Mobile app marketing is a thrilling, fast-paced, and ever-changing field. The last several years have demonstrated how one small change may cause a ripple effect that disturbs the entire ecosystem and calls years of learning into question.

COVID-19, the introduction of ATT and SKAN, and a worldwide recession have all put pressure on the industry in the previous three years, resulting in long-term, drastic changes.

With so many mobile applications available and so little time to make an impression, it is only logical for us to concentrate on mobile app onboarding. The initial touchpoint of the app experience that determines whether a user will churn or stay is onboarding in question.

Any mobile apps onboarding is the ultimate example of how many departments and needs come together to create either a terrific experience for users to discover the app or a terrible series of requests and pop-ups that result in failure.

Mobile app user onboarding in 2023: What changed?
Its reasonable to conclude that the condition of mobile onboarding has irreversibly changed by now. Nowadays, after installing an app, a user must approve the privacy policy, click okay to share IDFAs with MMP, say yes to receive push notifications, and, if applicable, allow location tracking.

Moreover, a user must complete your onboarding pattern completely convinced by its features, USPs, and UX/UI design in order to return for more.

That means your onboarding experience must protect your users privacy, highlight your products features, and provide functionality in a way that is both seamless and compelling so that your user enters their login information at the end of the flow.

Its not going to be an easy process from the start. And unfortunately, given the complexities of the process, numerous companies continue to battle with incorporating all of these pieces into a smooth user experience in 2023.

After investing thousands of dollars and euros on user acquisition strategies, many companies today overlook the most critical touchpoint: the onboarding process itself.

But how did we end up here? What factors have made onboarding so challenging?

App utilisation and COVID-19
In several ways, 2021 was a turning point for applications. Lets start with the giant elephant in the room: COVID-19. Like all major verticals, the pandemic significantly influenced mobile app users. What is the most significant difference? The number of apps available in the ecosystem.

The number of apps was growing even before COVID. In 2018, Google Play had over 2.6 million applications (source: Appcues), while the App Store had approximately 2.2 million. COVID, on the other hand, has accelerated the expansion of apps even further: there are currently 3.5 million apps on Google Play and 3.8 million on the App Store (source).

The result? The competition is extreme, and typical user behavior is changing drastically. Users are downloading and using more apps than ever before, and competition has soared as companies shift from online to mobile.

Today, 53 percent of applications are uninstalled within 30 days after download (source AppsFlyer), and Android users are twice as likely to delete your app as opposed to iOS users. Furthermore, 45 percent of uninstalls within 30 days occur within the first 24 hours, indicating that the seamless onboarding process is crucial.

The way users download, install, and utilize apps has evolved tremendously. In 2023, the average user will onboard, explore, and churn quicker than ever, forcing a fresh understanding of old retention metrics.

Therefore, one thing is certain: having an excellent onboarding experience is more important than ever.

Privacy taking the lead since 2021
Aside from COVID, another significant development impacted how app developers structure their onboarding processes. In April 2021, Apple stated that iOS 14 upgrades would give users additional flexibility to opt out of tracking on their devices by introducing ATT—a new pop-up that app developers must present if they wish to track the IDFA of the users.

As a result, advertisers now face an entirely new set of challenges in tracking how customers interact with any given app. ITV analysis, retention, and retargeting—these three critical components of understanding user behavior have become more challenging since the 14.5 updates.

One more thing. GDPR will be four years old on May 28, 2023. The day serves as a reminder that one significant change has been a greater emphasis on privacy. Consent is now king.

The traditional trackability methods, measurement KPIs, and performance marketing activities that were popular three years ago no longer work for marketers.

Nevertheless, for your onboarding, app developers must consider including critical privacy and opt-in permissions in ways that do not interfere with the onboarding phase.

Why is mastering your onboarding process critical today?
Onboarding is hour zero in a mobile app in 2023. It is the first time a user encounters your app and gets a taste of what it has to offer.

Its also a crucial time to introduce your user to the apps features and advantages, allow them to register with their login details, and, most importantly, capture personal information that can be used to send tailored content and notifications. Your mobile apps success and durability begin with an efficient onboarding approach.

But where do businesses go wrong? What are the quick gains for perfecting your onboarding experience? And, more crucially, how can you keep your users engaged until the final onboarding screen?

That we will find out in the second part of this app user onboarding series. By then, be sure to download our ebook on this topic.

Find every crucial information for a successful user onboarding. From best practices, examples, and industry experts’ quotes – get the free ebook now.

The post Why Mastering Your App User Onboarding Experience in 2023 Is Crucial: Part 1 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Mobile Marketing: What were some of the key insights from your recent Partnership Experience Conference?

Alex Springer: At Impact, we are always looking for creative ways to evangelise about the power of partnerships, so our virtual event series was a great way to feature industry leaders discussing partnerships that ignites action and benefits the bottom line. The online conference covered topics including growth, trust, authenticity and the future of the partnership economy. Delving further into these themes, speakers from HubSpot, Disney, Conde Nast and HSBC shared insights on creating brand-to-brand relationships based on authenticity, how agencies can help organisations take full advantage of the partnership economy and how small businesses can scale their ecommerce through partnerships.

MM: Tell us about your latest acquisition of Affluent

AS: Following our acquisitions of ACTIVATE in 2020 and Trackonomics earlier this year, we recently acquired leading analytics and automation platform, Affluent, to help us power agency managed partnership programmes at scale.

Affluent enables agencies to aggregate affiliate data from multiple networks and platforms, automate and generate custom reporting, and optimise clients’ partnerships with publishers in a single platform. With Affluent, agencies can manage more clients, better optimise performance across clients, improve reporting capabilities and ultimately, increase their revenue.

Partnerships are surging as an effective way for brands to surpass competitors in terms of growth. But with hundreds of platforms and affiliate networks out there, agencies today require a centralised platform to effectively aggregate and analyse data to optimize the many partnership programmes they manage. In 2020, Affluent grew its client base by 70 per cent and helped agencies and advertisers manage more than 1,800 affiliate programmes. Last year alone, Affluent tracked over $10bn in brand revenue and over $1bn in publisher commissions. We are excited to welcome Affluent into the Impact family and are confident that our suite of services will continue to supercharge partnerships for our clients.

MM: What does your partnership with Shopify mean for their merchants?

AS: As a certified app partner for influencer and affiliate marketing, Shopify Plus merchants can now launch and automate influencer and affiliate programmes through the Impact Partnership Cloud. As the global leader in partnership automation, Impact can enable Shopify Plus merchants to easily and quickly launch and automate affiliate and influencer programmes without developer involvement. Merchants can access Impact’s platform through Shopify’s App Store and recruit new partners, develop contracts, settle payments, track partners to attribute performance across devices, measure performance and communicate the latest brand messaging and updates to partners. Merchants also have access to fraud protection and to optimise partnerships to maximise efficiency and growth, all within their Shopify marketplace.

MM: How can brands look to the future with partnerships?

AS: Effective partnerships take real work, and that work is both interesting and high-value. The first part of that work is thinking of your customer first – and thinking beyond their ‘customer lifecycle’. What other brands do they interact with? Where do they get their information and what products do they enjoy that are complementary to yours? Truly effective partnership opportunities lie in the answers to those questions. Partnership automation tools help with everything from outreach and development to management and execution of the partnership. But whilst partnership automation is critical, you can’t automate relationships and the strength of partnerships lies in there being a human on the other end of the line.

MM: Describe some key trends in influencer marketing for 2021

AS: We expect the partnership ecosystem to continue evolving in 2021 particularly since the influencer marketing industry is predicted to be worth $15bn by 2022. We’ve recently seen the rise of so-called ‘genuinfluencers’ who are hailed as the new generation of content creators. In response to influencer fatigue and a general oversaturation of the market, brands are looking to genuinfluencers to create less glossy and more authentic content that really resonates with consumers.

Predicted to be one of the biggest trends for 2021 and beyond, genuinfluencers are defined as being wholly focused on making a positive impact, with their priority being their social activism and their moral and ethical beliefs, and brand collaborations playing a secondary role to their overall goals. This means that they will always fully vet a brand, including their history, partners and practices, before working with them, and won’t collaborate with anyone who doesn’t align with their cause.

Working with genuinfluencers allows brands to show their support of social issues through a trusted external voice, making their views seem authentic and reassuring their audience that their activism is not simply a marketing ploy to sell more services or products.

The post Company Profile: Impact appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Elizabeth Brennan, Head of Advertiser Strategy, Permutive:
“The latest IPA Bellwether report paints a positive picture of the recovery of the industry. It is extremely encouraging to see marketing budgets thriving again for the first time since 2019, with ad spend forecasts also set to improve throughout 2021.

“With the recent updates to Apple’s privacy protections for iOS 15, coupled with third-party cookies being removed from Google Chrome by the end of 2023, it’s clear the protection of consumer privacy in digital advertising is gaining momentum. As we enter this new post-pandemic era, consumer privacy must remain at the forefront of advertiser’s minds. Both advertisers and publishers must ensure they have a sustainable, privacy-safe solution that not only safeguards them from the tumultuous changes in the industry, but helps them take advantage of upcoming opportunities. For this to happen, adtech will need to take a new role in facilitating the direct relationships between media buyer and media owner. Publisher first party data is already becoming the key to the future of digital advertising.”

Silke Zetzsche, Commercial Director, A Million Ads:
“It is fantastic to see marketing budgets improving for the first time since Q4 2019 – a true sign of the progress and recovery our industry is making. However, brands shouldn’t get complacent – now is the time to bring a fresh take to advertising to recapture the attention of consumers through a personal approach.

“The report shows that within main media, video spend has increased by 0.9 per cent from Q1, whilst audio spend has increased by a massive 10.1 per cent. This should come as no surprise and as a result, we are increasingly seeing advertisers rolling their audio and video advertising approaches into one to create a unified AV strategy. Adding a dynamic element to this allows brands to instantly adjust elements such as voice-overs, script lines and visuals based on contextual clues and data signals, making the creative much more engaging and personalised to its target audience.

“Research we recently conducted has also shown that 55 per cent of UK consumers are more likely to buy a product if an ad they have seen or heard is personalised. Therefore by adopting a unified dynamic AV strategy, brands are able to personalise audio and visual elements, making advertising an experience consumers can enjoy.”

Justin Taylor, UK MD, Teads:
“As restrictions in England start to ease, it’s fantastic to see that confidence is returning with UK marketing budgets increasing to what we were seeing pre-pandemic. However, the industry can’t rest on its laurels and learnings from the pandemic should be carried forward for years to come. The principles of investing in premium publishers and taking a sensible approach to keyword blocking must remain. What’s more, brand safety and working with partners that respect the user experience will be key if we are to meet the strong rates of growth in ad spend in 2022 which are forecast.

“As the latest IPA Bellwether report signals, brands expecting strong sales must remain on the edge of caution due to new strains of the virus. With online advertising up +11 per cent from the previous quarter, it will be important for brands to continue to invest in quality digital partners to ensure they are communicating with consumers in a positive way if they are to see conversion rates come to fruition.”

Shumel Lais, Founder and CEO, Appsumer:
“Its welcoming to see ad spend and confidence growing in line with vaccine coverage. However, what’s clear is that budget isnt coming back in all the same areas as before as consumer behaviour has accelerated towards online and mobile app purchases. Our research, for instance, has shown that lockdown caused budget growth across many app categories like fitness, gaming and food delivery.

“This consumer behaviour has become embedded faster than anticipated and simultaneously, brands are having to adapt their models and their advertising strategies to reflect this. Consumer habits will not return to pre-Covid normality and as a result, the advertising mix will not either.

“In addition, mobile app advertisers are also having to contend with iOS 14.5+ adoption that has reached critical mass in recent weeks. In fact, we’ve seen advertisers increasingly shift budgets from iOS to Android and this has been most notable amongst smaller brands. Moving forward, mobile app advertisers, no matter the size, should be looking to further diversify their media mix to limit exposure to market volatility. And only by getting the right measurement tools in place will they reap the rewards.”

Ben Walmsley, Commercial Director, Publishing, News UK:
“It is heartening to see marketing budgets increasing for the first time since 2019. Throughout the turbulence of the pandemic some advertisers cut budgets and focused on performance, whilst others took a bolder approach by striving to emotionally connect with audiences, either to show empathy or how their brand could offer practical help. As the post-pandemic world takes shape, advertisers should take note of the positive impact of stronger emotional connections successfully forged over the last year when creating campaigns.

“Our research has shown that emotional context can increase advertising attention by up to 45 per cent by understanding the emotional resonance of the content around which it sits. It is therefore not surprising that the power of emotion as a targeting mechanism is becoming ever-more important for advertisers. Critical to success will be the ability for marketers to understand the extent to which preferences, opinions and emotions have changed and the permanence of those changes.”

Charlie Smith, Managing Director, Europe, Blis:
“As restrictions start to ease in the UK, it’s positive to see that marketing budgets have increased for the first time since Q4 2019. This signals a boost of confidence following the pandemic and is a sign that we are heading to recovery, as vaccinations continue to roll out and we slowly return to normality. Indeed our own data highlighted that as of the end of May the number of visitors to high street retailers in the UK was 95 per cent of our pre-COVID benchmark.

“However, the industry is still in a period of uncertainty when it comes to addressing privacy and identity. With Google’s recent announcement that it will delay the deprecation of third-party cookies for a further two years many marketers have been left in limbo. But let’s not forget, most third-party data in the programmatic ecosystem is not fit for purpose. Therefore, as brands begin to replenish their budgets they need to ensure they are investing in new privacy-first solutions that put the consumer first.

“Now is the time for the industry to move away from its previous reliance on personal data, by choosing a new way forward. For example, there are still a wide range of data signals available to draw upon, which, when utilised in combination with location intelligence, allows marketers to map precise audiences for targeting. Ultimately, marketers will benefit from a more innovative and informed approach to digital advertising and the industry should embrace the chance to rewrite the rulebook for a privacy-first world that works better for brands and consumers alike.”

Dominic Woolfe, CEO, Azerion UK:
“The IPA Bellwether report reflects the optimism we have felt over the last few months with the lockdown restrictions slowly but surely lifting. The socio-economic impact of this quarter has been promising, as businesses begin to prepare for a strong economic recovery following the impacts of Covid-19. In light of the successful vaccination programme throughout the UK and the re-opening of the economy, it is great to see that the UK is now gearing itself back up for growth with the increase in marketing budgets and ad spend this quarter a strong indication of this.

“However, if the industry is to meet the forecasts predicted for ad spend in 2022 brands must continue to work with partners that deliver meaningful outcomes. With the IPA Bellwether report playing on the edge of caution regarding new strains of the virus and how this may result in a brisk spell of consumer spending, brands will need to maintain a consistent level of communication with consumers in a creative and engaging way within brand safe environments.”

Jonny Whitehead, Board Director, Skyrise Intelligence: 
“It’s great to see marketing budgets have expanded for the first time since 2019 with places opening up again and with businesses expected to make a strong economic recovery. This shows that confidence is definitely regaining post-pandemic and the industry is moving in the right direction.

“While progress is certainly being made, agencies and advertisers will need to balance new ways of working with the need to adapt to a rapidly changing digital landscape. There will also be a need to focus on accessing, analysing and testing the use of non-personal targeting signals such as context, time, and location as the industry prepares for further data deprecation if we are to meet the strong growth forecast for ad spend in 2022.”

Nial Ferguson, Managing Director UK & Ireland, Sourcepoint:
“This latest IPA Bellwether report points towards 2021 as a year of strong growth for the advertising ecosystem, as we reach pre-pandemic levels of spend. While Covid-19 has caused disruption to many marketers, issues such as increasing global privacy regulations and restrictions on browser identifiers still remain an important issue for those who don’t seek resolutions. Therefore, businesses must harness the increase in marketing budgets to future- proof themselves against changing regulations and privacy enhancements.

“Going forward, the industry must place data ethics front and centre to communicate the value exchange to consumers. We now have the opportunity to invest in compliant technologies that support the free and open internet, which can, in turn, create a privacy-first future.”

Barry Cupples, CEO, Talon Group:
“We’re seeing a really positive return to market from brands across the summer as the UK opens up and over 45m adults receive their vaccination. Out of Home – and particularly digital OOH – are projected to outgrow the ad market not just in 2021 but to continue the evolution in 2022, with forecasts expecting its value to increase by 57 per cent in the UK this year.

“Consumer sentiment and confidence for a return to the entertainment, retail and travel sectors gives huge opportunities for brands and the OOH channel. This reflects the incredible resilience, collaboration and agility shown by OOH over the pandemic.”

Sally Laycock, CEO, Incubeta UK:
“It’s fantastic to see marketing budgets are at their highest since Q4 2019 and signals a promising H2 for the industry. As the UK continues to lift restrictions, sectors that had been affected by the pandemic are slowly bouncing back. In store purchases are increasing as the highstreet opens and travel is slowly beginning to open as consumer confidence returns thanks to the vaccine rollout.

“With marketing budgets increasing, it will be important for marketers to continue embracing the digital innovation they’ve invested in during the pandemic. While life is returning to normal, investment in digital should not be discarded and instead it should continue to work in unison with offline channels.

“As the excitement around Freedom Day continues to build, consumers will be out and about, largely returning to their pre-covid habits which means there will be a diverse range of opportunities to reach consumers. To have the best chance of keeping track of a newly mobile audience, marketers will need to develop a unified approach to campaigns and utilise their data-driven capabilities to engage, interact and connect across multiple channels and devices.”

Tim Geenen, Managing Director, Addressability Europe, LiveRamp:
“As substantiated by the report, we’ve been anticipating that advertising budgets would rebound and expand in 2021. Our own industry research suggests the same trend, revealing 78 per cent of senior marketers believe that the final withdrawal of third-party cookies will have a positive impact on their advertising strategy.

“Net/net: advertisers aren’t backing down. If anything, they’re doubling down, underscoring the value of reaching and engaging with customers across channels. Yet challenges still exist. While Chrome has delayed the cookie, the world is still more cookieless today than it is cookie-based. Safari, Firefox, mobile in-app, and CTV all operate without cookies. Marketers need omnichannel, neutral, people-based addressability and they want to buy on that today. We see case study after case study showing that people-based addressable buys outperform 3p cookie buys.

“Now is the time to encourage new, more direct ways for advertisers to reach and engage high-value audiences, and simultaneously explore direct first-party relationships to expand their data foundation and, ultimately, deliver better customer experiences.”

Patrick Johnson, CEO, Hybrid Theory:
“The digital advertising industry has proved to be flexible and resilient over the last year, defying the doom and gloom predictions of many during the pandemic. The recent IPA figures are the strongest proof yet that the sector has continued to grow, which puts us in a very exciting place as business is predicted to ‘turn the corner’ toward recovery throughout the rest of 2021.

“With total budgets set to expand, many companies will be looking to improve their offering and brand presence, harnessing the learnings Covid has driven around digital’s power to enable more deliberate and precise messaging, and campaign targeting, to prepare for the influx of pent up demand from consumers post-covid.

“For companies looking to expand their offerings or embrace digital for the first time as budgets recover, it’s vital they use available data and draw on expert guidance that can help them make the most of this spend; leveraging the right combination of tools, technology, and talent to deliver on campaigns and capitalise on the much anticipated increase in demand.”

Calum Smeaton, CEO & Founder, TVSquared:
“Sentiment for total marketing budgets is positive, reflecting the country’s optimism as lockdown protocols are continuing to ease, and economic confidence returns. Looking specifically at video budgets, they’ve been revised +4.2 per cent. That said, this doesn’t accurately reflect the growth that converged TV – linear and streaming – has experienced, as IPAs video category also incorporates cinema, which has inevitably struggled.

“TV – across VOD, OTT and linear – now encompasses the best of both worlds: high-quality programming and digital-like measurement and targeting. With streaming audiences continuing to grow, cross-platform measurement is essential as viewers consume content across time, channels and devices. Through the rest of the year, we can expect advertisers to seek the analytics needed to maximise campaign reach, frequency and performance across platforms to capitalise on a more diversified TV landscape.”

Alison Harding, Vice President Data Solutions EMEA, Lotame:
“It is encouraging to see signs of growth in the UK forecast for adspend in 2021. At the same time it is important that marketers and media owners future proof their businesses against the death of third-party cookies in 2023. Though Google has delayed the deprecation of the third-party cookie until 2023, around 40 per cent of the global market has already done away with them (Safari and Firefox).

“Now is the perfect time to start or continue testing identity solutions, as you’re able to compare cookie vs. non-cookie environments. Despite Google’s delay in cookie removal, identity testing should be on top everyone’s priorities, and it would be naive for the industry to slow down any time soon. A wait-and-see approach is a recipe for disaster. Marketers and media owners should use the additional time and spend to learn, test, and determine the best solutions for their business.”

Dominic Trigg, CEO, Percept:
“It’s pleasing to see that UK companies have revised their total marketing budgets for the first time in a year and a half. However, it is also essential that marketers are able to see and understand the true performance of their spend. Performance data such as CPA or CPC doesn’t tell the whole story of how marketers can get more for their money. Marketers must look beyond the industry metrics of clicks vs spend. They need a holistic diagnosis of what is working and what isn’t. By focusing on outcomes and measurement quality rather than media exposure KPIs, marketers can save money and improve the build process of digital spending.”

Nick Morley, Managing Director, EMEA, Integral Ad Science (IAS):
“It’s exciting to see that UK marketing budgets and confidence levels across the industry have increased in the latest IPA Bellwether report, following vaccination roll-outs and the easing of lockdown restrictions. Looking ahead, more advertisers and publishers have an opportunity to deploy strategies that optimise their digital media quality. With the rising importance of contextual targeting in marketing strategies, this is one major trend to watch. The pandemic has left a lasting impact on consumer habits, with the shift to a digital-first lifestyle, and brands should adopt the latest technology to control the context of their ad campaigns. In a post-pandemic landscape, advertisers are looking to engage with reinvigorated consumers via safe, suitable, and relevant ads. This will be key for brands to capture long-term consumer interest and spending.”

Philip Acton, Country Manager UK, BeNeFrance, Adform:
“It’s been a buoyant Q2 – at Adform we’ve seen all major products increase year-on-year against aggressive growth targets. We’re seeing both the buy and sell-side perform equally well, which appears reflective of current priorities to clean up the supply path and focus on accelerating first-party ID adoption. There are expectations of strong consumer spending as restrictions continue to ease heading into H2, while being able to resume face-to-face meetings and attend networking events will be instrumental to the continued uptick in marketing spend.”

Zack Sullivan, CRO UK, Future plc:
“Confidence among both the industry and consumers remains strong as we head into H2, and the crucial peak trading period leading into Christmas. Our own survey of 2,000 UK consumers in June 2021 also indicates a large pool of pent-up savings – to the tune of almost £200bn – with the majority of those surveyed planning to splash the cash as restrictions lift. Consumers are already gearing up for Black Friday, with 82 per cent expecting to be more or similarly engaged than in the past, representing a significant opportunity for brands and agencies. The latest IPA Bellwether is yet another vote of confidence as the industry continues to revise and increase ad spend forecasts driven by consumers’ desire to make the most of 2021.”

Harriet Durnford-Smith, Chief Marketing Officer, Adverity:
“The findings echo the positive sentiment we’re hearing from partners every day as the country prepares to open up following a successful vaccination campaign. However, that’s not to say marketers are abundant with cash all of a sudden – the same industry challenges remain and budgets are under intense scrutiny, with growing pressure to find new ways to measure performance and ROI that’s not reliant on third-party cookies. Marketers will need to ensure their spend remains accountable and understand how much each of their channels contribute to overall revenue. So while this remains a positive story – and a welcome one – we must keep working to find sustainable long-term solutions so that ad spend forecasts can continue to increase well into the future.”

Simon Stone, GM EMEA, LoopMe:
“With strong signs of recovery for the UK ad industry, it’s important for marketers to maintain their ability to be agile and prepared for changing environments, and consumer behaviour. While a positive outlook is welcomed, we’re still tackling a post-IDFA world, with other challenges on the horizon that can decrease targeting capabilities.

“To help increase long-term campaign success in an increasingly busy environment, brands should be looking at building their insight and predictive capabilities with a real-time infrastructure, in a privacy compliant way. Now is the time for marketers to be adopting a performance-focused approach where measurement is tied to outcome-centric KPIs from the outset.”

Ross Nicol, VP EMEA, Zefr:
“Once again video has proved its merits, with marketers upwardly revising budgets for a second quarter in a row. Furthermore, financial prospects at the company and industry level are in positive territory – indicating that spend on this channel will continue to soar in H2.

“However, as this format enjoys its time centre stage, the pressure remains on advertisers to deliver highly optimised video experiences – be it on YouTube, Facebook or TikTok – that don’t compromise on privacy. In Q3, it will be vital that marketers use their relationships with their data partners to discover how contextual data can be leveraged in an efficient way, that both embraces consumer trust and achieves brand suitable ad placements that hit the mark on reach, delivery and safety.”

BIll Swanson, EMEA Strategy Lead, IRIS.TV:
“It will be of no surprise that the main growth in media spend is continuing to spill out of linear TV and into CTV as marketers become increasingly aware of its value.

“However, agencies must continue to ensure they adjust their buying strategies to this format. Advertisers should not have to compromise between an audience-first or content-first strategy and must look to pull both together. To achieve this, buyers must have access to data from both sides. For example, buyers don’t always know what genre their CTV campaigns ran against, or the specific show after which their ad was shown. Capturing and measuring this information will be crucial to improving media planning for CTV in Q3 and ensuring return on spend.”

Andy Ashley, International Marketing Director, Digital Element:
“Many in the industry will have breathed a sigh of relief reading the latest IPA figures. With marketing budgets, financial prospects and predicted adspend all on the rise, the future is looking much brighter.
“While this is great news, it is important advertisers don’t rest on their laurels. With lockdowns and tightened budgets came a need for brands to work smarter and think more carefully about the solutions they use to achieve the best results. This attitude must continue, with tools that are accurate, versatile and reliable key to success in a market that remains unpredictable.”

Filippo Gramigna, CEO, Audiencerate:
“Growth in the digital ad industry is clearly returning and we expect it to continue accelerating, especially in Q4 2021. Business leaders now understand the need to go digital; over the last 18 months digital transformation has been happening across the board, in all business sectors, and marketers that are data driven and innovative have seized the chance to gain market share. The recent cookie deprecation delay by Google has opened a big window of opportunity to accelerate programmatic and data driven campaigns, and we expect to see more encouraging evolution in these areas.”

Lisa Haskins, Director of Marketing and Operations EMEA, VidMob:
“Brand advertisers have really seized the chance to connect with consumers through creative campaigns across social platforms over the course of the pandemic. As we move into this new period of buoyant mood and boosted budgets, we predict an exuberant and uplifting emphasis in ad creative featuring representations of life returning to normal.

“Creative is the most important driver of campaign performance. Digital advertisers across every platform need to be looking at the full anatomy of the ad, especially the creative data — rather than relying on delivery optimisation algorithms — to ensure that their bolstered budgets are being well spent and that campaigns are optimised for the current mood of the consumer.”

Patrick Johnson, CEO, Hybrid Theory:
“The digital advertising industry has proved to be flexible and resilient over the last year, defying the doom and gloom predictions of many during the pandemic. The recent IPA figures are the strongest proof yet that the sector has continued to grow, which puts us in a very exciting place as business is predicted to ‘turn the corner’ toward recovery throughout the rest of 2021.”
“With total budgets set to expand, many companies will be looking to improve their offering and brand presence, harnessing the learnings Covid has driven around digital’s power to enable more deliberate and precise messaging, and campaign targeting, to prepare for the influx of pent up demand from consumers post-covid.”

Michael Nevins, CMO, Smart AdServer:
“We welcome the positive sentiment of the latest IPA Bellwether report. While some of this confidence should be attributed to the global COVID-19 recovery efforts, including the vaccine rollout, we shouldn’t overlook the positive work that is taking place within the industry to improve trading practices and create a trusted environment.

“Equipping advertisers with the tools to achieve greater efficiency with their ad spend, while also ensuring publishers have the solutions in place to drive greater value for their inventory are key industry priorities. While Google’s delay may give the ad tech industry further time to implement viable alternatives for a world without third-party cookies, it is important we all still work aggressively on those alternatives to create a transparent and privacy-compliant ecosystem.”

Nicolas Bidon, Global CEO, Xaxis:
“Marketers are searching for certainty in uncertain times, and the latest IPA Bellwether Report ad spend findings support this. The digital advertising category saw +11 per cent of respondents revise their online marketing budgets upwards from the previous quarter, an area where technologies such as AI are having a significant impact. These tools can confer additional certainty for marketers through the creation of custom metrics that enable highly measurable campaigns based on specific objectives, and are directed towards business outcomes.

“As we move through 2021 some uncertainty is likely to persist, but marketers can be sure that consumers will continue to spend their time engaging with news and entertainment on digital devices. And, as restrictions relax in the UK, consumers will increasingly be using these devices out and about, which creates further opportunities for complementary omnichannel campaign strategies. For example, out-of-home (OOH) experienced a boost in Q2 in part due to the programmatic revolution it is undergoing. Marketers must make use of these new programmatic capabilities in channels such as OOH to create more holistic data-driven campaigns, better resonate with audiences, and achieve a reliable return on investment for brands – no matter how long uncertainty lasts.”

Phil Duffield, VP UK, The Trade Desk:
“I’m sure we can all agree that seeing budgets begin to expand again has allowed marketers to let out a sigh of relief after a troubling time of cuts. But, as budgets are unlocked, expectations to prove the ROI of every new pound spent on advertising are higher than ever.

“And if the last five quarters have taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. Consumer behaviours may never return to the predictable patterns we once knew, so decision-makers will need to remain agile in their approach. This is where the beauty of data-driven advertising truly lies – in its ability to allow marketers to remain nimble and flex campaigns as needed. Marketers who invest in data no longer have to fear that months’ worth of planning has been thrown down the drain, as adaptability is baked into strategies from the outset.

“I’m optimistic that marketers who adopt the right tech – with the capability to adapt spend according to what’s working and what isn’t – will have plenty of reasons to be positive going forward. One thing’s for sure – this quarter signals a bright future for the ad industry.”

Andrew Stephenson, Director of Marketing, EMEA, Treasure Data:
“The uptick in spend in this quarter’s IPA bellwether gives a strong indication that brands are desperate to engage and entertain consumers again.But as budgets increase, particularly in areas such as video, audio and online advertising, brands risk firing blind and creating ineffective campaigns unless marketers have a true view of their customer.

“The need for a solid data management strategy has never been so important. Brands are operating in a fundamentally different landscape following the pandemic, and connecting online and offline data will be critical to delivering a quality experience that keeps customers coming back.”

Nick Reid, Regional VP of Northern Europe, DoubleVerify:
“With this quarters Bellwether Report anticipating 2021 and 2022 will record strong rates of growth in ad spend – predicting 7.5 per cent and and 6.0 per cent respectively as businesses recover to pre-pandemic levels of activity – it is clear that the industry is aiming towards recovery. Brands, agencies and vendors must take this moment to reset and drive an improved ecosystem; one with clear baselines of media quality, accurate performance and relevant, privacy-friendly experiences.

“Only by utilising data more efficiently, and collaboratively, can they create a more transparent ecosystem which informs smarter strategies, fuels accountability and offers greater value for all stakeholders. After all, if we get this next phase right, and harness the current momentum of digital transformation, we can put in place profound benefits for all parties; striving for a stronger, safer and more secure ad ecosystem for the consumer and the brands who look to inspire them.”

Emil Bielski, UK MD, Croud:
“Strategic thinking and adaptability have seen businesses weather tough times, but with a strong uptake of the vaccination and an end of lockdown finally due, we can look forward with optimism once again. Media consumption increased during lockdown and consumer habits evolved in ways from which there is no going back.

“As a result, eCommerce advertising and paid search, which led the road to recovery, are now an established, integral part of the media mix, with eCommerce growth showing no signs of slowing. As the world starts to reopen, it’s important to consider the strong, brand building opportunities that the likes of digital, audio and video present, as it’s unlikely that consumers will revert completely to their pre-pandemic ways. Whilst recovering budgets are great news for the industry, we must learn from the lessons of the past 16 months, that flexibility is key and calculated risks reap rewards.”

Darren Savage, Chief Strategy Office, Tribal Worldwide:
“The preceding 18 months have been the world’s largest psychology experiment; during this time behaviour change has been imposed upon millions and attitudes are likely to have shifted regarding brands and drivers of choice.

As we slowly and uncertainly move out of the pandemic, it is especially important to invest in understanding how any behavioural and attitude changes have, and could, impact on brand choice. These dynamics need to be tracked over time to identify and understand which are temporal and which are more permanent.

Businesses should resist the superficial appeal of short-term sales messaging and invest their marketing budgets in more effective long-term brand building. This will require businesses to revaluate and, if needs be, modify not only how brands communicate what they stand for, but how they manifest in appropriate and persuasively potent ways across the entire customer experience.

Critical to this success will be to unify all departments and individuals so they are in sync with the commercial objectives of brand building opportunities, while refining what each role plays in executing it. Those businesses that follow this course of action will ultimately accelerate commercial growth and leave rivals in their wake.”

Justine O’Neill, Senior Director, Analytic Partners:
“Marketers can breathe a collective sigh of relief at news of marketing budgets expanding for the first time since Q4 2019 and at long last the end of five quarters of continuous cuts. There is pent-up consumer demand in the market and savvy marketers should now be focussing on how they can make the most if it and truly maximise consumer spend to make up for the lean times through the pandemic. But marketers shouldn’t start spending blindly – valuable lessons have been learned during the pandemic about changes in consumer behaviour and the importance of the right channel mix to maximise effectiveness & efficiency. As restrictions lift and consumers start to return in greater numbers to the high street, data will be the secret sauce to ensuring they use the right channels and activations to deliver the recipe for success.”

Mark Connolly, Managing Partner, Client Success at What’s Possible Group
“After months of cut and constrained budgets, overall business confidence is high amongst marketers, with a notable increase in brand marketing as advertisers start to look longer term and move away from the short term tactics of sales discounting and price promotions. Brands, particularly in retail and fashion, need to maximise revenue and compensate for the rent and rate holidays that will come to an end shortly. While high vaccination rates and the lifting of many covid restrictions will encourage more footfall into stores, marketing budgets continue to be more localised than they were two years ago.

“Many consumers continue to work from home and avoid city centres. This move to local is driving a shift in campaign planning channel choice, with savvy marketers increasingly utilising postcode localisation, AdSmart technology, OOH campaigns and door drop media. DTC also remains the growth opportunity for all brands that can deliver their goods or services direct to home. Growing confidence and returning budgets mean that landmark events will take on new significance in campaign planning. National TV has benefited from the Euro 2020 boost and England’s success through to the final, and 2022 will be the World Cup year, so another opportunity for dynamic growth brands to advertise. For those dreaming of a sun-kissed beach, the travel spend recovery is still out on the horizon but one to watch in 2022.”

Alexander Goesswein, VP Key Accounts EMEA, Criteo:
“After a unpredictable year in advertising, it’s encouraging to see optimism return and marketing budgets jump sharply up for the first time since the end of 2019; unsurprisingly online advertising grew by 11 per cent. While the pandemic forced marketers into a cautious approach, it also advocated for an online-first mentality and a greater reliance on digital that allows brands to find creative ways to reach their audiences.

“Today, the world is edging back to ‘normality’ and in the UK the confirmation this week of most restrictions easing by July 19th would have served as a well-timed boost for all aspects of marketing budgets. But, consumers aren’t going back to their old shopping habits overnight and the challenge for brands moving forward is to devise an online strategy that compliments offline channels. It’s more important than ever to satisfy customers at every touchpoint and achieve a balanced experience. This can be achieved through connecting with consumers by targeting them at all touchpoints; allowing them to discover, evaluate, engage and ultimately buy into a product or service. Where agility was required first and foremost – 9 in 10 marketers across all verticals stated they had made changes to their strategy due to the pandemic – we are now seeing stability return to the industry.”

“Going into the second half of the year, brands will have to find a way to stand out in a saturated online marketplace and hit that sweet spot where offline and online converge, for one channel cannot thrive without the other. And as we see the beginnings of an economic rebound materialise, the move into a post-cookie era, where targeted advertising will have to be more granular and accurate to consumers’ ever-changing habits, it will ultimately shape brand ROI, or reputational challenges.”

The post IPA Bellwether Report – industry reaction appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Jonathan DSouza-Rauto, Biddable Product Lead, Infectious Media
“There are a number of reasons why Google’s decision to delay the process of removing third-party cookies won’t surprise many in the digital media industry. It’s probably fair to say work on the alternative – Google’s Privacy Sandbox – hasnt moved as fast as expected and a lot of questions remain about certain aspects of it. In Europe, Privacy Sandbox with FLoC (Federated learning of Cohorts) in particular had challenges with GDPR, so there is no way Google would release a product that only works in certain markets. If they’d kept to their previous timeline to remove third-party cookies they would have needed to start acting on their promises to disconnect their Ads products from Chrome, which has slowly started. Google is also under acute regulatory and legal scrutiny right now. So in this context it probably makes sense to delay.

“My fear is that if the death of the cookie happens in slow motion, the sense of urgency amongst advertisers to rewrite the book on how they reach digital audiences might wane. We hope this news doesnt give agencies and advertisers the justification to keep old and bad habits.”

Joanna Catalano, Chief Growth Officer, Piano
“While the natural inclination for publishers and brands might be to breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘Oh good, now I don’t have to worry about this for a while,’ nothing could be further from the truth. The fundamental consumer and regulatory push toward more privacy and less tracking hasn’t changed a bit. Users want more control over their data and how it’s used, and regulators are committed to enforcing and expanding their protections.

“Publishers and brands can now use the delay to develop well-grounded strategies built on engaged, loyal users who are willing to share their identity and appropriate personal information. Identifying technology and strategic partners who understand and can help execute a multi-faceted strategy that works across anonymous and known users, direct and programmatic advertising will have immediate value. Brands should take this pause as an opportunity to develop less dependence on Google and its tight hold on search and digital advertising, which again, for publishers and brands means building direct user relationships, and diverse technology solutions for advertising and marketing.”

Fred Whitton, Digital Partner, Total Media
“Google’s delay to cookie deprecation is mixed news for marketers and the industry. On the one hand it gives a reprieve to cookie-confused marketers and data solutions providers (adtech stock has already jumped), on the other it delays meaningful re-architecture of the open web to a more privacy-centred model, with the challenges to the FLoC approach in particular and an end to testing it’s current form in July. The link to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigations is notable, as is the need to ensure a level playing field in data control and ad supply. Overall this is another delay to the next chapter for digital media and it shouldn’t change brands need to continue to invest in building deeper relationships with their consumers.”

Tim Sleath, VP of Product Management, VDX.tv
“Given the state of readiness of the Privacy Sandbox initiatives, the regulatory and commercial doubts over FLoC and the position of the vast majority of publishers across the internet for such a meaningful change, there was already an expectation that the switchover date would need to be delayed until late 2022. It is a shame Google hadn’t worked through the bulk of the W3C process first to have an alternative before pulling the plug, but there are many reasons for that. Much of the advertising ecosystem is already adhering to the state of third-party cookieless, so it’s not a case of celebration or relaxation. It’s more a matter of continuing to use available cookie data signals to further allow marketers to hone other identity solutions, including householding – and if were offered a further 18 months of runaway to do so, we wont say no.”

Richard Jalichandra, Global General Manager, Spiceworks Ziff Davis
“Of course Google was always going to delay their plan to remove cookies – they had to. There is no surprise here. The greater question was always ‘when would this be announced and how long would the delay be?’ Not delaying this would have exploded the antitrust conversation we are seeing around Google right now. And, when you look at the tens of thousands of publishers and eCommerce companies that would have been greatly impacted by this, the entire ecosystem would have unravelled if there wasn’t adequate time to make plans.”

Konrad Feldman, CEO and Co-founder. Quantcast
“Any CEOs or brand leaders breathing a sigh of relief at this news and getting ready to reassign people and resources to other projects should reconsider. Google may have called extra time on the third-party cookie, but brands, agencies, publishers, and technology companies should remain focused on finding a long-term alternative. This will avoid swapping a mad-dash in the second half of 2021 for a mad-dash in the first half of 2023. There are also already many parts of the open internet, including Safari and Firefox, that require alternatives to third-party cookies today. Post-cookie solutions have value now, regardless of the time extension. Quantcast remains focused on developing an innovative and interoperable alternative to third-party cookies based on sound industry standards.”  

Todd Parsons, Chief Product Officer, Criteo
“Today’s announcement is welcome news for the people who rely on a vibrant and healthy open internet. We appreciate Google’s decision to create more time for the industry to prepare, but the extended deadline does not in any way change or impact Criteo’s strategy. We continue to build products that will enable our customers to reach and engage their audiences without third-party identifiers. This includes investment in our first-party media network, cohort-based targeting, initiatives in Google’s Privacy Sandbox, and contextual advertising, all of which allow marketers to effectively engage with their customers in a privacy-safe and consented manner.”    

Kasper Skou, CEO and Co-founder, Semasio 
“While this is good news for the industry as a whole, it should not deter us from moving beyond the third-party cookie as the main identifier for internet users. It is not a good vehicle for communicating with consumers, explaining the quid pro quo of data for content, facilitating that equitable exchange through collecting, storing and communicating informed consent through the value chain, and doing all of that with the user – not the device she is using right now – at the centre.

The elephant in the room is that 40 per cent of internet users are not identifiable via cookies today. We need to continue the great work which has already gone into the future of data-driven advertising, and we need to do it on a basis that makes the consumer an equal and informed partner in the ecosystem.”

Alexander Knudsen, VP, Solutions Engineering, Amobee
“Googles decision to delay the depreciation of third-party cookies is a responsible one. Its excellent news for both publishers and advertisers and this added runway will create a better environment to partner on scalable solutions that benefit all parties.”

Anne Hunter, VP of Product Marketing, DISQO
“Google may be giving marketers more time, but consumers arent waiting – they want transparency and value in use of their data now. Leaving cookies in the oven longer will only burn them further. Cookies remain an imperfect measurement tool, and marketers should seek zero-party data sources to get a fully-permissioned and complete view of their consumers journeys. Ultimately, over-reliance on cookies risks misalignment between a brands purpose and their consumers values.”

Raquel Rosenthal, CEO, Diligant
“While the digital advertising industry at large will sleep well tonight, I don’t expect advertisers will be standing by for long. The delay is just that, a delay – in large part to combat recent scrutiny over FLoC and to ensure industry stakeholders are well-prepared for the demise of cookies. In the next two years, advertisers will undoubtedly continue to get their fill of third-party cookies but we’ll also (finally) start to see momentum around testing and learning for cookieless alternatives to identity and measurement. Ultimately, we’re hoping that the culmination of this delay and recent iOS changes are new sets of advertising solutions and regulations that are beneficial to both industry players and consumers.”

Dmitri Lisitski, Co-Founder and CEO, Influ2
“Google has been trying to hack cookies by introducing an alternative, an alternative that theyre saying is less personal and more behavioural. However, the alternative that they introduced isnt really any different than cookies, and the loss of cookies will negatively impact them as well, since their primary source of revenue comes from advertising. 

“There needs to be an alternative, or new solution, that is truly different from cookies, but for now, cookies is the best option – even if it isnt ideal. Because a non-targeted approach is worse, and it will worsen the quality of the advertising experience for both advertisers and consumers. So, ultimately, it is premature to do away with cookies, and the current decision is of benefit to all (but especially advertising platforms – even giants like Facebook). And, this will allow advertisers to survive a little while longer.”

Bruce Biegel, Senior Managing Partner, Winterberry Group
“We are thinking that this is a suspension to give the market (and Google) time to adjust. It will not solve the Apple challenges, and the news is of benefit to the existing ad tech data, identity and DSP ecosystem – but also, the market has to contend with new regulatory initiatives at the state level which will continue to push near term market transformation. There’s more to come on this.”

The post Google delays phase-out of third-party cookies – industry response appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Life is tough for advertisers right now.

Not only is Google deprecating the use of third-party in Chrome by the end of the year, but the introduction of Apples iOS 14.5 together with the app tracking transparency framework, which gives users the option to opt out of being tracked, has caused turmoil in the industry. According to Ad Exchanger, the opt-in rate to allow app tracking has fluctuated between just four per cent to 13 per cent. 

For marketers who rely heavily on IDFA and other tracking sources, the risk appears higher than ever.

However, the ad tech industry is nothing if not inventive. For marketers staying close to first-party data and coming up with creative advertising solutions, a window of opportunity has opened.

“The digital advertising industry is undergoing a process of deep transformation right in front of our eyes,” says President, International of VidMob, Cesar Melo. “The focus is shifting to ad creative itself as the most decisive factor in campaign performance. Intelligent creative – ad creative built by the integration of first-party data into the creative process – is becoming a fundamental tool in this new era of advertising.  The world is just waking up to this phenomenal new opportunity.”

“In an effort to recover advertising efficiency, companies have to pivot aggressively to a creartive first solution. Theres a restructuting that needs to happen on multiple levels. Firstly, they have to bring in probabilistic maching learning teams to understand how to monertize. Secondly, they have to restructure their market and product team in an effort to recover some efficiency with creative” says Brian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquisition. “What were seeing is companies pan out across many platforms, for example TikTok, Snapchat, and ad networks such as Unity and Vungle to try and find efficiency. Were also seeing that ad developers are not submitting their apps, theyre taking their time and letting the bugs sit there because they know the moment they submit it they lose all the tracking. It looks like end of June, maybe middle of July where the true impact of IDFA loss will start to be felt.” 

Others remain positive about what lies ahead, both for consumer privacy and the opportunity it gives marketers to reach their consumers who really want to be reached.

“Rather than approach these changes with fear and trepidation, mobile marketers should use this opportunity to radically rethink their approach to customer engagement” says CEO and Founder of the CLV Group, Neil Joyce. “Instead of relying on invasive and ultimately less effective targeting technologies, brands can take back control of their marketing processes and move beyond the “group think” scenario that has fixated on reach and inefficiency, towards looking more closely at the impact of customer conversations and customer experiences on sales conversions.”

So what solutions are forward-thinking marketers coming up with?

Ogury, a global technology leader in mobile brand advertising, has launched Personified Targeting, a technology for targeting audiences on the mobile web, without the use of user data, identifiers, or device graphs.

“It’s very much a new proprietary technology that we’ve developed at Ogury” says SVP of Product at Ogury, Antoine Barber. “The promise is to deliver superior results while 100 per cent respecting user privacy. Personified Targeting is fuelled by a data set which we believe is unique.”

Personified Targeting can be broken down into a few parts. There is contextual and semantic data, which as Barber points out “many people do”.

However, Ogury goes one step further by fuelling this with audience data.

“We’re likely to have been the first ones to have a consent management platform back in the days when there was no GDPR” says Barber. “Fast forward to today and we don’t keep any user data, but we know about these trends in terms of consumption. We call that mobile journey data – that’s feeding our audience data portion.

“The other part is very mature survey data. So again, we anonymously connect, survey, and sell. Anonymously means it’s not tied to a user, it’s tied to asset – so a website or an app. From there we can build attributes for the assets, so sites and websites. The last data piece is self-targeting audience data, which is very much tied to how users are engaging with the ads.

“In fact, we have some ad units which are user choice driven, such as the video chooser, where we can see which ads the users were interested in interacting with. So, in a nutshell, we are trying to use the best of what is out there, whilst leveraging what we’ve done for the past seven years. All we’ve been doing is trying to find the best data set and the best targeting out there and it happens to cookieless and ID-less in mobile application.”

Performance-based marketing tracking company, Swaarm has come up with a different solution to Apple’s IDFA changes. It has launched attribution chain methodology, Privacy Enabled Attribution (PEA Chain) for the mobile advertising industry.

Swaarm’s platform will generate a special token called “PEA Chain” that is passed in the click and can be retrieved in the postback. The token contains all the information needed for the network to determine the campaign and traffic source.

Given that the information was supplied for the impression and click, the token also contains all the data for the rest of the networks in the chain to identify their traffic sources. This allows networks that use Swaarm to work with publishers of varied sizes by giving them access to the attribution data that they need to successfully optimize their traffic.

For advertising partners that have a very strict or rigid model, Swaarm also supports a basic attribution method. 

“We at Swaarm believe that the power and beauty of the internet consists in its distributed and varied nature, where small publishers and large media conglomerates can thrive and provide valuable content to internet users” said CEO of Swaarm, David Frei. “This is why we created the Privacy Enabled Attribution chain method to enable attribution throughout the whole chain without collecting any personal information.”

With the PEA Chain attribution method, Swaarm ensures that correct non-probabilistic attribution can be made throughout the whole network chain. The method successfully protects the user’s privacy and guarantees fairness and exactness in the attribution process.

While the introduction of GDPR shone a light on user privacy and seemingly put the power back into the consumers hands, information on how user data is used, traded, shared, and sold was traditionally buried within EULAs (End User Licence Agreements) and privacy policies that hardly anyone would take the time to read.

Matt Voda, CEO of OptiMine describes Apple’s privacy labels as ‘revolutionary’, saying “The reality is that such personal data exchanges are being made everywhere, and once Apples labels have caught on as a standard way to communicate privacy, we can expect to see other industries, manufacturers and players to publish their own. Google has already pre-announced their own intentions to do something along the same lines.

“The main point here is that if a brand is reliant on tracking data for things such as marketing performance measurement, they need to come up with future-proof alternatives because Apples move in the privacy space is just one step in a much larger consumer data privacy wave that is gaining more traction. There will certainly be other industries and devices that head down this same road and brands can no longer rely on a set of individual consumer tracking data to tell them what their advertising is worth and how effective it is. Those days of tracking-based measurement are numbered.” 

 Another company successfully swerving track-based methods is marketing solutions company, Vericast.

Last month, it officially launched Household Connect, a digital solution that uniquely connects data to a digital household in a manner that respects consumer’s privacy choices.

“The team at Vericast is very smart, particularly the folks who built this” says Chief Product Officer, Digital Marketing & Technology Solutions at Vericast, Michelle Engle. “Theyre using artificial intelligence and some data science to look at the patterns that theyre seeing in various devices. Whether its mobile devices or desktop, they’re using that data and those patterns to create groupings that represent that digital household and then they tie it back to a physical location i.e the households location. We have over 40 years of various data that we can tie to that physical address. So, we can associate that data and the characteristics of the people who live in that household to use that to better market to them.

“We can also use it to find their neighbours who are likely to be interested in the same sorts of products, the same sort of cars etc. It’s essentially a pattern recognition and using all of the different data points we see around the different devices to create that prediction around the household.”

 Having been on both the print side of marketing and the digital side, Vericast is a company well prepared for Apple’s changes.

 “Our core digital technology, which is probably about 12-15 years old, was all built before this reliance on cookies or reliance on mobile device ID’s. So, for our core and our roots we were able to re-use a lot of that technology around understanding the consumer, what the patterns are and using that to create our own way to identify” says Engle.

The use of socio-demographic data is also being employed by Techstars backed tech company, Covatic.

A-Type is the company’s new product, which enables publishers and apps to maintain and grow digital revenues while preserving user privacy and meeting tightening industry data standards. A-Type uses Covatic’s on-device processing to allocate groups of users to relevant third-party socio-demographic data, such as CACI ACORN or Experian MOSAIC segments, without exposing any form of ID.

This not only creates highly relevant and sellable audiences, but is designed to be GDPR, CCPA and ATT safe and doesn’t need users to login, which means clients can make their entire user base addressable.

 “Regulators and key industry players—particularly Apple and Google—are rightly acting to protect user privacy by blocking excessive online data collection practices. This is great for consumers but presents a huge challenge to the digital ad-industry. To date, most responses have focussed on first-party, contextual or cohort-based solutions. Covatic offers a compelling fourth way: insights gained from the ‘real world’ and processed on-device to ensure no personal data is ever shared” said Chief Product Officer at Covatic, Daniel Pike.

Global technology company Criteo has introduced a contextual advertising solution.

“Our Criteo Contextual Targeting solution brings contextual advertising to the next level, by combining real-time contextual signals from publishers with a deep understanding of advertisers’ first-party commerce data” says EMD EMEA of Criteo, Shruthi Chindalur. “This is our big USP. Through this combination, we help marketers uncover the relationship between content and buying behaviours to further drive revenue and accurately measure the impact of their contextual campaigns in cookie-free media.”

Criteo uses first- party commerce data of its advertising partners through intelligent machine learning, powered by Criteo’s Al Engine to uncover the URLs and categories which have the highest affinities with a specific audience.

By classifying every publisher URL across its vast media network, the platform helps advertisers display personalised product recommendations without relying on third-party cookies.

 “Our technology is vital in helping brands and marketers see the bigger picture” continues Chindalur. “$2.5bn (£1.77bn) in commerce transactions happen every day across our client network, a bigger value than what Amazon generates on its own platform. Furthermore, we understand the need for retailers to gain further insight, particularly as neither Facebook nor Instagram is closely integrated with retailers, meaning the insights they can bring back into the buying experience is more challenging.

 “What differentiates us is that we focus on the open internet where the majority of consumer eyeballs are; indeed, over 70 per cent of online shopping happens outside walled gardens. What’s more, our First-Party Media Network accumulates as much identity data as we can outside of our Shopper Graph from our marketers and media owners, meaning we provide a better overall service and can help mitigate the effect of third-party cookie depreciation.”

Apple’s changes have caused some companies to merge and form an expanded identity partnership. This is the case for consumer intelligence platform, Zeotap and PubMatic – a sell-side platform delivering superior outcomes for digital advertising.

Zeotap’s Universal ID solution, ID+ will now be available in Identity Hub, PubMatic’s Prebid-based identity management solution. Zeotap’s taxonomy will also be available within Audience Encore, PubMatic’s audience data platform. 

For publishers facing the prospect of a cookieless future, the expanded partnership opens up vital opportunities to maintain and improve inventory monetisation.

Florian Lichtwald, Managing Director and Chief Business Officer of Zeotap, said: “In the wake of the death of the third-party cookie, the new reality of addressability hinges on interoperability. With PubMatic, we’re proud to bring ID+ to even more publishers and advertisers by working with a partner who prioritises consumer privacy and choice as much as we do.”

Many remain sceptical about the true motive behind Apple’s privacy changes but see clear opportunities ahead for consumers and brands.  

As Bryan Karas, CEO of Playbook Media says “Apple is reserving the right for themselves to understand the identity of their users and their actions but removing it for most advertisers. This gives them a bunch of power to funnel users into their own suite of products, build more advertising “solutions” for developers, and create even greater reliance on the Apple ecosystem. Watch for more mobile app advertising solutions, apple partnerships in ecommerce, and a push for Apple sign in to allow them to get even more data to power future services.”

He advises companies to “Focus on creative. In a world where the systems are not as robust, creative will become all the more important. It is essential for advertisers to invest in diverse, engaging, and product centric creative to stand out from the crowd within a less targeted audience.”

The post Apples IDFA changes – the alternative solutions appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Now when a user installs or updates the new iOS, a prompt will appear alerting the user to opt-in or opt-out of the sharing of this information. Previously, around 70 per cent of iOS users shared their IDFA with app publishers – after today’s changes, it is estimated that this figure will drop to around 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

In a statement, Apple said “Privacy is a fundamental right and at the core of everything we do”.

However, not everyone in the industry agrees.   

CEO and Founder of Playbook Media, Bryan Karas described Apple’s latest move as ‘disgusting’, stating: “People’s lives are not going to improve as a result of these changes. We need to be concerned about facial scanning on a mass scale, unauthorised spying of US citizens, political propaganda that hijacks non-paid content algorithms, and a multitude of other privacy issues that are far beyond anonymised data for advertising.”

Others echo the opinion that Apples new changes have not been made with the consumer in mind, but rather for the companys own gain. 

“They are trying to stand up as a shining beacon and voice of the privacy conscious consumer. Lets be honest though, they are about as capitalist as they come” said Co-Founder and Managing Director of digital experience enablement specialists, DMPG, Steve Carrod. 

“Their net income in 2020 was $57bn (£41.15bn). If they were really of the people why havent they given any of this back to their loyal customers? They want your money and as much of it as possible. Their plan is to try and control the market and privacy is what appears to be a vehicle for this. However, the stakes may have just got too high for businesses to continue to gamble their chips on Apples table.”

Apples announcement has led to an antitrust complaint in Germany from some of the largest ad, tech and media businesses in the country, claiming that the App Tracking Transparency will harm the ads market.

As the Financial Times reported: “Nine industry associations, representing companies including Facebook and Axel Springer, the owner of Bild, Die Welt and Insider, filed the complaint on Monday with Germany’s competition regulator…The German complaint predicted a 60 per cent fall in advertising revenues for app developers, as the changes make it harder for third parties to gather the data they need to place ads.”

So will businesses start to move away from the tech giant? 

Ad tech tracking platform Swaarm has announced the launch of its new attribution chain methodology Privacy Enabled Attribution (PEA Chain) for the mobile advertising industry. It believes Apple’s removal of IDFA puts all the mid-size networks and publishers at a serious disadvantage, while consolidating even more power to large established networks.

Co-Founder & COO of Apptrust, Oleksandra Gipsh said “Apples removal of IDFA has been concerning businesses like ours and our marketing partners that rely on user-level tracking to effectively optimize our campaigns. Since Swaarms Privacy Enabled Attribution Chain largely solves for the lack of IDFA-based tracking, weve moved to their platform and can now say were better prepared for when Apple finally removes IDFA from the mobile ecosystem.”

In order to help ad-driven app installations, Apple has introduced SKAdNetwork (SKAN), a privacy-friendly way to attribute impressions and clicks to app installs on iOS apps. It shares conversion data with advertisers without revealing any user-level or device-level data. 

Facebook announced that it will be releasing an updated version of Facebook SDK to support app users. The social media platform relied heavily on IDFA. Not only did it use IDFA to target ads and estimate their effectiveness but its tracking cookies, which followed users round the web to learn more about them, were paired with it. 

It has argued that users benefit from their data being shared with advertisers and that Apples latest app update could cut the money earned by its ad network by half, hitting small businesses the hardest. 

However, in its latest blog post Facebook appeared to support the change, stating “It’s important to acknowledge that the ways that digital advertising collects and uses data will evolve. While we have expressed concerns about Apple’s approach, we support giving people more control over how their data is used to improve advertising relevance.”

The social media platform also announced plans to retire Facebook Analytics by 30 June 2021 in an initiative to ‘consolidate business tools’.

CEO of Ryu Games, Ross Krasner believes this is a sign of things to come: 

“Until now, Facebook has been the go-to advertising platform for smaller businesses because of their vast audience and incredible optimisation tools. It would be unfortunate if due to Apple’s well-intentioned but consequential update that Facebook might not be step one for small businesses looking to advertise to iOS users anymore. We might see a shift in advertisers bringing more of their budget to different ad networks in the next year as a result.” said Krasner. 

Many argue that IDFA not only helped businesses and advertisers but was a welcome asset to consumers.  CEO of Admix, Sam Huber explains how IDFA benefits consumers in the gaming industry. 

“IDFA is an opportunity for a return to context from an obsession with clicks. Mobile games are a uniquely context-rich space for advertisers that will massively soften the impact of IDFA if publishers and advertisers re-jig their media mix” said Huber.

“In-Play advertising uses this context to monetize 100 per cent of users with non-intrusive advertising that doesnt interfere with the gameplay experience. Its a far cry from interruptive interstitials and, for publishers that currently rely on monetizing a small segment of their audience with in-app purchases, a chance to make their post-IDFA monetization more sustainable.

“IDFA doesnt take use of personal data off the table entirely. By weaving consent workflows into the touchpoints they have with users rather than relying on consent signals, mobile games can draw on incredibly valuable first-party data that gives advertisers cast iron confidence.”

Despite the outcry, there is no doubt that advertising teams and marketers will now be forced to reassess how they personally engage with consumers.

Ambassador, 1-1 Customer Engagement at Pegasystems, Jo Allen has the following advice:

“Businesses need to combine online and offline channels under a single decision authority to make the best use of data and engage more effectively with customers. Too often digital marketers pick up an interest of the customer and then keep hammering it, regardless of whether the customer has made a recent purchase relating to that interest. When you start to use first-party data, organisations can start thinking about the audiences they don’t want to target as much as those they do. Effectively we should see a drive towards better targeting.” 

The post Apple IDFA changes come into force – industry reaction appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Alessandra Di Lorenzo, CEO of Forward, lastminute.com’s media company
“The uncertain political climate isn’t the only thing putting marketers – and their budgets – under pressure. From reduced consumer confidence and spending to ambitious sales targets, they’re facing a myriad of other challenges, too. In times like these, brands need performance and measurable results to ensure they’re getting the most from their spend, which is clearly why there has been a focus on digital investment.

“Used intelligently, data and digital marketing technology can allow you to execute precise and measurable campaigns quickly and efficiently. Looking ahead, it will be the players that use data in the smartest ways that win big. But, for maximum results, brands need to keep their eyes on the prize and combine campaign performance with brand building – a practice which is often de-prioritised by digital marketers. By combining the two, and focussing on ‘brand performance’, brands can dramatically increase the impact of their campaigns, and get closer to customers.”

Mike Klinkhammer, director of advertising sales EU at eBay
“The underwhelming figures released today by the IPA, show that marketers are certainly being impacted by the uncertain economic climate, with budgets naturally taking the hit. 

“But it’s not just the economic landscape causing concern, rapid developments in technology mean many digital marketers are also worried about the looming threat of cookie-less advertising, and how this will impact the way we deliver relevant ads in the future. Wherever possible, brands and publishers should be looking to harness the first party data at their finger-tips, and explore how they can cut and slice it in smarter ways – in order to deliver relevant, intelligent advertising, without the need for cookies.”

“Marketers don’t need to look very far to find cookie-less targeting methods either. Contextual targeting – combined with search and display advertising – is still an incredibly valuable way to reach audiences. At eBay, as part of our cookie-less targeting offer, we’re turbo-charging contextual targeting by tying it in with new shopper intent capabilities: blending real-time contextual segments with key shopper intent signals – and powered by search algorithms. Contextual may have been simple in the past, but it’s getting increasingly intelligent – and offers a brilliant opportunity for marketers to get closer to their customers.”

Asher Gordon, head of biddable media at Tug
“It’s understandable that, in a time of low confidence, marketers are cautious about their spend. But as advertisers continue to look to optimise every penny, we’ll no doubt see digital continue to rise – whether it’s in search, display, or digital out-of-home – as technology continues to make marketing infinitely simpler and more efficient.

“Despite some numbers in the report ‘going down’ at first glance – notably in search – it’s worth noting that many of these numbers remain positive, meaning strong growth continues across the digital space.”

Gavin Stirrat, VP of partner services at OpenX
“With digital spend continuing to rise, even as wider marketing budgets fall, today’s news proves that the significance of digital markets is only continuing to grow. But as consumer attention continues to be diluted across platforms, screens, and channels, it’s more important now than ever for advertisers to make smart targeting decisions based on how their audiences are behaving online.

“And our own research – in partnership with The Harris Poll – is very clear about what those audiences are doing. Where Linear TV once reigned, for example, two thirds are now subscribing to streaming services – with 32 per cent not having cable or satellite, or looking to ditch it in the next year.

“That doesn’t mean, however, that there’s only one stop for digital marketing. In order to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market, advertisers need to move away from a broad brush approach and make sure audiences are front of mind in every spending decision to keep targeting relevant and effective.”

Anna Forbes, UK general manager at The Trade Desk
“With advertisers’ purse strings tightening, every penny counts, so it makes sense that an increasing number of marketers are pivoting towards the digital space to get maximum value. In fact, the innovations of the past 12 months alone have made it far easier – and more rewarding – for advertisers to do just that. The growth in the digital sector, reported by both the IAB and IPA, stands as testament to the industry waking up to the power of programmatic. 

Particularly notable is the sizeable growth of video, which contributed well over £1bn in the first six months of the year according to the IAB. Advertisers have long known that video is a powerful format to reach consumers, but its power is likely to grow exponentially as more and more Connected TV streaming services enter the UK market. And with UK consumers creeping ever closer to subscription fee saturation, advertising will be a key asset in unlocking new revenue for many streaming companies, further boosting an already flourishing sector of UK ad spend.”

Jem Lloyd-Williams, Mindshare UK CEO
“Unsurprisingly, the report shows a slow-down in overall media investments, due in large part to a more cautious approach across all sectors as we wait to see how Brexit plays out. Our own research shows most people feel powerless about what might happen. They are switching their focus to the climate change crisis – giving them something they feel they can positively influence. The outlook is better going into 2020 and it’s our job to ensure our clients are ready to take advantage of the inevitable new opportunities next year brings. Putting our client’s audiences at the heart of our recommendations remains our focus. Whatever the immediate effects of Brexit, understanding people’s motivations and emotions better than anyone else during next year provides a competitive advantage, and, it helps resist the temptation of looking only in the short term for returns on media investment.”

Thomas Byrne, EVP Agency Services at Merkle EMEA
“The report has revealed that, again, this quarter the industry is favouring the measurability and efficiency of internet advertising when it comes to the allocation of ad spend budget. It seems clear the industry is experiencing – and gaining an understanding of – the positive impact – that data-driven advertising in the social media space can have on both a brand awareness and market share perspective, but also on profitability and the bottom line.

“An improved online experience built on the utility and service from relevant and respectfully target messaging is driving short-term performance and developing brand affection. However, this cannot be a temporary ‘reallocation’ of budget for short-term ‘cost efficiency’ it needs to continue into Q4, 2020 and beyond in order to further develop and maintain long-term brand awareness. Efforts must also be focused on taking this people-based marketing approach further by connecting data-driven, digital campaigns to long term measurable objectives for clients. Only then will they be able to truly maximise performance and media efficiency to deliver the right message, at the right time in the consumer’s path-to-purchase journey.”

Paul Hutchison, Wavemaker UK CEO
“It may be disappointing to see that industry-wide financial prospects remain negative this quarter, but it’s an expected, and totally understandable bi-product of an unformed post-Brexit future. Advertisers are living in a challenging environment of ‘now and not yet’ – toughing out the existing and continuously changing political and economic uncertainties.

“However, as confidence in the UK economy is regained there’s a somewhat brighter future for ad spend prospects on the horizon – which is also a reflection of its value and importance to all UK businesses.

“Rash budget cuts can often cause long-term damage, we need to remember that sales are over-night, but brands are built over time. So, it’s important for companies to maintain momentum and spend money where it counts – both outcomes should be optimised to ensure they lead to the best chance of sustainable growth. 

“It’s all about creating the biggest impact – and that means using customer insights and the data available to make smart choices when it comes to ad spend. Not simply pouring all investment into one channel – i.e. digital – but thinking about the broader spectrum of media assets available and the audience they reach, from TV, to social, to Out-of-Home.

“In addition, the continuing decline in forecast investment in market research is also understandable: it’s just too difficult to articulate clearly enough what the question is.  However, it should also be a wake-up call for market research practitioners to rethink approaches to enable stronger and more directional support to businesses in times of uncertainty.”

Eve Lee, founder and CEO of The Digital Fairy
“It’s disappointing to see that the reasons behind the growth in on-line and social-media campaigns are simply ‘in the interest of cost efficiency’ and a ‘reallocation of budget’ and not an acknowledgement of the power or impact they have on brand awareness.

“This is especially true for those looking to attract the attention of the youth audience – specifically Generation Z. It seems that not all UK businesses have got to grips with the true value of on-line and social media-based campaigns. The idea with the new generation is that you speak with them not at them, and any approach must be authentic. This is where these channels truly come into play where impact and value are concerned.

“Brands need to be smarter and more resourceful when it comes to ad spend. There doesn’t need to be a ‘cut just simply a shift in where/how they’re spending money in order to get results and have a bigger impact on brand awareness, market share and ultimately the bottom line. As ad spend regains momentum and grows in 2020, then we would hope that the ‘reallocated budgets’ to on-line and social-media based campaigns would become ‘permanent budgets’. And these channels receive the full recognition they deserve.

“But let’s also not forget that there is also a need for an awareness that consumer hesitancy and this indecisiveness – in particular with this new generation of consumer – is not a short-term change that’s only caused by Brexit. The increasing awareness of issues such as global warming is having a huge effect on consumerism and brand competition, and this is going to have a longer-term impact on ad spend and marketing budgets.”

Matt White, VP EMEA at Quantcast
“This quarters IPA Bellwether report reflects continued Brexit uncertainty as marketers feel the squeeze on their budgets. In these challenging times, marketers need to focus on making their budgets work harder and smarter. Unsurprisingly, many brands are reallocating budgets to digital – a sensible move, given the precise targeting that it offers them.

“But marketers need to dive deeper into campaign efficiency – from optimising ad frequency and rethinking the precision of their targeting, to investing in more intelligent online tools for dynamic creative optimisation as well as getting premium inventory at the best rates.

“When budgets are being shortened, there is a tendency for marketers to move to direct response activity but its important not to lose sight of long-term goals and upper funnel activity if brands are to weather the Brexit storm.”

Steffen Svartberg, Cavai co-founder
“The results of the IPA Bellwether herald another cautious quarter for marketing spend. This is not surprising given that it has been a period of disruption with ITP 3 and 4 continuing to have an impact and reduce the number of users that can be targeted and measured. We expect to see an increase in contextual targeting, machine driven and conversational advertising. Consent driven, transparency and a greater reliance on machine learning leads to increased credibility and a flux in operating models as the industry evolves and companies need to be agile enough to pivot. Only then will we start to see more sustained growth in digital ad spend as we head into 2020.”

Jenny Stanley, founder and MD at Appetite Creative
“The report from IPA Bellwether shows that main media ad budgets were placed on hold during the third quarter and this reluctance to commit to big ticket marketing campaigns is concerning. At a time of uncertainty and minimal growth, it is essential for brands to hold their nerves and move away from ads that are unsatisfactory, unfitting and uncomfortable. The recent underwhelming performance of marketing budgets seem to be inline with underwhelming creatives and it’s time to think about the consumer and their needs. Immersive medium requires an immersive ad experience, rather than a 2D creative. As we close 2019, it is time to champion creativity if we want to improve performance and increased investment in digital advertising.”

Mattias Spetz, MD EMEA at Channel Factory
“Not only has the economic and political uncertainty led to indecisiveness and hesitancy among UK businesses, we can expect to see disruption in operating models as trust and transparency issues have led to a lack of faith in our industry. GDPR and transparency is a massive influencer for marketers, and this has clearly had an impact as there has been a contraction in expenditure in total marketing budgets in Q3 as firms tighten the reins. It is imperative that brands stand adjacent to content that reflects their brand identity and is never damaging in any way to their brand. With this in mind, the message to marketers is clear – don’t go everywhere; go where you will have the most impact.”

Paul Frampton, European president at CvE
“Sadly, the continuing uncertainty of Brexit and count down reducing to a matter of days is creating softness in the market or at least in the mindsets of what will happen in the last quarter and heading in to Q1 2020.

“As consumer confidence hovers, all marketing organisations are looking for more for less, so the importance of data is key. Digital continues to attract more of the overall budget demonstrating a bigger focus on accountability and shorter-term ROI for many businesses. We see search, social and programmatic continuing to attract bigger budgets YOY but this is being taken from elsewhere.

“Whilst other studies show the rise of investments in marketing tech and data, it isn’t hugely evident in this latest report from the IPA. Indeed, many brands are investing in building a tech stack that future proofs them for a more data driven, addressable media landscape.

“As spend consolidates more and more towards digital, we are seeing brands reviewing their marketing models, asking inevitable questions. What do they do themselves and what do they outsource? Are they accurately tying back activity to business results? How do they build for a world where third party cookies are less relevant? How do they prepare for a world where traditional broadcast channels like TV and OOH can increasingly be planned and bought leveraging data like digital?

“One thing is for sure, it’s going to be an interesting couple of months ahead.” 

Ben Little, founder and director at Fearlessly Frank
“When even the IPA sounds a note of pessimism, we need to take it very seriously. Anyone in the industry knows that the appetite for marketing expenditure inside companies has been weak for a long time now. In the light of Brexit, it’s easy to brush this away as indecisiveness born of uncertainty.

“But the malaise in marketing services is far, far deeper than that. Businesses everywhere are finally facing up to the hard task of what it takes to grow relentlessly – and finding that what’s offered in response by the marketing services industry is inadequate, weak, and increasingly irrelevant in any meaningful way.

“Marketing services don’t do what they say on the tin. Bigger budgets don’t lead to growth. The game is up – growth is only available by pulling many other, different levers. The levers of strategy, innovation, investment and ingenuity. Unless the marketing services business acknowledges that and starts to think with clarity and purpose about growth and what companies are trying to achieve, then this decline will accelerate even as political uncertainty subsides.”

Damien Bennett, director of strategy at Incubeta
“The latest IPA Bellwether report shows that in uncertain economic times, advertisers are choosing to prioritise media that gives them more certainty over the return that is being delivered. The importance of digitals measurability becomes heightened as businesses seek confidence that their media budgets are being invested in the most effective areas. In addition to this digital consumption continues to increase and this is reflected in advertisers shifting greater proportions of their budgets to digital channels.”

James Briscoe, strategic advisor, and investor at Percept
“Given the economic climate, the latest IPA Bellwether report comes of no surprise. Similar to last quarters analysis there is an increase in online and social media. However, brands also face challenges online given the new regulatory environment, such as GDPR and ITP, and changes in how they operate their online channels. Specifically, the trend for brands to in-house or take more control of their digital marketing, with transparency and full visibility being on the top of many brands requirements.

“For those looking at a career in digital, the demand and options are constantly increasing, with a shortage of talent in many key areas.”

James Sleaford, managing director of DQ&A UK & IE
“Uncertainty is generating a reluctance to commit to long term budgets, but this is countered by the reality that business goes on and things arent as bad as they seem in all cases. Its no surprise, as highlighted by the latest findings from the IPA Bellwether report, that digital continues to grow in this climate when it presents marketers with the ability to activate at scale relatively speedily, whilst also providing tighter control over spend.”

Chris Rowett, performance director at Journey Further
“We are still seeing growth in spend within biddable channels, with interest in how YouTube can perform, as the adoption of the YouTube app in homes increases.  This is leading to a lot of our clients moving budget from TV over to YouTube, Facebook and Programmatic in general. We are also experiencing the front end of the AI revolution in paid search, as we adopt machine learning for bidding and creative.  As advertisers adopt smart solutions, they are seeing a sudden efficiency improvement, which has led to a desire to invest more in PPC.  Perhaps, this is in part why businesses are not feeling the need to increase budgets to achieve their growth targets. As many advertisers work to flat budgets for 2019 with the market uncertainty, it is possible the general attitude is to move spend away from long term brand awareness channels such as TV, into the short-term performance driven channels.”

Oli Marlow-Thomas, founder & CEO of Ad-Lib Digital
“With marketing budgets continuing to struggle through 2019 it’s time for the industry to make some changes to the way it manages ad spend. One obvious budget black hole is the sunken cost of digital creative. The expensive development of creative assets across multiple digital channels and formats means costs rack up with each and every iteration. At Ad-Lib, we know that by automating the process of personalised creative, budget-conscious marketers can save vast sums on production costs, and reap a huge time saving too. With more time and money to play with, they can turn their attention to the digital ad space – an area that is showing reassuring growth into 2020 despite uncertain times.”

Ben Samuel, VP EMEA at Nielsen Marketing Effectiveness
“The continued stagnation of marketing budgets won’t come as a surprise to many marketers. But as everyone will know, if you cant drive more sales through increased marketing investment, marketers will need to find another way to grow their businesses. At Nielsen we know 25 per cent of marketing spend is still being wasted on ineffective digital tactics alone. In any business environment, marketers simply cannot afford to lose a quarter of their spend in poorly performing channels and tactics, and this is especially true in these uncertain times. It makes an even stronger case for why marketers should invest in the right tools to measure the effectiveness of campaigns, helping them better understand how to optimise performance, improve outcomes and drive their bottom line… without the need to ask for increased budgets which may not be forthcoming.”

Lisa Menaldo, The Advisory Collective co-founder
“The uncertainty around Brexit has understandably had a detrimental impact on the UK economy, with consumers delaying the purchase of bigger ticket items as a result. This is having an impact on some marketing budgets but if you take a closer look at the trend data, digital advertising continues to show growth.

“Marketeers are also continuing to diversify budgets and are driving more investment into digital channels – this is because they are able to have a more personal one-to-one dialogue with the consumer at a much lower price point, so brands get more for less.”

Christian Gladwell, global CEO at M&C Saatchi Performance
“Whilst total marketing budgets reduced slightly in Q3, almost two-thirds (64.1 per cent) of marketers reported no change in overall advertising investment and budgets continued to shift from traditional to digital. Couple these findings with the IAB UK’s half year Adspend update, which reports that total UK digital ad spend was up 13 per cent year-on-year in the first six months of 2019, driven by display (video) and search and you have a more positive outlook for digital advertising.

“While the current economic and political climate may impact ad spend, brands understanding that mobile is now more than simply a device will be key to continued digital advertising growth. With increasing touchpoints, joining the dots between all digital platforms to engage the connected consumer will become ever more relevant for brands. Addressing the connected attribution issue will be key to sustaining consumer growth and the associated digital ad spend.”

Alexander Iglesböck, Adverity CEO
“Overall the report may appear negative, however we shouldn’t overlook the small nugget of positivity, which suggests there is budget growth (+11.1 per cent) in online marketing spend. It is great to see an advantageous shift towards digital marketing, with organisations redirecting their marketing budgets towards new data tools and investing in data driven marketing. 

“To drive successful and engaging marketing campaigns, marketers need to embrace advanced analytical tools, as well as artificial intelligence, to derive the best results from their data. The increased use of augmented analytics and intelligence platforms is helping marketers enhance their campaign success by using data to obtain real-time marketing insights, allowing for in-flight optimisation. Moving into the final quarter of the year I would expect to see increased investment in the online and digital marketing sectors, as marketers continue to comprehend data’s true value and power.”

Jeff Pfefferkorn, head of UK sales at MainAd
“The cautious approach to marketing budgets in the UK in the last quarter comes as no surprise in the current climate of uncertainty; but brands will need to be bolder and diversify their strategies once the political turmoil is finally resolved if they want to stand out from the crowd.

“For example, the continuing shift towards digital, particularly when it comes to advertising spend, highlights the need for marketers to consider data-driven campaigns using dynamic creative across a variety of channels, including in-app and digital video, to reach the right audience. The move towards social media advertising also presents a different opportunity for brands to engage with users, and suggests that many marketers are following the DTC ecommerce model and interacting in a more direct and personal way with consumers.”

Philip Acton, UK country manager, Adform
“These results reflect a natural element of uncertainty stemming from the current political and economic tensions at play in the UK. We actually see a strong opportunity for the market to focus on greater collaboration, and to use that as a springboard for industry-wide innovation. The past year has definitely seen a heavy increase in focus on transparency among budget holders which has had a knock-on effect impacting when and where those budgets are allocated.

“The digital advertising industry must provide both brands and publishers with integrated advertising solutions that ensure accountability throughout the purchase chain. This includes adoption of new neutral standards that support the handling of sensitive data whilst striking a healthy balance between delivering value and a better experience for the end consumer. Let’s not forget that programmatic and digital offer great ROI so it’s always a great place to invest during any downturn.

“If we build our approach like this, marketers will have added confidence to invest their budgets, safe in the knowledge that it is fully accountable to those above them while the market waits to see how the current mixed signals and uncertainty play out.”

Bill Swanson, VP EMEA at Telaria
“In an overall uncertain market, it’s encouraging, but not surprising, to see that only digital marketing budgets have reported an increase. As consumers continue to shift away from traditional/linear television to viewing on multiple platforms, the industry recognises that this is a priority focus for ad spend.

“This is also reflected in the IAB UK’s half year Adspend update, with UK digital ad spend up 13 per cent year-on-year. With the correct approach to monetisation and with budgets in the right place, marketers can seize the benefits this sector will continue to bring.”

Andy Ashley, international marketing director at Digital Element
“The results of this quarter’s report are to be expected, especially given the political climate and a resounding hesitancy across the industry due to an uncertain future, post Brexit. 

“But what we can focus in on are the positives, and the push to really optimise available budgets for campaigns, particularly across online and social media to achieve maximum performance. The development of online tools and data-driven campaigns are highlighted in the report, and are crucial to drive success and prepare for the potential challenges ahead. The key to this is a continued attention on efficiency and high-quality data – which is granular and up-to-date – to provide quality insights to justify spend and, ultimately, enhance the consumer experience which will bring wider benefits to businesses.”

John Wittesaele, CEO EMEA at Xaxis
“The results reinforce much of what we saw in Q2 2019, with total marketing budgets undergoing a period of stasis in response to political and economic uncertainties. But the gloomy top line figures obscure an impressive, and consistent, increase in online spend. As digital retains its pole position for the third quarter in a row, the pivot to programmatic advertising looks set to continue unabated.

“When trying to identify the driving factors behind bigger digital advertising budgets, we can see the wide range of newly available tools designed to help meet marketing objectives more effectively and efficiently. These encompass AI techniques to streamline the media buying process and optimisation solutions that enable ad campaigns to be measured against custom marketing metrics specially designed according to desired business outcomes.” 

Christopher Hogg, managing director EMEA at Lotame
“Firms readjusting budgets to allow sustained growth in digital marketing might be an indication that marketers are embracing data-driven strategies to prove ROI. Those activities that arent showing genuine gains are being cut. Its time for marketers to double down on high quality data, and the partners who can help them connect their disparate data resources and activate their data solutions to acquire and engage their audiences more effectively.” 

Nickolas Rekeda, MGID CMO
“Flatlining marketing spends due to the obvious political and economic uncertainty in the UK are certainly disappointing but not unexpected. This demonstrates that advertisers should focus their efforts on efficient ad formats, such as native, which help to produce better user engagement, results in less adblocking, and provides a valuable return on investment. 

“Ahead of the predicted increase in growth for 2020, marketers should refocus their current advertising strategies to target audiences better through personalisation and monetisation. This will help to rebuild trust and confidence in consumer spending to achieve the best result possible for brands.”

Andrew Buckman, COO at Sublime
“Despite overall budget cuts, it is encouraging to see marketers continuing to invest in the digital marketing space, highlighting the benefit of interacting with consumers in such a receptive environment. The industry needs to continue putting the consumer first, by utilising today’s advanced technologies to provide engaging and non-intrusive campaigns. 

“We can’t avoid acknowledging the impact of Brexit on marketing budgets and until the UK has officially departed from the European Union, it is likely economic and political uncertainty will prevail. However, once the dust has settled and the economy stabilises, we can expect marketing budgets to resume increasing steadily.”

Simon Thorne, UK country director at Flashtalking
“To assure the future growth of digital ad spend, industry players should collaborate further to fix the supply chain and offer full transparency, efficiency and choice. Doing this will not only rebuild trust between advertising partners, but continue to incentivise investment in effective media platforms as well.”

Ruth Manielevitch, VP global business development at Taptica
“Although the latest IPA Bellwether report spells trying times ahead for UK advertising, our industry is adaptive and is sure to withstand some of the toughest economic and political setbacks.

“Marketers may be keeping tight control of budgets at the moment, but it is clear that there is still a need to invest in advertising. These budgets are being reallocated to online and social media, showing these are reliable formats for marketers and return effective results without excessive spending.

“As we enter the new year, advertisers will have more clarity over the economic landscape, meaning we will be able to look forward to exciting technological developments such as 5G. With increased load speeds and faster connections, advertisers will be able to experiment with the creative versatility that this brings, making online ad formats even more interactive, engaging and relevant for consumers than ever before.”

Mark Inskip, CEO UK and Ireland at Kantar – media division
“Though the wider decline in marketing budgets – and pessimistic outlook – is food for thought, it is promising to see continued strong growth in the digital space.

“As the report highlights, sustaining digital growth during a particularly uncertain economic period reflects the hard work going on across the ecosystem to adopt the very best technology and continue producing the most engaging and informative content for consumers. 

“Moving forwards however, continued growth in the digital space will mean maximising the impact of every single pound by targeting the right audiences at a place and time that works for them. With nearly three-quarters of UK consumers surveyed in our 2019 DIMENSION report admitting they find advertising too repetitive, advertisers and brands alike need to carefully monitor and measure every stage of their campaigns, holistically, across all platforms and media to ensure continued success.”

Lou Weiss, chief marketing officer at Shutterstock
“It’s unsurprising to see the shift towards digital marketing continuing to grow. Consumers are now the trend-makers as brands and businesses are pivoting their marketing strategy based on customer-driven insights. These customers are found on the internet and on social media – underpinning the sustained evolution into the digital space for marketers. It’s encouraging to see increasingly sophisticated tactics like content syndication, native advertising, paid social, personalization, look-alike modelling and paid and organic search be deployed by businesses of all sizes. Intuitive user interfaces along with quality web-based how-to content have democratized techniques that were once only accessible to the largest brands and agencies. The playing field has, to an extent, been levelled.”

Ali MacCallum, Kinetic UK CEO
“As the latest IPA Bellwether report has shown, marketing spend deployment is becoming increasingly characterised by short term thinking, with marketers directing their budgets towards the internet and social media. It is therefore incumbent upon the OOH industry to demonstrate how we can better deliver faster access to the market via data driven methods near real time trading systems, without losing brand strength, and to meet shorter term business objectives.

“Kinetic’s Commuter Commerce study recently demonstrated that c£24bn of mobile sales are generated on the commute, with over 70 per cent of purchase influenced by OOH. The roll out of 5G in 2020 will only accelerate the ability of OOH and mobile to articulate the need to change the behaviours we inevitably see in periods of turbulence such as these.”

Chris Daplyn, Mirum UK CEO
“Amidst political and consumer uncertainty, we’ve seen marketing budgets reduce for the first time in seven years – something we will all need to be conscious of. As budgets tighten, brands and marketers are going to need to flex, adapt and innovate to find new ways to reach audiences in smarter ways.”

“As a digital agency, we sometimes feel these budget cuts most keenly, but that’s not been the case this year. The need to react and reconfigure marketing plans has meant that budgets are shifting to digital channels. At the same time, the opportunity to create campaigns that leverage every channel from inception favours digital thinking.”

“Change can be difficult. But brands and agencies have to create work that succeeds in modern culture. This isn’t throwing everything away, but rather, bringing new perspectives to existing challenges to get a different result.”

The post Industry reacts: Q3 2019 IPA Bellwether Report appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Kirsty Giordani, executive director at International Advertising Association (UK Chapter)
“Despite the negative outlook of the latest Bellwether report, there are still a number of positives. For example, spend in internet marketing remains strong and main media, digital and social have also been given another boost. The upward trend in these areas indicates a move towards longer-term thinking from marketers as they look to invest in channels and tactics that will support steady brand growth over time.

“While we’re in an uncertain political climate, it is often tempting to focus on immediate performance metrics to measure success and allocate spend, but a bigger picture view is needed. It’s important for marketers not to neglect branding activities that will drive continued recognition, and focus their budget on the channels (like digital, social and events) where consumer audiences remain engaged and receptive.”

Andrew Buckman, Sublime COO
“As uncertainty over Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership continues, the lack of growth in marketing budgets hardly comes as a surprise, as highlighted in the findings of the latest IPA Bellwether report. Despite businesses being increasingly cautious with their budgets, it is however encouraging to see marketers still finding value in digital branding. Digital remains a highly lucrative advertising channel; meaning there will always be demand for campaigns that provide a non-intrusive and engaging consumer experience.

“The lead up to summer might be less exciting than 2018, however, until economic and political concerns are clarified, it is likely the rest of the year will follow suit. It will be interesting to see how the UK’s official departure from the European Union in October will affect the industry, as well as the country.”

James Draper, founder and CEO of Bidstack
“As marketing budgets stagnate and industry confidence wanes in times of uncertainty, marketers are looking for new avenues to reach audiences and boost brand awareness. Digital and social channels are continuing to prove a fruitful and effective way of advertising to a captive and engaged audience. We know from experience that in-game advertising is one such channel, and expect to see a growing trend toward marketers leveraging gaming platforms to reach their audiences in the virtual world.”

Fabrizio Perrone, CEO and founder of Buzzoole
“It’s heartening to see social media and digital spend continue to grow and that marketers understand the benefits of focusing on these measurable channels to reach and engage with consumers.

“To keep their share of today’s market, brands must be agile, innovative and ROI-focused. Smart marketers will be integrating social into their wider strategy – for example, integrating influencer marketing into digital OOH to create measurable authentic campaigns that resonate with consumers.”

Charlie Johnson, VP of UK & Ireland at Digital Element
“With so many factors currently causing uncertainty in the UK – especially in the political and economic worlds – it is no surprise that the increase in marketing budgets has halted. Resources across the board are being squeezed as businesses do their best to prepare for the unknown.

“Despite this, it is reassuring to see that investment in internet marketing is still growing. At times of uncertainty, the successful businesses are those that continue to nurture their presence in consumer’s hearts and minds, and as the world becomes increasingly digitalised, savvy marketers are prioritising internet marketing to reach a huge audience and protect their futures.

“The next step is to focus on efficiency – ensuring the most accurate and up to date data is used to inform strategies, and to understand, target, and ultimately engage the consumers that are going to bring the most benefit to the business. Technology choices will be crucial in ensuring marketing investments have the impact required when when no one really knows what is around the corner.”

Simon Thorne, UK country director at Flashtalking
“Sophisticated advertisers understand the long-term value in digital advertising as a key means to connect with their audience. While overall marketing budgets have not increased, these advertisers are shifting greater portions of their budget to digital advertising to drive higher ROI.”

Gavin Stirrat, Europe VP for partner services at OpenX
“It’s hard to feel confident about spending in the face of political and economic uncertainty, so it’s perfectly natural for marketers to invest with caution. Spend on social media is on the up, which doesn’t come as a big surprise. After all, the main players make it very easy to execute advertising campaigns within their ‘walled garden’ platforms and, on the face of it, they appear to offer extremely sophisticated ways of engaging with audiences – a likely contributor to their success. 

“But we are hearing loud and clear that brands want to diversify beyond the digital duopoly, giving them easier access to bigger and better audiences. That’s why it’s crucial that marketers are empowered with the ability to engage people in a one-to-one permission-based way outside of these properties and on the open web. The wheels are in motion, and I expect we’ll see this reflected in a much more balanced spending sheet before long – regardless of the political challenges at play.”

Mark Inskip, UK & Ireland CEO at Kantar (media division)
“The latest IPA Bellwether report has shown marketing budgets flatline for the second quarter of the year amid rising political and economic uncertainty, following a positive start to 2019. This news serves to make even more pertinent the message we delivered in our DIMENSION report published earlier this year – advertising still has an important role to play, for both brands and consumers. With consumers growing increasingly apathetic towards advertising – and 73 per cent saying they see the same ads ‘over and over again’ – brands simply cannot afford complacency.

Alessandra Di Lorenzo, CEO of Forward, lastminute.com’s media company
“If I had to make two conclusions from this recent Q2 IPA Bellwether, the first would be that there are no surprises –  we all know that brands across the UK are concerned about Brexit, unpredictable politics and the implications on business and consumer spend.

“Second, despite marketers being cautious in the current climate, it’s really promising to see marketers predicting increased investment in ad spend in 2020. There’s a delicate balance to maintain between short-term and longer-term goals, and it’s imperative that marketers remember to keep looking forward.

“According to Winmo, the average CMO is in their role for less than four years. This means that many marketers may end up focusing much more on the day-to-day, quarter-to-quarter delivery, rather than higher-level strategy around how marketing can make a positive impact on business success. Which, arguably, should be a priority for these turbulent times. The air of caution in the market when it comes to spending on marketing activity highlights the need for businesses to take a step back and look at how they can gain more control of, and impact from, their marketing spend – thinking about this bigger picture is key for organisations to survive, and thrive.

“If businesses are wary of what the future holds, it’s time for marketers to assert their presence in the boardroom and influence commercial decisions. If brands don’t start taking a longer-term and more strategic view, they’re going to undermine the marketing function – and its survival for the future.”

Anna Forbes, UK general manager at The Trade Desk
“It’s notable that, in a quarter of flatlining marketing budgets, the one bright spot of growth is internet-based advertising. We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of brands upskilling in digital advertising over the past couple of years, and these results go to show that marketers no longer see digital as an ‘add-on’ but rather as a core element of their strategy. With such trends set to continue, I think it’s likely that in just a few years we’ll no longer actually be talking about ‘programmatic’ as a specific type of advertising – it’ll just be how ads are bought as standard.  

“But with such power comes great responsibility for our industry. Currently, poor ID matching on the open web means advertisers aren’t able to reach a significant portion of their own, existing customers – never mind new ones. That’s why we’ve created a common currency for anonymous cookie IDs that is available to all and free to use. By working together across the industry, we’ll improve the advertising experience for brands, publishers and consumers alike – ensuring that we see the share of budgets allocated to digital advertising continue to grow and grow.”

Nicole Lonsdale, chief planning officer at Kinetic UK
“From an Out-of-Home (OOH) perspective, it’s promising to see that main media advertising budgets have seen growth since the last quarter. This shows that even in today’s uncertain political and economic climate, marketers know that it’s important to invest in mediums that deliver on long term brand building performance.

“Clearly, an opportunity lies ahead for OOH as part of this – the world’s oldest advertising medium now offers brands the flexibility of digital, with the accountability, mass reach and brand safety of traditional broadcast channels. As the medium continues to innovate with its ongoing technological transformation, the continued rise of Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) is providing brands with ever increasing dynamic and contextual creative opportunities.”

Hugo Drayton, Inskin Media CEO
“The subdued, rather gloomy (zero growth) highlights from the latest Bellwether report are unsurprising, in the face of prolonged political – and economic – uncertainty in the UK.  As underlined in the report, the experts are braced for a possible short-term contraction in the UK economy, reflected in defensive marketing positions, delayed decision-making and prudence around cash conservation.

“The reports more optimistic outlook for 2020 is somewhat surprising, perhaps simply displaying a hope, or even optimism, that the current despond will be replaced by an upturn in the cycle.  We share that hope.

“Certainly, the short-term is characterised by both economic and political instability, further fuelled by international trade disputes, as well as weak growth in major European and Asian markets; so the caution is not simply a reflection of the UKs parochial dilemma. The report repeats the stark fact that this negativity has not been seen since 2011.

“While there is some cheer in the continued strength of Internet marketing – and a rise in Events marketing – this does not hide the overall difficulties for marketing, especially in key areas such as Research and Sales Promotion.  Some Marketing Directors have used the opportunity to increase brand building (exploiting lower costs) and are using marketing spend in a more defensive manner.”

David Walsh, chief business officer at Mindshare UK
“It comes as no surprise that this quarter has seen a dip in growth, and until we have a clearer idea of our political and economic future, it’s likely that marketers will remain cautious with spend. 

“However, even in today’s uncertain climate, it’s encouraging to see that some marketers have remained proactive about building long-term brand equity, with the report revealing a slight upward revision to main media budgets. 

“Its also heartening to see that marketers are continuing to invest in internet-based advertising, with search/SEO owning the lions share of growth.”

Matt Nash, Scibids MD
“Given the UK’s current political and economic uncertainty, it is unsurprising that businesses are being cautious with their ad-spend. And whilst it is encouraging to see that internet-based advertising is still growing, albeit slowly, it must demonstrate the true incremental impact it has on the business bottom line

“We now operate in an environment where a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer compatible, and marketers’ goals have become increasingly complex and bespoke. It is now imperative for marketers to optimise towards KPIs that are truly correlated to their business objectives.

“However, with the increasingly restrictive regulatory environment (GDPR, ITP and California), there will also be a need to move away from traditional methods of optimisation, focusing more on context than behavioural targeting. And in my mind, moving forward, the application of AI will be crucial to addressing some of these challenges.”

James Briscoe, chief operating officer at Percept
“After a promising first quarter, it is disappointing yet unsurprising, to see the latest forecasts. From speaking to and auditing with brands daily, the uncertainty in the world has given everyone a pause for thought.

“Indeed, the brands we speak to are now considering how best to deploy future spend and what agents to use. Typically, we see a view of increasing spend within digital but there is also a consideration of the best way to operate digital; whether it is through a move to in-house, a change of agency or even a hybrid model.

“However, a common theme amongst these brands, is a demand for more visibility of their media spend as well as the systems used to be able to control activity directly. It is also likely that future market growth will rely heavily on the new breed of direct to consumer brands (DTC) and a more aggressive marketing move by smaller mid-tier brands looking to acquire market share.

“Ultimately, the changes we are seeing in the marketing and media landscape are not temporary but instead an indication of a shift in market behaviours. And any CMO wanting to keep their job, should be looking to get more visibility and control of their revenue driving activity.”

Luke Judge, NMPi CEO
“Unsurprisingly, with the feeling of economic uncertainty at its highest level for a decade, this is translating into investment hesitation by business leaders. 

“Digital advertising continues to be the safe place for marketers to place their ad spend. Its not only more measurable and demonstrably effective, its also more adjustable over the course of a quarter. With low up-front spend commitments on digital, the decision to invest more in digital is an easier one to sell to the CFO.

“Whats most concerning in this report is the prospect of the increasing negativity leading to less investment in technology, creative, customer experience and data management. Businesses who are investing in these four areas now will be the ones thriving in five years from now. Failure to do so now will invariably lead to a difficult time ahead.”

Ken Leren, Marketing Town founder
“In my mind, in years to come, 2019 and 2020 will be remembered as the years when uncertainty subsided.  

“But the digital advertising industry needs to capitalise on its continued growth trajectory, indeed, earlier this month Zenith’s latest report predicted that by 2020 over 50 per cent of marketing spend will come from digital. And with more and more consumers on the move, marketers will need to ensure they utilise new and emerging technologies and allocate budgets accordingly.  

“The industry however is still facing regulatory and technical upheaval with GDPR and ITP taking effect. And with global brands, notably British Airways and Marriott, facing huge fines, marketers must ensure they remain compliant or risk being penalised.”  

Justin Taylor, UK MD at Teads
“Ive always been bullish on the UK economys prospects as long as businesses and consumers have clear direction on Brexit. Whilst its a shame that organisations dont feel sure enough to raise their overall marketing investment – it is good to see that clients are trusting their digital partners to maintain communication with consumers during uncertain times.

“Online advertisings benefits are well known, the market is continuing to mature and as creativity, technology and media continue to converge, the online economy will only prosper.”

Dan Peden, strategy director at Journey Further
“As economic uncertainty rises users are becoming more and more value driven. Stats from Google show that over the past two years searches including the word best or affordable have risen by over 50 per cent and searches for brand names + discount or sale are up by 35 per cent. This change in consumer mindset is then filtering down to businesses, who are moving marketing spend away from longer terms projects – such as brand comms or raising consideration – into short term initiatives i.e. paid search – where returns are more immediate.

“On top of this, the data and targeting available within digital only channels is getting much stronger. As TV watch times reduce, were seeing more spend move online where it can be targeting at more granular audience types with customised messaging. Alongside this, the track-a-bility of channels like YouTube are making them immensely appealing to marketers.”

Sam Huber, Admix founder
“It’s not surprising that business’ are being more cautious about how they spend their budgets and are focussing on internet marketing over traditional advertising. New platforms will grow in prominence as the burgeoning 5G infrastructure is leveraged. 3D content consumption (games, VR, AR) is skyrocketing, up 62 per cent YoY while the growth in consumption of traditional media is slowing down. Advertising is moving from attention grabbing to experiential and XR is the ultimate platform for this. 200+ brands are already using budget to achieve high levels of engagement with consumers, mostly millennials and gen-z. We expect this trend to develop over the coming year.”

Elizabeth Brennan, UK commercial director at Criteo
“The latest IPA Bellwether Report clearly shows that this is the year of marketing consolidation. Budgets are remaining static as marketers are expected to deliver results across a fragmented number of channels.

“However, while spend may not be increasing this year, savvy marketers have the opportunity to ensure that performance improves ahead of wider investment in 2020.

“The key lies in unlocking the value of data. For example, individual-level personalisation will allow marketers to get the most from the data they have and the budgets that do exist. Leveraging machine learning models optimised against key business objectives will ensure that the 2019’s marketing activities are designed to get the most value from available spend.

“What’s more, with artificial intelligence (AI), it’s becoming possible to achieve hyper-relevant ads for true one-to-one offers, content, and ads. Investing in predictive learning models now will help in the long term when it comes to showing shoppers the new products they most likely want to see as AI-powered product recommendation ads improve over time.

“Marketers work day in, day out to get the right products in front of consumers at the moment they’re most likely to buy. The advancement of technologies like artificial intelligence will enable marketers to do more with the budgets they have and ensure that while spend might not be increasing this year, they can ensure that performance does!”

Damon Reeve, The Ozone Project CEO
“It is little surprise that the latest report shows no overall growth in the current economic climate. However, it is promising to see that internet marketing continues to perform as the most effective mode of marketing, showing signs of steady growth (+ 11.5 per cent from the last quarter) and this is expected to rise in 2020. Over a quarter of those surveyed recorded upward revisions to their advertising spend despite overarching budget cuts. This is consistent with the current demand from our clients on their media adspend. What we’re seeing is a heightened appetite amongst advertisers to reach engaged audiences at scale through brand safe and trusted content environments, and in turn this is giving agencies the confidence to do the same.

“For premium publishers, while adspend is only projected to grow modestly, there are still opportunities to attract a greater share of total adspend through scaled audience monetisation, first-party identity and publisher-owned technology. As the dominant technology players come under more scrutiny, we hope to see more opportunities for publishers and brands to capture the future growth.”

Julia Smith, director of communications at Impact
“In a year of politico-economic uncertainty it was always expected that 2019 would see modest growth; social media aside which continues to see significant spend increases. Perhaps more surprising was the rise of negative own-company financial prospects.  I personally think any effect will be negligible  but there was always going to be casualties of the overpowering and money draining duopoly on some businesses. Companies need to continue to diversify and expand their partnerships to generate strong areas of revenue. This, along with the general improved forecast in 2020 will keep momentum and hopefully spend will continue to increase through to the end of the year.”

Jenny Kirby, managing partner for digital service at GroupM
“Looking back at recent quarters, it’s clear that no matter the peaks or dips in marketing budgets alongside political and economic uncertainty, it’s essential for marketers to optimise any available budget for ad campaigns to reach maximum performance. Whether that’s across display, mobile, video, DOOH or even looking ahead at e-commerce environments, it’s not enough to place advertising, or even to know if it was viewed. We need to go further and clearly evaluate if the ad contributed to the greater business objective, to truly drive success and contribute to wider economic stability.”

Bill Swanson, VP EMEA at Telaria
“It is unsurprising to see growth reported in main media advertising – including TV, mobile, and the internet – with spend in this area the strongest it’s been for two years. With consumers watching content across multiple platforms we expect to see video and connected TV continue to help drive digital spend as marketers realise the opportunity for targeted engagement and efficiency they afford.”

Steffen Svartberg, Co-founder and CEO of Cavai  
“2019 has been a challenging year for many companies: political upheaval, issues with brand safety across social networks, and economic slowdown, so it’s encouraging to see another rise in UK ad spend – albeit it modestly. There is a feeling of optimism about the year ahead, with growth coming from new forms of immersive consumer experiences which are defining the future of brand marketing. It is no surprise that the IPA Bellwether report has seen the strongest growth from social media. The introduction of apps, chatbots, conversational advertising and voice bots will all have a significant impact on how consumers buy, interact, respond and view digital advertising. Those that embrace these new formats will be the ones who reap the rewards of the forecast improvements in adspend in 2020.”

Mattias Spetz, Channel Factory MD EMEA
“The IPA Bellwether report predicts muted growth in the second half of 2019 in light of the ongoing and uncertain Brexit negotiations. However, it is not all bad news for marketers and the ad industry, as there is strong growth in certain sectors such as social media and digital.  In a climate in which both marketers and users are demanding trust, transparency and brand suitability, we all, as an industry have to ensure that we remain committed to delivering these crucial elements, if we are to sustain growth across the entire digital ad market. The good news is that digital advertising is still the sector reporting the strongest growth and as long as marketers remain committed to buying fraud-free, performance led, brand-safe quality inventory, they can expect this sector to deliver strong ROI.”

Jenny Stanley, founder and MD of Appetite Creative
“To some extent the recent IPA Bellwether report makes for disappointing reading with no change in marketing budgets registered in the first quarter of 2019. However, the fact that 2020 is forecast to herald an upturn in significant growth will give the industry much needed encouragement. During the slower growth period of 2019, marketers must focus on delivering innovative creative, and experimental marketing if they want to maximise their ad spend across all digital channels.  Now more than ever, marketers must push the boundaries on delivering a big idea through cutting edge creative formats and channels, connecting and interacting with their audiences.”

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Gavin Stirrat, Europe VP for partner services at OpenX
“5G has finally landed, and while the benefits for consumers are high, advertisers are also set to experience a revolution in the way they work. 5G will completely upturn the way advertisers think about creative, targeting and data – all of which sets us up for a completely transformed experience.”

“When it comes to creative, 5G means more dynamic and higher resolution formats will be easier to deliver, making visually exciting ads more achievable for brands to create and consumers to enjoy. While that means customer expectations will be higher, they will be more likely to enjoy these adverts due to a heightened overall experience.”

“On top of that, cloud-based processing enabled by 5G networks will boost speeds and connectivity massively, meaning devices can offload processing into the cloud. That allows even more devices (particularly remote, inaccessible, or mobile devices) to be connected, meaning advertisers can reach consumers across more channels than before.”

“If that wasn’t enough, I’m expecting 5G to hugely impact the quantity and quality of permission-based data circulating the ecosystem. This data can be used by advertisers to target at a much greater scale than ever before. And that opportunity to look at audiences in a more granular way will open up targeting opportunities for brands, making ads more efficient and better placed.”

Angela Logothetis, CTO of open network division at Amdocs
“The hype around 5G has been matched by a high level of investment by mobile operators. We’re now seeing the first live networks being made available to consumers with EE’s 5G network launching today. EE will now be exploring it they can run multiple networks for specific use cases – from health to manufacturing, logistics, connected vehicles and consumer connectivity.

“Network slicing, a method of using dedicated virtual networks with functionality specific to the service or customer over a common network infrastructure, will play a critical role in this. It enables operators to meet the needs of different vertical services, create new business models and generate new revenue streams. It will be crucial to ensure that operators can generate the revenue to allow them to continue their 5G network expansion.”

Zoran Vasiljev, CEO of Apigate
“Consumers in the UK are today welcoming new 5G services from EE, which will be available in certain cities. Vodafone is not far behind, turning on its 5G service in the UK from July. However, the continued roll out of 5G into other parts of the country is reliant on operators successfully generating revenue from their new networks, across the consumer and business markets. This could initially be a challenge considering subscribers need to invest in new 5G-compatible handsets, which are limited and costly.

“Operators must open up their networks to new partners that can help them expand into innovative lines of business, ensuring they do not simply become bit pipes for other companies’ services. With verticals such as automotive, healthcare, media and gaming looking to reap the benefits of 5G, partnering with businesses in these sectors is a sure way to help operators generate a return on investment. By using open source technology, operators can open up their networks to third parties, such as cloud service providers, mobile applications and developers, to reach new customers and access new revenue streams beyond the standard connectivity pipe.”

Ingo Flömer, VP of business development and technology at Cobham Wireless
“5G will undoubtably unlock a range of exciting new consumer and business use cases. However, the new connectivity standard fails to address a more pressing problem: the lack of reliable mobile connectivity in many under-connected areas of the UK.

“‘Not-spots’ don’t only exist in villages and rural areas of the country; getting 4G mobile coverage is still a massive challenge for subscribers on major over ground rail routes, transport tunnels, and in infrastructure like sports stadiums, airports and music venues. 5G might present lucrative business and consumer cases, yet there’s a lot of revenue still to be unlocked by deploying 4G. In-stadium services to enhance the fan experience, for example, or ad-supported media and entertainment mobile streaming on commuter trains.

 “There will come a time when blanket 5G coverage is needed, but more important is the necessity for adequate 4G mobile coverage now, to guarantee quality of service for consumers, and support business and operator growth, in all areas in the UK.”

Leigh Moody, UK managing director at SOTI
“In a world that becomes more connected by the minute and reliant on the infrastructure that permits that connectivity, today’s news that EE’s 5G network has now gone live in six UK cities is extremely exciting for UK business. Mobile is about to get faster, smoother and better with 5G. It is a more capable cellular standard that has positive implications for the Internet of Things (IoT). As the demand for data increases, 5G mobile networks are set to take on a support role by connecting elements of almost every business, allowing enterprises to offer new and better services, and shape new business models.

“Of course, the 5G rollout will bring challenges, not least to companies that will have to upgrade existing infrastructures to get the benefits. As connections proliferate and ever more data crosses digital boundaries, businesses must respond to increasingly strict regulation that ensures the safety and privacy of that data. This requires businesses to build a comprehensive overview of their own IoT and safeguard data accordingly (a process that can differ substantially from that required to secure ‘ordinary’ data). In particular, they must differentiate customer and business data carefully. The direction of travel is clearly for businesses to operate through mobile first technology, and the advent of 5G will greatly enhance the quality of service and opportunities this provides. Savvy enterprises are already strategising their use of IoT in the 5G era and acting upon those plans.”

Chris Bennett, managing director EMEA at Pixability
“The arrival of 5G brings with it the promise of better capabilities to power our smartphones and increases the potential for mobile content. Its UK launch is very timely for the exploding video market, especially for subscription video on demand (SVOD) platforms, which will benefit from its reduced latency and increased reach.

“We are likely to see brands focussing more on mobile ad formats, engaging with their target audiences through easier access to video streaming. Consumers are already spending over two hours a day on their phones; the introduction of 5G will only increase this, and it will be interesting to see how this figure changes as it becomes more established.

“5G will bring better speed, improve user experience, and ultimately increase engagement overall.”

Samuel Huber, founder and CEO of admix.in
“Advertising is moving from an attention-grabbing economy to an experience economy, with richer, and less aggressive messaging. The much-anticipated launch of 5G in a number of UK cities will open new opportunities in this regard – brands will be able to push richer, higher quality content to their audience, wherever they are. Advertisers can now optimise for the experience without worrying about the bandwidth. Static display will progressively be replaced by 3D interactive creatives, or 360 dynamic videos, which create more value across the ecosystem: delivering a less intrusive experience for the consumer, more money for the publisher, and better results for the brand.”

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Yves Schwarzbart, advertising industry relations manager at Google UK 
“Its good to see continued, double-digit growth in times where uncertainty over Brexit could easily affect advertising budgets. This is driven by the age-old understanding of being present where your customers spend their time and the results show exactly that. Were in a mobile-first world in which videos drive engagement and Im encouraged by the findings that digital ad spend increasingly aligns with consumer behaviour. 

“However, the real highlight for me from 2018 results is the value advertisers put on media owners and tech partners that lead the way in following best practice, such as through initiatives like the IAB UK Gold Standard. It pays tribute to the argument that doing good means good business. Given that the industry as a whole has made it its mission to start reversing the decline in advertising in 2019, this finding should give this worthy and necessary cause even greater momentum.”

Ruth Manielevitch, VP of global business development at Taptica
“The latest IAB digital ad spend study is a strong reflection on the power of digital advertising. Mobile has proven to be an invaluable part of consumers daily lives, so it is unsurprising that the platform now accounts for more than half of digital ad spend. However, it is video which is becoming the shining star – driving the majority of growth in the display format. With so much versatility, we can expect marketers to continue to innovate and create new video formats over the next couple of years, with it becoming a leading and highly effective way of reaching and engaging with consumers.”

Justin Taylor, UK MD at Teads
“In the IAB’s latest ‘Digital Ad Spend Study’ it is positive to see that outstream continues to dominate video spend, showing close to a 10 per year-on-year increase.

“Unsurprisingly, the study highlights that mobile is the most important distribution device (76 per cent of all video spend is on the smartphone), and it’s great to see the format we invented dominating that space.

“However, it’s now more pertinent than ever that clients and agencies invest their outstream budgets into professionally produced content and not social infeeds. Budgets must go where content is being produced rather than aggregators and distributors, where the content is read rather than where a click happened.

“We must remember how important local, national and vertical press are to the global digital ecosystem.  By unifying the best publishers at scale, delivering mobile optimised creativity and outcome orientated distribution we are fighting to ensure publishers are getting their fair share of revenue in comparison to the social platforms.”

Nick Welch, VP of business development for the UK & Northern Europe at ADmantX
“It is encouraging to see that there has been an increase in the net worth of the UK digital advertising market, but the question remains, who are the ‘real’ winners here?

“With many leading global brands having encountered brand safety breaches in the past couple of months, brands are increasingly cautious about running against negative content leading to the over-zealous and arguably inappropriate use of negative keywords as a protective measure. Indeed, we have seen as much as 30 per cent of a publishers’ inventory being unfairly blocked due to ‘brand safety misclassifications’ as a result of the over-use of negative keywords.

“In a digital world which is becoming increasingly plagued by trust issues, we need to help safeguard as well as encourage quality, independent journalism. Real brand protection is better for advertising, better for the media and – ultimately – better for the consumer and society at large.”

JC Conti, VIOOH CEO
“It is promising to see that in 2018 overall UK digital ad spend increased by 15 per cent increase.

“Were seeing DOOH become a stronger part of the overall digital ecosystem, driven by the advancements in data and technology. In 2019 advertisers are seeing it as a truly complementary medium, one which can enhance their other digital channels. As the second fastest growing channel, we hope to see DOOH, and programmatic DOOH, included in future reports.”

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