"The digital media industry is ever-changing."
This thought kicked off our recent holiday media planning blog and it’s also reflective of 2022 trends as a whole. When we think back about the year, there’s plenty of excitement in comparing where we were at the beginning of the year with where we are now. So let’s take a minute to reflect and look at some of 2022’s biggest trends to help you plan for success in the new year.
1) Data Companies Are Going Solo
The ad tech landscape has been growing, merging and diversifying since its inception. Data-heavy companies like Google, Yahoo and Amazon have had their own DSPs for years, but a few new players dove into their own DSP plans this year.
Beginning of Year:
- Roku
- Walmart
End of Year:
- Apple
- Disney
Bonus: While Netflix and Disney+ didn’t develop their own DSPs, they launched ad-supported offerings this year.
| Things to Think About: With new tools and platforms coming to market it's important to highlight that not all DSPs will have the same functionalities and capabilities. Do your research in advance to understand each platform's limitations and policies. Take advantage of any free learning tools or online training these platforms offer. |
2) We Gained Time to Build up Clients’ First-Party Data (1PD)
Cookie-related conversations seem to be accompanied by an eye-roll or joke these days and this year’s roadmap certainly didn’t help with that. The good news is that these updated plans allowed advertisers time to build their CDPs and data lakes to better prepare a strong plan.
Beginning of Year:
- Deprecation of cookies in Chrome originally planned for 2023
- Urgent need to adopt Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as sunset date for previous version of Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) announced for 2023
End of Year:
- Cookie deprecation in Chrome postponed until 2024
- Google postpones the sunset date for Universal Analytics 360 (GA360) to 2024, while the Universal Analytics sunset date for all standard properties remains 2023. The time to adopt GA4 remains now as the move to GA4 is inevitable and the transition takes time
| Things to Think About: With the deprecation of cookies looming, it's crucial to dedicate plenty of time to your implementation strategy. Map out your advertisers and campaign structure in advance to avoid rework. Identify important on-site actions and align them with your site-tagging efforts. Reporting outputs are often overlooked until data is already generating, but it's important to understand in advance how you’d like to see your campaign performance broken out through reports. |
3) Staffing Is Ever Changing
The events of 2020 fundamentally shifted how companies and employees thought of their day-to-day work and life choices. From the 2020 layoffs to the Great Migration in 2021, we saw massive workforce changes coming into the year.
Beginning of Year:
- Fully staffed teams coming out of Great Migration
End of Year:
- Recession concerns and company layoffs
Note: Utilizing a Partner like Adswerve can help support short-staffed teams in a variety of areas, from initial implementation to activation, consulting and more.
| Things to Think About: Another trend we’re seeing this year is more marketers are moving their advertising efforts in-house. This could be a response to cost concerns but also allows marketers to take control of their campaign outputs and may lead to faster execution. Be prepared to make last-minute budget shifts. As the year comes to an end and all eyes are on achieving your campaign KPIs, marketers will have more flexibility with their media dollars and should be standing by ready to make shifts based on how channels perform. Monitor your campaign performance through frequent reporting and schedule your reports to be delivered straight to your inbox. |
4) The Growing Value of Working with a Trusted Partner
Partners can provide tons of value when it comes to planning ahead. Adswerve is “Obsessed with data. Inspired by people.” We care passionately about our clients and how we can support them. Over the course of last year we released updated tools in Adswerve Connect, additional service offerings and performance-enhancing opportunities, including:
- Ad Serving Calculator in Adswerve Connect
- Learner Boost Service
- Dedicated Launch Packages
- Enhanced Support Packages
- Media Buyer Toolkit in Connect
- “High CTR” DV360 blocklist available for all clients
| Things to Think About: It's never too early to start thinking about Q1 2023. Take learnings from this year’s optimizations, find shortcuts and efficiencies with your workflows and act on them. With Q1 comes a fresh start. Take the opportunity to rebuild campaigns, refresh your creatives, restructure your reporting outputs and read up on new platform features that have been—or will be—released. |