.????Digital Media Negotiation & Supply

?

2022 Prediction #1: A better recipe for omnichannel marketing will be possible

?

2023 Update: Omnichannel is still just a buzzword. In a survey of US B2C marketers in August 2022, only 5% of the 219 marketers said that omnichannel marketing was one of the “most useful areas of data-driven marketing,” ranking last in the list of seven. Omnichannel marketing is when a customer is surrounded by integrated marketing channels that have been planned together and are actively working together in real-time to improve the customer experience. Omnichannel plans and strategies are table stakes, but real-time integration capabilities are limited. However, strides are being made within programmatic DSPs that make it possible across certain channels such as CTV, DOOH, audio, display and online video. Notably missing from these solutions and preventing true omnichannel buying are paid search, paid social and owned media.

?

The continued growth of omnichannel will hinge on one thing: data access. Whether it is brands piping their first party/CRM data through APIs or clean rooms, regulators limiting data collection practices, ad tech providers forming partnerships or walled gardens like Google and Meta limiting reporting capabilities, any changes to data accessibility will also impact your omnichannel marketing strategies.

?

Strategies To Kickstart 2023:

●?????Beginner: Set up an integrated, dynamic targeting strategy across 2+ channels in a programmatic DSP and explore the reporting capabilities. Ensure targeting and channels align with the customer journey and the creative matches from one channel to the next.

●?????Intermediate: Create an omnichannel audience map. It should span all paid and owned marketing channels, include specific audience segments/providers, and note where exclusions or dynamic targeting are happening (where users flow in and out of an audience based on trigger events/qualifications). Review this regularly.

●?????Advanced: Test an AI-based attribution technology. This will take significant time (months to years) and require prep work such as partner vetting and collaboration with your data science team to get the appropriate data streams flowing and see regular outputs/recommendations.

?

?

?

2022 Prediction #2: Programmatic quietly helps power the boom In retail media network growth and make it more accessible

?

2023 Update: This is very real and no longer happening quietly. Retail media networks (RMNs) are growing rapidly, and the primary growth factors are off-site media and CTV. Off-site media relies on the ability for the retailer to use their valuable customer data to target advertising on digital properties they do not own (e.g. other content, websites or apps), which are increasingly purchased through programmatic technology.

?

In October, Insider Intelligence reported RMN off-site digital ad revenues would grow 48.7% YoY in 2022 to $4.7 Billion, or nearly 13% of total retailer ad revenue, and will continue to grow by another 37% in 2023. With upwards of 90% of total display advertising and upwards of 85% of total video and CTV spending happening programmatically, we can expect more programmatic-powered RMN offerings in 2023.

?

The best example of where programmatic CTV and retail media networks are starting to converge is probably Walmart’s partnership with The Trade Desk and Paramount+, but Amazon’s major partnership with Thursday Night Football is definitely something to watch, pun intended.??

?

Strategies To Kickstart 2023:

●?????If you DO have a product sold at a retailer with a RMN: Determine the retailers where your customers are most likely to shop. Interview and vet these RMN offerings before you test. Key differentiators will include: speed and detail of their closed loop measurement reporting, attractiveness of their ad formats/templates and audience targeting granularity (Can you target shoppers of specific products, brands, categories? Can you layer various targeting options together with Boolean logic?)

●?????If you DO NOT have a product sold at a retailer with an RMN: Determine the retailers where your customers are most likely to shop for other products. If they have RMNs, you may be competing for attention and want to make sure your advertising attains an optimal reach and frequency to make an impact. Note that some RMNs allow advertising for products/categories they do not actively sell but do have relevant customer data on. Do your research and pilot test where you can.

?

?

2022 Prediction #3: Expect democratization of predictive modeling with more tangible and prevalent use of AI and algorithms

?

2023 Update: I have mixed feelings. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the “it” topic for the start of 2023 and its use is absolutely becoming more prevalent, but not necessarily democratized. The two technologies blasting this into the zeitgeist are: Google’s Performance Max campaigns and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping campaigns. Both have been touted as the “blackest of black boxes” by AdExchanger. You know what else was a black box results engine? Rocket Fuel. Their demise was brought on by commingling client data without their knowledge and an alleged mantra of “performance drives everything.” This is not a comparison, but rather a reminder to learn from history and ask questions, demand/negotiate more transparency, and know that results too good to be true are usually just that...or at least they often come with a price/ unintended consequence.

?

In the programmatic space, there are many examples of AI-powered solutions as well: Criteo’s Commerce Max, Cognitiv, The Trade Desk’s KOA to name a few. However, two of the main players pushing forward the democratization of predictive modeling are: Chalice (invested in by Trade Desk’s TD7) and Scibids. Both offerings, while very different, allow advertisers to use the technology across various DSPs and provide transparency into the data and modeling. A few weeks ago, Chalice released a self-service product for data scientists to deploy custom AI. In March, Scibids announced a partnership with Xandr to help the Paris-based company scale their North American operations.

?

Strategies To Kickstart 2023:

●?????Test into the AI frenzy if you have not already. Here are some important questions you should ask before doing so that range from difficult to impossible but are important to ask anyways.

○?????Will my data get commingled with other advertiser data?

○?????Can I get a comprehensive list of where my ads served?

○?????Can I track with a third-party vendor (attribution, brand safety, etc)?

○?????Can I get a comprehensive list of the parameters I can put on my targeting (budget, geo, CRM exclusions, etc.)? How does this compare to the recommended parameters?

●?????Speak with your vendors about the ways bias can affect your AI-powered advertising. This is a prominent concern, so much so that the IAB put out a guide to understanding Bias in AI in late 2021 and many U.S states are passing AI legislation. Google is facing €25bn in fines for its “anti-competitive conduct” (aka. bias towards its own platforms in the digital advertising space) in the EU and UK. Expect increased regulatory scrutiny here.

?

?

2022 Prediction #4: Our hand is no longer caught in the cookie jar and a brighter future for digital audience targeting is upon us

2023 Update: The future of personalization looks complex. Get to know the ingredients of your digital audiences. Third-party tracking cookies are stale but not expired. Their slow death started in 2017 when Apple’s Safari browser restricted cookies and will end in late 2024 when Chrome makes a similar move. Insider Intelligence forecasts that in 2023 only 32% of time spent with digital media will happen in a browser where cookies are relevant. The rest will be on mobile in-app environments and CTVs, where other identifiers (mobile ad IDs, device IDs, serial numbers, and Wi-Fi identifiers like MAC addresses and SSIDs) can be collected. In the mobile app space, Apple’s 2021 App Tracking Transparency put in motion restrictions on using mobile in-app data for advertising that are likely to spread to Android. To add in a layer of complexity, many publishers and technology providers have their own way of digitally identifying people that do not often match up well or easily, if at all. For example, a retail media network and a digital news outlet could identify the same person in different ways.

The catalyst for many of these changes is improving consumer data privacy, transparency and trust. There is ongoing data privacy legislation across the U.S. Five states have enacted data privacy laws. 24 more states have, or are attempting to pass, similar laws (linked below).

Given this, there is a shift toward anonymized digital signals to determine if a user is worthy of receiving a targeted ad. These signals are often grouped in large quantities so as not to be individually identifiable and analyzed with machine learning technologies that are very good at serving the right ad to the most relevant person.

Marketers should consider the big picture of targeting digital audiences, such as what other identifiers will be restricted or if proposed solutions will perpetuate consumer trust, before making significant investments in post-cookie technologies. A fulsome audience strategy today will likely resemble a patchwork quilt that takes time and care to fit each piece together and reach your prospective audience in the optimal mix of environments.

Strategies To Kickstart 2023:

●?????Test your CRM / 1st party data lists against your site/app retargeting strategies. Are they scalable and performing as good or better? You can seek out audience vendors who can help you expand the reach of your 1P data through machine learning.

●?????Create a categorization map of your digital prospecting audiences. I like to give post-cookie digital audience solutions up to 5 labels that are not mutually exclusive: 1) machine learning 2) interoperable 3) cohorts 4) replacement identifiers 5) what’s old is new (aka. contextual, deal IDs). Digiday also created a framework with 3 categories (linked below). Note that both have exceptions/nuances. Aim to have unique audiences that fall into several of the categories and make sure your measurement and attribution systems work.

?

2022 Prediction #5: Supply is an important frontier of negotiation and optimization

2023 Update: The savviest digital marketers are engaging in supply path optimization (SPO), but it is accessible for everyone. To understand SPO today, it is important to know that programmatic demand side platform (DSP) transactions flow through supply side platforms (SSPs) to the publishers, and that a technology called header bidding allows those SSPs to compete at once for the same potential ad impressions. There are tens of SSP companies that have mostly the same access to publisher inventory, which creates potentially redundant “paths” through which transactions can flow. Simply put, SPO is the process of advertisers understanding and optimizing which paths they are using.

The technological details of SPO can be daunting and make large agencies and brands more likely to engage but there are two reasons why I think it is accessible and important for all programmatic advertisers. First, the macroeconomic conditions are forcing many advertisers to cut costs or limit spending and, if done correctly, SPO can help you do more/better with the budget you have. Second, implementing the first steps of a SPO rollout plan are simple enough for everyone to do (see below) and can have immediate impact.

?

To underscore the idea that supply is an important and accessible frontier for everyone, last August, the ANA released their first-ever “CMOs Guide To Programmatic Transparency” and they estimated it could help save $10 Billion.

Strategies To Kickstart 2023:

• Take the first steps toward SPO if you haven’t already.?

1. Research the tools you have available. Magnite SSP has a readily accessible playbook, DSPs like The Trade Desk and MediaMath have both launched new offerings to help buyers implement SPO, and many more free resources exist.
2. Gather data Determine what SPO reporting your DSP/partners provide so you can establish a baseline. Identify which SSPs you are using and consolidate to the most impactful SSPs to reduce redundancy.
3. Meet with your supply partners. This includes SSPs (and key publishers). Supply is no longer a silent component of programmatic strategy, and it is helpful to meet regularly with them, negotiate rates and establish data streams where necessary.

• Extend the SPO mindset to all of your digital channels (especially CTV). The general idea of scrutinizing itemized breakdowns of digital media bills can extend to all digital channels. The same goes for gathering data and asking questions when varying levels of partner transparency emerge. CTV is expected to be the highest-growth digital channel in 2023 (IAB) and roughly 85% of CTV ads are purchased programmatically (Insider). The CTV space is complex, but by consolidating buying through a short list of direct partners, DSPs, SSPs and measurement partners, as well as analyzing and organizing the available data, many of the same principles will apply.