Three trends to lookout for in the digital marketing universe in 2022

According to the latest report by GroupM, digital mediums will be leading the ad spends with 45 percent of the media share this year.

Two months into 2022, we are already witnessing a greater adoption of digital channels across all platforms. According to the latest report by GroupM, digital mediums will be leading the ad spends with 45 percent of the media share this year. Previously, brands were conflicted with the mammoth task of aligning their marketing strategy and ad spends with the myriad of media channels, but are now actively looking to engage with their audience wherever they are in the digital universe.

As marketers and consumers become more tech savvy, adoption of fast growing channels on the open internet like OTT (over the top), Connected TV (CTV), audio, in-mobile apps have seen an accelerated growth, setting up some exciting trends to watch out for this year.

Connected TV is the next growth frontier

Recent years have seen the transformation of TV and what it means for advertising. According to a recent Mediasmart India CTV Report 2021, almost 70 percent of Indians now spend one to four hours on connected TV (CTV) and CTV consumption has increased by 31 percent over the past year. Moving forward, it will become increasingly difficult to predict who will watch which show or which “live” sports event. This means that linear viewership commitments are harder to predict as it is no longer about reaching an audience at a certain time on a certain show.

CTV advertising enables brands to apply data to their massive TV campaigns in a way that’s simply not possible with linear. While linear TV allows advertisers to target viewers only at a broad demographic level, CTV enables brands to apply data-driven insights to target specific audience segments based on their interests and preferences.

Now that TV sets have proven they’re not going anywhere, there’s no question of the immense opportunity that CTV, one of the fastest-growing channels in digital marketing, holds in 2022.

Phygital measurement becomes reality as consumers move between offline and online

Marketers have traditionally relied on KPIs such as CPMs, CPAs and click-through rates to measure campaign performance. But these traditional KPIs don’t adequately reflect business growth goals. The pandemic has sharpened the focus on advertising measurement and underlined the importance of connecting campaign performance to real-world outcomes. This will gain even greater momentum this year as more marketers expect clearer ROIs in the form of in-store and online sales to store visits and brand perception.

Furthermore, as we emerge from the pandemic, brands will need to re-assess their measurement approach in a “phygital” environment as consumers move between online and offline. The Trade Desk’s recent industry-first collaboration with Lifesight, a customer intelligence company specializing in location-based measurement, enables marketers to measure how their campaigns drive in-store visits to complement other online campaign metrics. By leveraging location data insights, they can optimize campaigns on the go and use campaign insights to inform spend allocation and shape media strategies to drive better business outcomes.

Cookieless future is bright

With the fall out of cookies, new alternative solutions are being weighed and discovered by industry leaders to ensure privacy of consumers and delivery of relevant advertising.

New industry-wide identity solutions such as Unified ID 2.0 operate outside of the walled gardens and rely on consumer email logins to create identifiers. Unified ID 2.0 helps advertisers target their audiences with precision, while enabling brands to measure and compare different ad opportunities and, in turn, manage advertising frequency across channels and devices.

This is the best time for brands to re-evaluate their strategies for the cookieless world. While third-party cookies are set to go away in 2023, brands have some time to understand the different identity solutions available and work with a trusted technology partner to test new approaches for leveraging data in a post-cookie world. Importantly, they have the opportunity to build consented, first-party relationships with consumers. After all, why “borrow” third-party data when you can build your very own?

(We got this information in a press release).