The streaming era of television has drastically changed how consumers watch content and, therefore, how advertising works. There are many streaming channels now — the doors that Netflix opened — and plenty of consumers have subscriptions to several platforms. But how are they able to afford them all? 

For the past fifty years, the video industry used a dual revenue-stream model. This meant that TV networks and pay-TV operators shared the revenue consumers paid for subscriptions and the revenue generated from ads. Then the rise of Netflix’s ad-free platform birthed the streaming dynasty, opening a gamut of questions about the future of advertising in television. 

Meanwhile, Hulu and other streaming services began offering ad-supported options at a lower price, which also led to the rise of the FASTS, and the popularity of the option showed that it was viable. It begged the question of which ad-supported tier would become the industry standard.

One of the original appeals of streaming was ad-free content, but as the streaming medium became oversaturated, ad-supported tiers became a tactical revenue stream. As the streaming wars waged on for three years, lower-cost ad-supported plans “have provided consumers with the ability to afford more services with their entertainment wallet.” 

The growth of ad-supported plans has grown exponentially over five years. By the end of Q1 of 2023, ad-supported streaming made up one-fourth of SVOD subscriptions. 

The Big Four: “Ad Avoiders,” “Ad Takers,” “Ad Managers,” and “Ad Oblivious.”

The popularity of ad-supported subscriptions is undeniable, but the statistics vary based on the streaming platform. For example, two out of three subscribers that signed up for Peacock in Q1 of 2023 chose the ad-supported plan. On the other hand, only one-fifth of subscribers signed up for the ad-supported tier on HBO Max and Netflix.

But why are consumers making these choices? 

Antenna, the subscriber measurement company, created four consumer categories to understand consumer choice: Ad Avoiders, Ad Takers, Ad Managers, and Ad Oblivious. 

Ad Avoider: This segment of subscribers always chooses an ad-free plan. Platforms presented them with an ad-free and ad-supported tier, and they always chose the former. 

Ad Taker: This segment was presented with both options and chose the ad-supported tier. 

Ad Manager: They mix and match both ad-free and ad-supported tiers.

Ad Oblivious: They have not yet signed up for a service where advertising was an option.

Ad Choice Segmentations (All Subscribers) 

This idea of ad choice in CTV is a fairly new concept. Three years ago, 64% of U.S. video streaming subscribers were Ad Oblivious because platforms never presented them with a streaming service with an ad-supported subscription tier. Now the number is down to 32%, a significant drop. 

The upcoming years will be vital for determining the future role of advertising in subscription-supported streaming. This is the first time the CTV industry is offering this amount of ad-supported streaming content, and platforms will need to take this time to understand if consumers bought into the value proposition of advertising, especially as one-third of subscribers remain Ad Oblivious. 

If you put aside the Ad Oblivious segment and focus on the two-thirds of subscribers who made a choice, 58% of Americans chose advertising either some or all the time they had the option. However, Ad Avoiders are the largest single segment at 42%. 

The Ad Manager portion, in which subscribers filter back and forth between both options, might be the way of the future. The Ad Manager portion is small, but there is room for exponential growth. 

“By definition, a consumer can’t be considered an Ad Manager until one has made the ad choice at least two times. If we isolate only the consumers who have been faced with the ad choice two or more times, a fascinating story emerges: 71% of these Americans have chosen advertising at least once. And nearly one-in-two are Ad Managers. Consumers are not only learning to choose whether or not they want ads, but they are also learning to decide on a service-by-service basis,” wrote Antenna. 

There’s room for both ad-free and ad-supported services in the future. The data shows that it depends on the platform. 

The post The Subscription Economy, The Streaming War, and Ad-Supported Media appeared first on AdMonsters.

Doing so profitably starts with performance marketing, which allows advertisers to reach their audiences at scale — and pay for results rather than impressions. 

Marketers can use the strategy across apps of all verticals and categories to stimulate specific down-funnel actions. And performance marketing is achievable across channels — including connected TV (CTV)

CTV is now in more than 90% of US households, creating a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to engage with new audiences. This is especially true for non-gaming apps, which can leverage the mobile gaming apps’ technology, strategies, and tactics to acquire high-value users on CTV and beyond. 

Let’s explore the unique challenges that non-gaming apps face in scaling their UA, how mobile apps across the board can efficiently optimize toward specific business goals, and what the dawn of precision performance marketing on CTV means for profitable mobile audience growth. 

Unique Challenges for Non-gaming Apps 

Revenue from non-gaming apps recently surpassed that of gaming apps in the US, signaling a shift in consumer behavior and an opportunity for further growth. The non-gaming category is diverse, from food delivery and finance to health and wellness. But most brands share the challenge of stimulating down-funnel actions, such as purchases, orders, or subscriptions. 

While gaming apps often rely on in-app advertising or in-app purchases as their primary source of monetization, as gamers spend minutes or even hours at a time in the app, non-gaming apps often need users to take a particular action in a limited amount of time in the app to generate value. 

For example, a food delivery app doesn’t just need people to download their app, even though that could technically qualify as UA. Instead, they need people to download the app and place their first order. Acquiring high-value new users, or those likely to make that first-time order and further purchases, requires first identifying those consumers and then reaching those audiences at scale. 

There’s a ton of data to consider, but apps don’t have to go it alone. Performance-driven data partnerships can help brands connect with high-intending audiences, measure success, and continually optimize campaigns to maximize ROI and drive incremental growth. 

Fueling More Targeted, Profitable Growth With Performance Marketing  

In the example of the food delivery app, advertisers can use performance marketing to understand the impact of their advertising beyond installs. With cost per event (CPE) analysis, campaigns can start to optimize toward the specific “event” of the first-time order. 

This performance-based approach enables marketers to understand down-funnel consumer behavior, and anything from completing a level to making a purchase can be optimized as an event. Starting with an app’s business goal, learning periods, and experimentation, marketers can identify an ideal channel mix that yields users most likely to take the specific action.

Machine learning coupled with powerful data analytics can help app advertisers find their ideal audience and continually optimize campaigns in real time to yield more of those specific down-funnel events. This allows apps to scale UA profitably and avoid ad waste on consumers unlikely to generate high lifetime value (LTV).  

Opportunity in CTV for App Marketers  

While CTV is a new and exciting marketing channel, its pricing model has historically been based on impressions, charging brands for eyeballs rather than results. This can seem hard to justify in our current economic reality, especially for apps operating on thinner margins. 

To leverage CTV efficiently, marketers should test its advantages as a performance channel and shift their buying from a CPM to CPI (cost per install) model, making it a natural extension of their UA campaigns. 

Marketers should prioritize collaborating with channel partners that provide a single access point across mobile and CTV for their performance campaigns. This enables transparent omnichannel reporting that delivers deeper insights for more holistic optimization across channels. 

For example, while tapping into performance-based buying on CTV, marketers can still track performance on a CPE basis, optimizing toward channels where users convert on the desired event, such as first-orders for food delivery apps, as mentioned earlier. This ensures sustainable, cost-effective ROI while increasing user LTV.

By only paying for installs, advertisers turn impressions into a powerful value add for additional brand awareness. For example, users who see a CTV ad for a dating app may not be able to install it immediately, but they may do so later, creating a halo effect from the campaign that delivers long-term benefits. 

As viewership reaches new heights and ad spend projected to grow 21% this year, app developers and marketers neve have had a better time to reach incremental new audiences on this channel. 

With CPI pricing, efficient performance marketing for apps — relying on the same measurement infrastructure as mobile — is more than possible on CTV. In fact, CTV may be all but necessary to stand out in the increasingly competitive app marketplace and scale revenue through the acquisition of high-value users.  

The post How Mobile Apps Can Profitably Scale UA with Performance Marketing and CTV appeared first on AdMonsters.

With billions flowing through programmatic channels worldwide, the incentive for fraudsters to ply their craft was just too great.

Finally, the industry had enough. In 2014, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) was established to cultivate confidence and trust in digital advertising by facilitating collaboration among players across the supply chain to uphold quality and brand safety standards.

On June 21, TAG released its fifth consecutive fraud benchmark report for Europe, and for a fifth year in a row, IVT rates in TAG Certified Channels were below 1%.

Some Channels More Problematic Than Others

At least in Europe, some channels are more problematic than others. For instance, desktop display and video have IVT rates of 1.54% and 1.30% respectively. CTV isn’t far behind with 1.28%.

CTV Improved Steadily throughout 2022

Throughout 2022, CTV IVT rates exhibited a downward trend in each quarter, but it is important to note that this pattern may not necessarily reflect future trends as it could be influenced by other factors within the CTV marketplace.

Mobile in-app video and display formats consistently maintained lower IVT rates throughout the quarters, exhibiting stability over time.

The Caveat

It’s not as if all campaigns in the European markets studied show low rates of IVT. The report takes pains to point out that less than 1% fraud is only attainable in campaigns that run through fully TAG Certified Channels. These are channels in which every entity — publisher, ad tech platform, agency — have achieved TAG Certification Against Fraud.

The post What 5 Years of Minimal Fraud Should Tell the Market appeared first on AdMonsters.

According to a webinar hosted by Comscore, 2023 State of Programmatic, programmatic spend has experienced exponential growth, doubling over the past four years. Data shows that over 91% of $148 billion in digital display dollars are transacted programmatically. Where does this leave the state of programmatic? 

The short answer is that the automated supply chain is flourishing, but signs indicate an ad spend slowdown. The further context suggests that since programmatic accounts for nine out of ten digital ad dollars, the market is reaching a state of saturation rather than stagnation. 

On the other hand, these statistics only apply to display advertising. Mediums such as CTV, video, mobile, and audio utilize the programmatic supply chain to buy and sell ads. But we don’t have to tell our readers that programmatic touches almost every side of digital advertising. 

To get to the bottom of programmatic in 2023, Proximix by Comscore surveyed industry professionals about how they perceive programmatic advertising outside of what headlines suggest. 

Digital Is King of the Programmatic Court

The agencies surveyed said that marketers would most commonly use digital media channels this year. Eighty seven percent of executives surveyed asserted they would use digital in their media mix. Digital will keep its crown intact. 

While headlines proclaim the domination of channels such as CTV and audio, most brands keep it traditional. CTV comes in second in the ranking, but alongside digital, most don’t expect much growth out of these two categories in 2023. 

Publishers and advertisers expect podcasts and audio to show significant growth this year. This channel is expected to experience the most significant boost compared to last year, so there is a chance that publishers and advertisers will increase more time and investment in the medium. 

Research from this year supports this trend, with a significant number of Americans listening to online audio and podcasts.  Brands are relying on digital this year, but it is possible that audio has stock in the game of thrones next year. 

Data Investments in the Programmatic Supply Chain Is Mixed

The types of data publishers and advertisers are investing in on the supply chain vary widely based upon what works best for their business and the changing landscape with privacy. 

First-Party Data: They expect to allocate a significant portion of their spending towards first-party modeled audiences, emphasizing the value they place on first-party data. 

• This data set is vital as brands work toward building audiences without the use of third-party cookies. Google just announced they will go away in the 2nd half of 2024. 

Third-Party ID-Based Segments: Third-party ID-based segments are also important, with approximately 43% of the budget allocated to this area. Demographics remain a crucial component of third-party ID-based data.

• 24% of the budget will focus on innovating demographic data 
• 19% of this budget will focus on third-party behavioral data. Yet, this data will most likely be a thing of the past after 2024. 

Contextual Data: Brands will direct a third of the budget towards idealist contextual segments, which involve traditional contextual topic targeting or newer third-party behavioral, contextual audiences.

• Over half of buyers and sellers expect their use of contextual data to increase this year compared to a mere 3% who indicate that usage will decrease.

The webinar’s moderator explicitly pointed out that this analysis does not consider the cost of each type of data. ID-less contextual data tends to have lower prices compared to ID-based targeting. Contextual targeting represents a smaller portion of the budget. It may result in a higher volume of impressions overall in the campaign delivery.

Privacy Radically Changed Programmatic: “Step Your Cookie-less Game Up”

The consumer data privacy reckoning on the ad tech industry has affected every aspect of the advertising ecosystem, including the programmatic supply chain. 

For example, when Apple rolled out its iOS 14.5, it allowed users to block tracking at the app level. The update also required brands to get permission to collect and share consumer data. Based on proximity by comScore data, the implications were that up to 70% of us programmatic mobile ideas vanished overnight.

So how are publishers and advertisers dealing with the signal loss?

Many marketers have started to move away from cookie-based targeting. They are represented in the chart by our men in blue. Only 13% of businesses surveyed said they exclusively use cookieless targeting, but many publishers and advertisers have migrated to have cookie-free targeting in their inventory. 

For those using the programmatic supply chain, this is the smart move. According to the IAB’s state of data report, 50-60% of programmatic inventory no longer has a User ID. 

That 18% represents the man in yellow, you are behind the curve, but you still have a year to “step your cookies up” as Google’s third-party cookie deprecation deadline looms closer. A great place to start testing is on Safari and Firefox have been cookieless for over three years. They hold a significant inventory, about 22% of browser traffic globally. 

The post The State of Programmatic Advertising in 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

We used to buy almost everything in person until online shopping became more popular. During the pandemic, many shifted to purchasing most of their items online, including essentials like groceries. 

This comfort with shopping for goods online has opened up a new world of ecommerce, including shopping from the comfort of your living room couch. 

In a session at Ops NYC, “Shoppable TV: Shaping E-commerce’s Future with Unique Consumer Experiences,” moderated by Marika Roque, Chief Innovation Officer & Chief Operating Officer for KERV and featuring Miles Fisher, Senior Director Ad Platforms & Growth Sales for Roku, and Amie Owen, US Head of Commerce for Universal McCann Worldwide, Inc. gave attendees a glimpse into the future of ecommerce. 

How Users Interact with Shoppable TV

COVID significantly changed the retail and ecommerce spaces, says Owen, “I am super excited to be in the space because the convergence of retail and data allows us to really have that shoppable moment for everybody no matter where they are in their journey.”  

Focusing on the holistic TV experience, Roku is extending that to what it means to shop via TV, notes Fisher. For example on TV, a call to action used to feature a flashing phone number on a television screen during an ad, but now a call to action might direct the consumer to visit a website or complete an action using their mobile device. 

Since Roku is a subscription service, the streamer has built a direct relationship with 70 million consumers. This gives them access to email addresses, phone numbers, and credit card info, which provides more insight into who is watching when.

Ensuring positive user experiences with shoppable TV isn’t all that different from creating great experiences online. To achieve that, data plays a huge part in keeping users engaged, says Owen. Post-COVID shopping happens in more ways than before the pandemic, so understanding shopping behaviors can inform which ads to show consumers on their journey.

Best Practices and Strategies to Succeed With Shoppable

As more streaming services buy into the value of Shoppable TV, there will likely be hiccups along the way. Owen suggests three strategies to help make sure everything runs smoothly:

1. Figure out your overall objectives, KPIs, and who you are trying to reach. 
2. Make sure your messaging is tailored to who you are reaching out to and what you are trying to accomplish. 
3. Continue to evolve and keep your pulse on the way the landscape is changing, because everything could be different as early as tomorrow. 

And what works on mobile or desktop, doesn’t necessarily work for TV. “The production quality that people are used to on television is very different. And one of the things that we’re really focused on is making TV more accessible for other people to advertise,” notes Fisher. The cost per impression for TV is lower, but it’s worth taking some of that budget and putting it into production, he adds. 

Roku is also working on making TV as shoppable as social. Consumers are already accustomed to picking up a remote while watching TV, and Fisher believes the remote will be a powerful tool going forward. Roku is also looking into ways to create interactive overlays that will encourage people to use their mobile devices to complete a purchase, with QR codes continuing to be a piece of the puzzle. 

Approaching the Consumer at the Right Time and in the Right Way

Regardless of the way it happens, converting sales comes down to creating a call to action and offering the consumer something valuable in exchange for their information. All of this circles back to understanding audiences through the data they share. 

When Roku partnered with DoorDash to offer customers a $5 off coupon if they ordered in real-time, it was a way to surprise and delight them, Fisher says. That’s just one way to deliver value. 

Then there’s how retail data can help brands close the attribution loop. UM Worldwide partnered directly with Kroger to leverage their first-party data to reach users who purchase beauty products, which led to a threefold increase in return over the previous results, shares Owen.

Partnering with different companies and sharing data in a way that remains privacy safe – which is crucial – can help increase leads, Fisher agrees. The ROI results from these partnerships can sometimes even be seen in real-time. Other times, it may take six to eight weeks for data to be available. 

The Future of Shoppable TV

In the next year, the shoppable TV sector could look completely different. So what about in five to 10 years?

In the next year to three years, Fisher predicts there will be an increase in the video quality of TV ads, possibly aided by AI technology. TV is built for mass marketers to succeed and they will likely continue to do so, he adds. 

In the next five to 10 years, Owen predicts that consumers won’t only be shopping through TV, but through a variety of smart appliances. From the refrigerator that keeps an inventory of what you have stocked to the laundry machine that calculates how many loads of laundry you do in a typical month and prompts you to reorder detergent through Amazon, there will be a whole home ecosystem of places to shop. 

The post Is Shoppable TV The Future Of Consumer Purchasing? appeared first on AdMonsters.

“The CCPA was the first comprehensive consumer privacy law passed in the United States, and even though it’s a California state law, there was nothing like it on the books that generally applied to consumer personal information,” said Tony Ficarrotta, Assistant General Counsel, IAB. “The CCPA was the first one that said we don’t care what industry you’re in. If you’re processing consumer personal information, then you have certain requirements. In digital media and advertising, there are many questions about how that law applies to the data often processed to select and deliver digital ads.” 

The initial white paper, released in 2020, detailed which companies were involved in the CTV process, explained how to define and use personal information in the CTV space, and how companies can comply with privacy laws. Project Crosswalk 2.0 builds on that study. 

How Is CTV Unique? The Remote Control and the Identity Conundrum 

The Remote Control: With several state-wide privacy laws in place and on the way, CTV providers must offer consumers residing in those states the option to opt out of selling or sharing their personal information for ad targeting. Platforms have years of experience implementing these regulations on mobile and desktop devices, but these regulations have caused user experience issues for CTV providers. 

Remote controls are the primary interface used to navigate connected TVs, and they generally have limited functionality compared to mobile and desktop devices. When consumers hope to enact their privacy rights on CTV devices, they spend longer durations using the remote to enter the necessary information to complete the request. Thus, hindering the UX. 

In response, CTV providers created a pathway for consumers to review privacy notices and exercise their rights to privacy outside of the CTV space. They provide a URL or QR code that leads to a website, and consumers can exercise their right to privacy on a desktop or mobile device. Although regulators are urging platforms to move away from this practice:

According to the FTC report, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, “Consumers should not have to navigate through multiple screens to find privacy settings … [privacy settings] should be presented at a time and in a context where the consumer is deciding their data.” 

The Identity Conundrum: Identifying consumers with regard to privacy compliance is difficult, especially in a space that is so fragmented. Many ID solutions have worked in desktop and mobile devices, even with third-party cookie deprecation, but that has not always translated to CTV platforms. 

The most common identifier in the CTV space is a user’s internet protocol (IP) address. It allows CTV platforms to bridge identity signals to activate advertising audiences and measure the effectiveness of advertising in CTV. Although, IP addresses are generally network-level IDs instead of user or device-level IDs, which causes some issues in the identification process. For example: 

• Very few ad-tech providers have built IP-based opt-out mechanisms. In the past, it was not necessary because of the reliability of cookie-based opt-outs.  
• Even if IP-based opt-outs became commonplace, the reliability of their opt-out signals would be uncertain because internet service providers (ISPs) periodically rotate IP addresses, and users often engage with the same businesses using multiple IP addresses.

The IAB Project Crosswalk whitepaper suggests using internal development resources and first parties that can store user privacy choices made on a CTV user interface directly on the CTV or on their servers, using the GPP. First parties can subsequently make those choices available in bid requests that third parties can apply to identifiers they leverage for advertising. 

CTV Privacy Compliance Considerations

In CTV advertising, processing and transferring consumer information is essential for ad selection and delivery, measurement, and audience creation. Due to the complexity of processing personal information in the connected TV space, platforms must understand their obligations under state privacy laws. Here is what IAB suggests companies consider. 

1st Consideration: Leverage partnerships between cross-functional privacy teams to understand compliance regulations. 

Privacy lawyers, product experts, and privacy operations and governance professionals should work together to tackle the complexities of the data flow process in CTV advertising balanced with compliance regulations. They can each help identify when personal information is processed, when consumers request opt-outs activity, and how to apply rules to these processes. 

2nd Consideration: Clearly define your role in the CTV advertising process.

Every entity in the CTV advertising process should define clear roles for participating, whether they are a business and controller, third party, or service provider and processor. Companies may need to be flexible in their roles in different circumstances, depending on how consumers interact with the company and whether they have opted out. 

The IAB’s Multi-State Privacy Agreement (MSPA) provides an efficient way to define each party’s role in a transaction for privacy compliance while giving the flexibility to play different roles in different circumstances. CTV platforms are often a first-party business or controller, but they may be a third-party or service provider and processor, depending on the circumstances. The MSPA can help companies enter into the required contractual privity with all parties to the transaction. 

3rd Consideration: Create opt-out signals that communicate consumers’ choices in CTV platforms

Businesses and controllers must provide consumers with ways to opt out of certain activities. This responsibility also applies to CTV platforms, app publishers, and advertisers in the CTV environment. Privacy technology vendors offer a way to block information transfer if a user opts out, but using a privacy signaling framework like the GPP is better. Downstream vendors receiving an opt-out signal can comply with appropriate signaling, MSPA, or other contractual mechanisms to prevent sales that the consumer opted out of while allowing limited data processing for advertising.

4th Consideration: Evaluate use cases involving ACR data

When using ACR data, CTV platforms should consider specific compliance steps to ensure the user’s privacy and data protection rights are respected. One of the most important steps is to obtain the user’s opt-in consent before collecting, using, or sharing their ACR data. This is in line with FTC precedent and industry self-regulatory guidelines

The post Project Crosswalk: IAB’s Guidelines for CTV Privacy Compliance appeared first on AdMonsters.

With the overconsumption of data across various channels, first-party data sets are easier to unify and activate with the right tools. Without them, publishers are disconnected from their audience base and lost to fend for themselves in a wilderness of unclassified data. 

That’s where Lotame’s Spherical comes in. Lotame announced the launch of its new data platform at IAB ALM. In collaboration with various customer data platforms (CDPs), the tech enables interoperability and data portability across brand and media owner tech stacks. 

We spoke with Alex Theriault, General Manager, Spherical at Lotame. We discussed Spherical, the difficulty accessing consumer data, balancing data ethics and monetization, and more. 

Unifying Data Across Silos

Andrew Byrd: According to your research, Nine in 10 CMOs (91%) cite access to customer data as a competitive advantage, but a nearly equal amount (89%) say it isn’t readily available to them. Why do you believe it has been hard for them to access that data?

Alex Theriault: The CMO Council conducted this research (The High Velocity Data Marketer). The report cites “time, as in, there’s not enough of it” as the roadblock to real-time insights and predictive analytics availability. We’d go one step further and include technology and human resources to extract those insights, analyze the right signals and connect them to actionable outcomes. Collecting data for digitally native brands isn’t the challenge anymore.

It’s making valuable use of that data, from unifying it across silos and systems to modeling and enrichment for data-informed audience creation and activating that customer data in faster, smarter, and easier ways across trusted publishers in a privacy-safe way. No small hill to climb, for sure! But with interoperable technology like the Spherical Platform, marketers become data empowered. 

AB: Spherical is Lotame’s first-party data offering. Why did your company need a technology that helps publishers and advertisers gain access to first-party data? How does it differ from other first-party data offerings? 

AT: Media owners and marketers are grappling with unprecedented challenges to the tried and trusted ways they engage customers and acquire prospects. An increasingly fragmented universe of data, evolving privacy regulations, and varying levels of actionable first-party data are the tip of the iceberg. Macroeconomic conditions and the threat of recession are forcing functions for digital companies to find data solutions that actively propel growth today and are future-ready for the cookieless ecosystem and beyond. 

Lotame has always empowered clients to collect, enrich, analyze, and activate valuable first-party data from unknown users. With Spherical, media owners can marry their subscription and advertising initiatives within one platform for true data empowerment. Historically, these two have been siloed and handled by separate teams within different record systems. Whether first-party data is sourced directly by Lotame or ingested from emerging CDP integrations like Salesforce, Tealium, and mParticle, we’re bridging the gap between known and unknown first-party data to solve some genuine and persistent industry pains. 

Third-party cookie deprecation negatively impacted data enrichment and modeling support advertising targeting and customer acquisition. In addition, Spherical is cookieless-ready now with a proven identity framework and award-winning probabilistic ID (Lotame Panorama ID) for activation across platforms, browsers, and devices. And finally, we remain committed to supporting publisher revenue growth and the future of the open web through fair competition. Access to customer data is a competitive advantage, and we believe everyone should be able to drive growth and derive value from it — whether you have it or need it. 

Spherical: A Step By Step Rundown

AB: Can you elaborate on how Spherical works? 

AT: Spherical offers three key, unique components to help publishers and marketers be data empowered: 

• Proven, proprietary technology to unify, manage and activate first-party data
• One of the largest, global, consented data marketplaces to fuel modeling, enrichment, and analytics
• An identity spine to connect, extend and preserve data portability in a privacy-safe way without the need for third-party cookies

With Spherical, media owners and marketers can unify, model, enrich, and activate known and unknown first-party customer data for actionable customer intelligence, data-informed audiences, and identity-powered activation.

For example:

Actionable Customer Intelligence: Build complex audiences and run instant reach estimates to confirm the availability of highly sought-after segments. Enhance campaign reporting with demographic, interest, and intent attributes provided to advertisers for upsells.

Data Informed Audiences: Increase yield by monetizing your most valuable first-party audiences across all domains and screens. Use machine learning-powered lookalike audiences to extend your most valuable, sought-after, and niche first-party data.

Identity-Powered Activation: 

1. Address 100% of site traffic and future-proof targeting in a cookieless world. 
2. With data-empowered inventory across all screens, achieve maximum revenue in direct and programmatic channels.
3. Unlock new revenue streams with flexible data-selling capabilities.

AB: While creating Spherical, you partnered with several CDPs, such as Salesforce, BlueConic, and Rudderstack. Why was it vital for you to partner with these CDPs, and what value do they add to the product? 

AT: Media owners and marketers need to drive growth and revenue from known and unknown consumer touchpoints, so a marriage between CDP technologies and Spherical is a critical competitive advantage. CDPs were deployed for subscription and marketing purposes (email, SMS, etc.), such as building customer and subscriber profiles to personalize communication with existing customers.

By contrast, Spherical addresses the advertising use case (display, video, social, etc.) with activation into the ad tech ecosystem as a critical driver for customer acquisition. What publisher or marketer isn’t looking to unify acquisition and retention? 

Future-Proofing: Balancing Monetization and Data Ethics

AB: With privacy regulations and third-party cookie deprecation around the corner, the industry knows the importance of first-party data. Although, some publishers and advertisers are worried that their revenue will suffer without the third-party cookie. What advice would you give to help them balance data ethics and monetization? 

AT: Third-party cookie deprecation created an increased urgency around finding an identity solution that addresses and fills the gap. I’d go so far as to say that urgency is a bit late, but every day counts to get ahead of testing and implementing a portfolio of solutions to preserve and grow revenue. My advice for both the buy-side and sell-side is to understand which universal IDs offer the optimum blend of scale, precision, and the ability to honor consumer consent.

Our Panorama ID solution is tested and proven to deliver the results advertisers and publishers need. And all of our solutions are built with privacy by design principles and according to the strictest standards (GDPR, CPRA, etc).

AB: With any new product, there are learning curves. How do you plan to develop Spherical to future-proof the product? 

AT: In 2023, Lotame will focus on five key themes affecting our customers and the industry: customer data management, data connections, identity, analytics, and CTV.

Lotame is enhancing our platform to empower clients to manage data on known and unknown users by bringing it together to support all advertising activities. 

Data connections have always been a unique differentiator of Lotame’s business. With hundreds of connections to bring data in and out of our platform, we are focused on expanding our list of participating CDPs and data warehouses enabled for first-party data ingestion into the Spherical platform, which solves the increasing fragmentation of data into various silos. Further, we are enhancing and expanding our connections on social platforms. 

Identity is core to Lotame’s platform. We continue to evolve the Lotame Panorama graph by adding deterministic links for improved ID resolution. We offer a hybrid solution with the ideal blend of precision, deterministic links, and pseudonymous traffic’s maximum scale and addressability. It is central to enabling data connectivity within our platform and with partners throughout the ecosystem. 

Analytics remains a core focus for Lotame. Clients increasingly leverage our platform and vast data assets to garner valuable insights about their audiences – visitors to their digital properties, customer segments, or consumers exposed to a campaign. We will introduce iterations to existing and new dashboards, including side-by-side and trend analysis. 

Lotame will continue to focus on addressing data targeting in CTV – which our recent Beyond the Cookie 3 research identified as one of the most significant gaps for marketers in the CTV space. Our CTV division is sourcing more data from CTV devices and increasing the availability of our data marketplace within platforms enabled for CTV activation.

The post First-Party Data at Your Fingertips: Q&A With Alex Theriault About Lotame’s Spherical  appeared first on AdMonsters.

The timing couldn’t be better. The entire digital ecosystem is under pressure. Consumer expectations are higher than ever – and advertising budgets need to perform without relying on third-party data.

Retailers bring a unique solution to the digital industry: trusted consumer relationships. With their popular loyalty programs and ecommerce hubs, retailers can directly attribute advertising impressions to in-store buying behaviors.

But retailers can’t act alone. They’re also building bridges with an array of publisher partners to further extend the reach and impact of their retail media offerings.

Looking at the year ahead, here are some ways retailers and publishers will be working together to shape a better future for digital marketing.

Retailers and Publishers Will Be Part of the Sustainability Solution

The digital ad industry is addressing real challenges caused by its carbon footprint. Retail media data can help publishers to direct ads to the most relevant households — reducing advertising waste. This results in less energy consumption.

Advertisers have a right to expect greater transparency and visibility throughout the media supply chain.

They’re asking: How can we be more strategic with our investments and support the environment at the same time? Retail media will play a key part in the conversation between publishers and brands.

 “Attention Metrics” Will Be Put to the Test

Publishers will likely be asked to deliver against “attention metrics”—which aim to calculate the likelihood of attention paid to an ad placement.

With their visibility into sales, retailers can ensure attention metrics are meaningful to the bottom line. In 2023, look for retail media networks to affirm or debunk “attention” as a viable metric.

CTV Growth Will Be Fueled by Retail Media Partnerships

Audience fragmentation is making traditional TV ads less effective. Last summer, streaming media surpassed cable to become the largest share of TV viewing. In 2023, brands will shift television budgets to leverage the combined impact of retail data and CTV.

Connected TV keeps pace with current viewing trends, but providers also need the data to reach the right people with the right message. Retail media data will help fuel the creation of precision audience segments — and offer measurement against store sales.

Retailers and Publishers Will Forge a Consumer-first Future

In 2023, consumers will have more media choices, thanks to better digital partnerships between media companies and publishers. Competition and cooperation between companies will lead to new ideas and innovations.

Ultimately, it is consumers who will have the power. And prioritizing the consumer experience across publishers and retailers will help the media industry stay on track.

People are expecting a lot from brands and publishers. They want experiences that are seamless and fast, and brands want a good return on their investment. Let’s work together to build bridges between audiences, brands, publishers, and technology companies so that everyone benefits from the ad economy.

The post How Retailers and Publishers Will Shape a Better Future in 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

CTV is coming to the forefront as a performance channel, and marketers should seize this tremendous opportunity. Here’s why:

CTV Strategies Will Be Used to Target Niche Audiences

White-label streaming technology, provided by companies such as Wurl, is getting more and more available and easier to use. Together with the increasing popularity of AVOD and FAST, this will trigger a boom in niche streaming services with very specific audiences, allowing marketers to run extremely precise ads with tailored campaigns that will lead to great ROI through conversion.

Think: A streaming service for U.S. sitcoms from the 1970s targeting your grandma. 

While these niche streaming services do not have the reach of linear TV and mainstream SVOD (Again, you won’t stream ‘70s sitcoms, but your grandma might), they offer highly nuanced targeting options based on demographics and behavioral patterns, enabling advertisers to develop tailored campaigns that capture consumers’ attention across the entire funnel and even drive them to conversion. 

With measurability across the board, marketers are in a better position than ever to leverage the power of CTV and witness improved performance and effective advertising in this space.

CTV Advertising Is a Fully Measurable Channel

CTV has evolved into a measurable, accountable performance marketing channel — allowing for more precise targeting, and, as a result, higher ROI. We’ve reached the point where the entire user’s journey is measurable, and using upper-funnel data, marketers can see exactly how TV ads tie into the wider marketing goals. Within the right parameters, even the impact of CTV advertising on mobile and desktop purchases has become measurable.

With the ability to pursue incredibly segmented audiences and fully measure the ROI on CTV campaigns, marketers will have more control than ever before over their CTV ads —  if they lay the proper groundwork, that is. 

How Marketers Can Engage the Right Audiences on CTV

Select CTV Inventory Vendors With Care

I’ve two recommendations for marketers looking for a winning CTV vendor such as Vibe, The Trade Desk, and tvScientific. First, make sure the vendor has experience in the CTV space, as partnering with a new vendor may lead to a lack of sophistication in measurement and targeting available. Second, ensure the vendor lets you determine the context in which your ads are displayed. For this, a vendor should be able to provide the data needed to monitor if ads are served properly.

Determine Your Targeting Strategy

As mentioned, as consumers look to tighten their belts, they will turn to AVOD and FAST channels, opening myriad targeting options for advertisers. Marketers can use the following targeting strategies to identify and pursue the right audience for their brand:

• Contextual targeting:  Relevant ads are shown to viewers on the basis of what they most often stream.
• Demographics:  Ads based on age, genre, or the user’s preferred media genre.
• Geolocation: Ads shown to users in specific regions.
• First-party data: Ads based on user-specific data (that can be accessed via a CTV platform). Advertisers can not only leverage first-party data from the CTV platforms and streaming services. Many vendors enable clients to bring in their own first-party data to optimize targeting.
• Second-party data: Ads given to users due to data from databases linked to CTV platforms.
• Channel targeting: Ads based on the app or streaming service a viewer uses.

With a tactical combination of the above targeting methods, advertisers can reach fragmented audiences across different OTT (Over-the-Top) services like Netflix and Hulu to capture specific high-value users for their brand.

Ensure Accurate Measurement and Optimize 

Once you’ve selected your CTV partners and targeting strategy, it’s time to measure. By using a comprehensive CTV measurement solution (like Adjust’s CTV Advision) you can immediately spot how CTV drives direct performance and, even more importantly, manages to drive potential users to down-funnel channels such as Google Ads and Apple Search Ads. These insights are especially valuable for optimizing costs in difficult economic times.

With accurate measurement results in hand, marketers in 2023 will be able to test and perfect their campaigns for optimal reach. Therefore, the time to pursue highly segmented audiences via CTV is now.

The post 3 Ways Marketers Can Leverage CTV to Engage Highly Segmented Audiences in 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

Imagine it if you will, you’re sitting on your porch eating Catalina Crunch Cereal, and you look up and your neighbor is chirping away to a pair of seagulls who then respond to her. Next, a voiceover says, “The world is full of surprises—like getting cinnamon toast cereal without all the bad stuff.”

Pretty funny stuff, huh?

That’s what happens in the first nationwide brand awareness TV Campaign from Catalina Crunch.  With the help of SuperHeroes NY and System1, the keto-friendly cereal and snack brand created 30, 15, and 6-second spots featured across TV, social media, and CTV platforms, with a focus on amusing their audience.

To test and land on the right creative, SuperHero NY leveraged System1’s Test Your Ad platform to scale the campaign’s performance and determine how viewers felt about the creative throughout development. The goal was to connect data with creativity. Test Your Ad enables marketers and their agency partners to A/B test people’s emotional responses to creative, second-by-second, with custom reports delivered within 24 hours.

AdMonsters spoke with Krishna Kaliannan, Founder/CEO, Catalina Snacks, Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer, System1, and Susan Vugts, Managing Director, SuperHeroes NY, about the campaign. We discussed System 1’s Test Your Ad platform, how to market a campaign across different platforms, and the importance of collaboration. 

Catalina Crunch’s Creative Campaign Collaboration

AB: Catalina Crunch partnered with SuperHeroes NY and System1 for a creative cereal campaign. Why was this partnership worthwhile for your company? 

Krishna Kaliannan: We’re big fans of leveraging data to drive improvements. In Catalina Crunch’s early years, we learned that less than half (45%) of buyers were eating our cereal out of a bowl. Some were eating it from the bag as a snack, baking, or adding it to yogurt or smoothies. This insight led to the launch of additional snack product lines.  

So when we launched a broader awareness campaign, we also wanted to ensure we were partnering with agencies that understood data and creativity.

When we learned about the Test Your Ad platform, we recognized it as another way to capture valuable feedback from consumers so that we could create an ad they would enjoy. As a challenger brand, we aim to stand out among established competitors. Partnering with Superheroes as our creative agency that seeks to save the world from boring advertising and System1 has enabled us to be more creative and get real audience insights that shape the final campaign.

Testing Your Ad’s Effectiveness

AB: SuperHeroes NY used System1’s Test Your Ad platform to gauge how viewers felt about the creative throughout development. How does this product work, and why did you think creating it was necessary? 

Jon Evans: Nearly half of all advertising (48%) does not deliver long-term market share growth. Furthermore, many brands need clarity on which campaigns fail to engage consumers. We developed Test Your Ad, a platform that measures viewers’ emotional response to advertising because research demonstrates that the more people feel, the more they buy.

With Test Your Ad, advertisers and agencies can quickly and accurately predict the short-and long-term potential of creative, understand which specific elements are or are not adding value, improve their ad’s effectiveness through expert guidance and compare their ad to competitors’ commercials among our database of more than 80,000 ads.

Tell Me a Story: Scaling Ad Creative Across Channels

AB: While this is Catalina Crunch’s first TV campaign, the ads will be displayed across social media and streaming platforms. Do you find that marketing across different platforms changes your ad process? Do you have to market to audiences differently depending on the platform? If so, how? 

Susan Vugts: When developing our campaigns, we will always start with a solid creative strategy and build our story upon a vital human insight and a creative nugget that connects with people and can stand out.

For Catalina Crunch, this was the insight that something that seems impossible can be true. Like healthy cereal that tastes delicious or a neighbor that talks with seagulls in the Catalina campaign.

Based on this premise, we usually develop multiple executions per platform and audience because you must market to audiences and platforms differently. But we also ensure we have one overarching recognizable storyline and build distinctive brand assets such as packaging, color usage, and logo across all executions and platforms to build brand affinity. This is especially true for a challenger brand such as Catalina Crunch, which is building its brand and business. 

Optimizing Marketing Budgets Amidst Economic Uncertainty

AB: There is a reported slowdown in ad spend and a possible ad recession. What role should creative advertising play in combating this rough spot? 

JE: Many brands are looking for ways to stretch their marketing budgets further in the face of an economic downturn. Creative effectiveness is key to maximizing a brand’s advertising investment.

Creative effectiveness is key to maximizing a brand's advertising investment.

First, marketers must understand which of their current campaigns support brand building and which do not impact the bottom line. Ad testing can help reveal the effectiveness metrics so that marketers can allocate spend to the ads most likely to drive market share growth.

While some brands will inevitably roll out new ads during a recession, others may prefer to create savings by reinvesting in campaigns with high effectiveness metrics.

System1 has conducted extensive research on ad wear-out and has found no evidence. Audiences take more time with creative than marketers do. Advertisers can revive or repurpose older creative that tests well with audiences to reduce the need for an entirely new brief and production process.

Brand-building Ads Spark Emotion

AB: What advice would you give to advertisers to implement creative ads in their campaigns to help them drive revenue? 

JE: One of the main differentiators between ads that drive long-term growth and those that don’t is the former’s emphasis on right-brained features.

Advertising expert and author Orlando Wood outlines in his books — Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour. and Look out — the importance of appealing to the brain’s right hemisphere to drive mental availability. Right-brained features include:

• Melodic music
• Characters with agency
• A clear sense of place
• A scene unfolding
• Humor and dialogue

Brand-building ads spark an emotion in viewers, ideally happiness.

In comparison, Wood’s research finds that ads that lean heavily on left-brained elements, like rhythmic music, voiceovers, words on the screen, and freeze-frame effects, are less likely to drive long-term market share growth. Unfortunately, over the last nearly 20 years, there has been an increase in left-brained features and a decrease in right-brained features in ads. 

Advertisers must build briefs with the right and left brain in mind. Agencies are equally responsible for developing concepts focusing on storytelling and bringing rich characters and interactions into the mix. This creative will have a better chance of taking viewers on an emotional journey and driving long-term profit and market share growth. 

The post Catalina Crunch Campaign Shows How to Save the World From Boring Advertising appeared first on AdMonsters.