How Programmatic Is Changing in 2023 — and What That Means for Marketers
Digital Marketing
Jul 14 2023
Merging tried-and-true marketing methodologies in new digital environments is a tricky business. In the age of data privacy regulations and swiftly changing customer preferences, where does programmatic advertising fit in?
As a frequently used tool in almost every marketer’s repertoire, it makes sense that programmatic targeting methods would find ways to adapt. The following four trends provide some insight into where programmatic goes from here — and what it might look like in the future.
1. The Rising Age of Data Transparency
There’s hardly a branch of digital marketing left untouched by data privacy’s growing influence in 2023. The rise of data transparency already initiated the phasing-out of third-party cookies and Google’s transition to its new GA4 platform. In order for programmatic platforms to remain viable in an environment of strict data control, marketers will have to find creative ways to earn express permission to track private user data.
There are some advantages to the data privacy regulations bubbling up around the digital marketing sphere. Users opting into data tracking create better quality leads and open the door to a host of effective first-party targeting and advertising opportunities. The obvious downside is, of course, these opportunities are gated behind user control — and not everyone is quick to hit that “accept all cookies” button when landing on a newly branded site for the first time.
2. AI’s Impact on the Full Marketing Landscape
Similarly, it seems AI’s impact will extend to the far reaches of the marketing landscape as it evolves into accessible, everyday tools for marketing teams of all sizes. The smarter these tools become, the closer advertisers get to optimizing campaign targeting parameters, budget allocations, and ad personalization.
AI offers marketers a familiar formula (analyze data, identify patterns and react accordingly), only faster and with greater flexibility than ever before. As with all new groundbreaking industry technologies, the benefits of AI and machine learning applications will likely define the next great leap in marketing. But that’s not to say there won’t be some growing pains. AI will likely have unintended effects on the customer experience, with potential to do more harm than good as brands attempt to seamlessly implement these new (and for now, quite expensive) tools.
3. Hands-On Programmatic Ads
You could call this a natural reaction to the third-party cookie’s demise, which in turn is a direct response to heightened data privacy regulation. With marketing budgets tightening across virtually every industry, a growing number of businesses are seeing value in bringing what may have once been a third-party platform’s role in-house.
In the coming year, brand marketers who find the most success will do so by listening to what their target audiences care about most and communicating those needs through the proper channels.
4. More Programmatic Audio, Video, and CTV
Audiences are changing the ways in which they prefer to soak up entertainment, and where an audience goes, a good advertiser follows. That means contextual targeting on relevant web pages, audio ad placements throughout popular podcasts adjacent to your product, and perhaps most importantly, ads attached to the many (many) streaming services in constant use across the globe.
The trajectory for CTV ad spend is clearly on the upswing. And while it’s not without its own set of complications for advertisers to sort out, the impact of a well-placed CTV ad is an undeniable goldmine for advertisers. This is an area still full of untapped potential, which means room to flex branded messages in creative ways audiences may not have experienced yet.
Programmatic Projected 2023 Spend
The experts have programmatic platforms thriving amid all the year’s biggest changes, with both digital video and digital display formats projected to surpass $74B and $142B by the end of 2023, respectively.
Despite sweeping changes to how marketers operate post-third-party cookies and alongside new tools and technologies, continual investment in programmatic’s abilities to locate qualified new audiences keeps it among the key pillars of every digital marketing mix.
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