With the start of 2021, digital recovery has also begun to accelerate. Lauren Castro from Nativo puts showcases Martech Predictions 2021 that will boost this recovery
2020 has been a rough year for the digital ad industry. At this point, we’re all aware of COVID-19’s impact on global ad spend, and more than ready for better news. While we’d love to see advertising spend skyrocket as the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, that’s just not realistic. There are, however, positive signals of recovery and industry-wide shifts taking place to prepare for what’s to come.
Let’s take a look at the forces at play in the coming year — and their potential impact on your business.
The Only Certainty? Uncertainty.
Let’s start with the good news: Market signals hint that ad spend is finally returning to normal, and it’s likely this trend will remain steady as we navigate the next few months. Once we’re on solid footing, pent-up demand will lead to the surge in ad spend we’re all eagerly anticipating.
If 2020 taught advertisers anything, though, it’s that predicting the future only goes so far. The only certainty? Uncertainty.
As advertisers and publishers learn from the past and take a closer look at their partnerships, expect an acceleration of supply path optimization, an increase in requests for more flexible terms and a stronger emphasis on unique formats and executions that differentiate brands in the post-COVID advertising world. Across the board, agility will become vital during the planning and activation process.
Return-on-Content Takes Center Stage
Brands have long sought solutions to prove their return-on-content. In 2021, such understanding becomes a requirement. As we recover from 2020’s marketing and advertising hit, brands will need to further rationalize spend as CMOs look to keep costs low.
Content can no longer stay contained to a brand blog: it needs broader distribution with measurable impact to justify production costs.
The benefit is that a data-driven approach and focus on actionable insights will spur content innovation and, ultimately, increase brand engagement.
As advertisers seek agile partners that prove return-on-content, they’re likely to consider whether self-service solutions are better suited to their needs. Self-service options provide flexibility around budgets, placements, and messaging because advertisers maintain complete control over the entire process. Paired with added reporting transparency, these solutions offer the ability to measure results and react to the changing market faster than ever before. While self-service solutions aren’t exactly new, we’re seeing market signals that they’re gaining traction among small and large advertisers alike.
The Cookieless Solution Search
Every day, we get closer to the disappearance of third-party cookies on the open web. Safari and Firefox are already cookieless environments, and they currently control about 40 percent of all US-based web traffic. Chrome, the most popular browser in the US, announced plans earlier this year to follow suit. When third-party cookies disappear on the browser, they’re rendered useless on virtually all of the internet, taking with them traditional behavioral data targeting, frequency capping and attribution.
As brands brace for impact, all eyes will be on the path the industry takes to develop a solution. Will we simply solve for identity, or finally address the underlying issues driving these changes: consumer privacy and the need for better ad experiences? The demise of cookies disrupts the ecosystem, but a new solution to target consumers doesn’t address the fact that the very foundation of the advertising landscape has been imbalanced for years. 2021 presents an opportunity for the market to focus on better ad experiences and relationships with customers — one where data is earned instead of expected.
Without a doubt, 2021 will throw its fair share of complications our way. But now, we’re ready. As the industry enters a much-needed recovery phase, the ultimate winners will be those organizations that remain agile and adapt to what lies ahead.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauren Castro
Lauren Castro is the Director of Platform Operations at Nativo, where she empowers marketers to drive business results through content using the Nativo Self-Service Platform. Prior to Nativo, Lauren led paid media and analytics for PepsiCo Corporate Communications. Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University.