Trends to follow in 2023

Happy New Year! It's been a while since my last post, and most of my focus in 2022 was on starting a new role and building the Americas team at Adsquare , which left little time for writing. However, I am excited to kick off the new year with some fresh insights on what I see as marketing trends to follow this year. Some of this may not be new to you, but here goes.

First, I see the inevitable deprecation of identity in the marketing ecosystem finally come to the frontlines. With the increasing focus on privacy and data protection, I expect to see a shift towards more anonymous, aggregate data being used for targeting and measurement. This is in response to the upcoming changes in privacy regulations both in the US and globally, as well as recent news recent news from Google setting a 2024 deadline to deprecate the cookie (assuming they do not delay it yet again). The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have set the standard for data privacy and other states and countries are following suit. This means that companies will have to be more transparent about how they collect, use and share personal data, and give consumers more control over their own information. And while many technology companies have emerged to support the fundamental shift in how advertisers address consumers, no one company has stepped up as the clear leader in the space. Advertisers and agencies seem to have a "wait and see" approach, with inconsistent resources and budgets allocated to land on a solution. But I predict 2023 as the year these companies get serious and start to focus efforts to find future-proofed solutions.

Second, I anticipate the continuation of more audiences consuming more connected television and streaming services. As consumers continue to cut cords (as I finally did myself in 2022) and as streaming platforms continue to grow in popularity, I expect to see brands shifting their ad spend to these channels in order to reach more engaged audiences. Ad serving and advertising technology companies have more work to do to in this area to prevent ad collisions, blackouts, and to offer enhanced analytics. But it should be no surprise when budgets continue to shift away from traditional mediums to streamed TV. However, with these platforms also comes a new set of privacy challenges that advertisers will need to be aware of.

Finally, I see the trend of attributing signals from the physical world to validate advertising budgets and campaigns in the digital world. With the rise of technologies like location-based targeting and data, I expect to see brands using offline data to inform their online ad spend, both in programmatic channels and in more traditional channels like Out-of-Home advertising. However, with this also comes the need to ensure privacy compliance while technology companies obtain consent for location tracking and the use of this data for advertising purposes.

As you can see, privacy regulations will play a big role in shaping the marketing ecosystem in the upcoming year. Companies will need to adapt and be transparent in their data collection and usage practices to adhere to regulations and to maintain consumer trust. It is also important to note that with the potential pending recession, the advertising industry is likely to feel the impact as well. Advertisers may have to adjust their budgets and strategies to align with the economic conditions, adding some financial turbulence to the changing ecosystem.

It will be interesting to see how these trends play out in the coming year. Let me know if you agree or disagree with me. And thanks for reading.

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

-Chris