Mindgruve attended Digiday’s 2022 Media Buying Summit in October. The conference focused on expected challenges from looming changes to our economy, changes in consumer behavior post-pandemic, and changes to privacy (and therefore identity) in the face of potential browser policies or regulatory legislation affecting our industry.
Over three days, we convened with fellow industry experts and thought leaders to explore key opportunities for the impending changes.
Embracing entropy in The Great Re-Evaluation
The summit kicked off by exploring how American consumers’ attitudes and behaviors have been impacted by The Great Re-Evaluation and the pandemic era, changing the shape of the consumer landscape for years to come. Established brand loyalties are being tested, as this past year saw 90% of consumers switching to different brands and retailers — more than at any point since the start of the pandemic.
Brands should pivot consumer data collection goals from how much they can collect to how much value they can provide by using it. They can use consumer data to better understand how decision-making in their category has changed, and how the habits and values of their consumers have evolved so that they can empathetically speak to the consumer in a way that’s more relevant to them. Web 3.0, which includes the metaverse, offers unique opportunities to ensure inclusion and better targeting across diverse audiences.
Leveraging automation
Many industries utilize automation to streamline their workflows. Marketers also employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help execute intelligent strategies and campaigns at scale. AI can help automate some ad agency processes, from creative to segmentation, and
potentially help agencies optimize their ad spend by lessening monotonous work.
An increase in e-commerce sales due to the pandemic and the impending death of third-party cookies are driving a need for new data collection capabilities. More marketers are turning to natural language processing (NLP), mainly in the form of chatbots and social listening, and data-driven personalization to automate customer service and collect data for ad targeting.
Future-proofing in a changing economy
As legislation related to third-party cookies may very well be coming, agencies and advertisers must be prepared to scale the use of identity in a privacy-compliant way. Marketers should also discuss app tracking transparency and the best ways agencies can translate this success in a post-ATT environment. Continuous education on metrics is key to communicating outcomes to leadership and partners, especially as we enter a potential recession.
Exploring data clean rooms for a cookieless world
Given the challenges around data privacy concerns, marketers are searching for alternative solutions that will help them better understand audiences. Enter identity-driven data clean rooms, which are secure digital spaces where brands can match consumer data with other first-, second-, and third-party sources. Marketers are using these technologies to prepare for the upcoming deprecation of third-party cookies.
Prioritizing attention in an uncertain economy
As economic uncertainty continues, reaching new and existing consumers in the right place at the right time is more valuable than ever. As we have seen consumer behavior dramatically shift over the last three years, this means that the way we engage and measure brand outcomes is also shifting.
Brands should focus on attention metrics to drive sustainable growth as optimizing these metrics can improve ad effectiveness and reduce waste. Attention Economy research indicated that attention is three times more effective at predicting outcomes than viewability with key drivers identified as creative, quality of media, relevancy, and ad experience.
Conclusion
In the coming new year, marketers will continue facing many of the same challenges they did in 2022, with the likelihood of a recession. However, research validates the importance of not pausing advertising during times of economic stress, and continuing to engage with the most loyal customers. Being strategic with marketing dollars will allow brands to maintain conversations even in a tight market.
