As 2023 quickly approaches, AdNews spoke to adtech leaders about what next year will hold.
Samantha Bala, Marketing Director, APJ at LogicMonitor:
“The importance of intent marketing is a clear lesson in 2022. Segmenting your audience based on their challenges or needs and creating an authentic brand narrative will allow businesses to create and capture demand. Relevant content that has the power to truly resonate with your customer profiles has proven to cut through the noise of content overload.
"Those who were able to nail their content and leverage it across various platforms have gained competitive advantage. To tell succinct stories, you have to understand your audiences’ needs, provide compelling examples that demonstrate value to them and choose the right platform they go to consume information.
"2023 is shaping up to be a year where marketers will need to strike a fine balance. Firstly, macro economic forces will cause businesses to be more conservative with budgets and focus on business efficiencies. Business strategies will shift to be more balanced with focus not entirely on attracting new business but increasing engagement with existing customers for expansion and growth opportunities.
"Similarly, balancing between virtual and face to face engagements where you truly understand your target audience information consumption journey will determine your go to market strategies to drive efficiencies.”
Ben Baker, Managing Director APAC, Vistar Media:
“The biggest lesson from 2022 for marketers was to stay agile, innovative and flexible in order to combat the change in shopping habits and movement patterns of consumers. Successful marketing over the last year took place when campaigns could be adapted and optimised across multiple platforms to ensure that brands were directly reaching their audience, maximising every dollar spent.
"As we move into 2023 with this same mindset, channels such as programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) will be gold for marketers as it provides the ability to shift, pause or even stop an ad at a moment's notice. This enables better campaign responsiveness for marketers who are looking for flexible messaging based on real-world conditions.
"Additionally, knowing budgets may be tightening, marketers will put a stronger emphasis on measurement to ensure that every dollar spent on advertising is optimised. As part of this renewed focus, metrics such as web conversion tracking, foot traffic and sales lift will grow in stature as they guide spending decisions in 2023.”
Kate Musgrove, Managing Director, APAC at Bazaarvoice
“Authenticity was a hot topic in 2022 as regulators cracked down on marketing activity like greenwashing and misleading content such as fake reviews. These regulatory actions have stemmed from the consumer expectation that brands and retailers stay genuine.
"For brands, marketers and consumers alike this resulted in increased transparency throughout the year when making claims about products or a business. This sense of authenticity will no doubt continue to guide marketing in 2023.”
“As we look towards 2023, user-generated content (UGC) will be advertising gold for marketers. UGC provides marketers with the opportunity for authentic marketing that increases trust. Consumers want to see UGC, so much so that 41% of Aussies trust an ad more when UGC is featured and 43% would like to see UGC everywhere they shop online. Harnessing the power of the customer voice through the form of UGC will be vital to remain front of mind in our age of always-on commerce.”
Theo Hourmouzis, Regional Vice President, ANZ at Snowflake:
Data clean rooms go mainstream and boost campaign performance
"We saw early adoption with data clean rooms from media companies and publishers on the sell side in 2022 but in 2023 it’s going to reach across the entire advertising and marketing ecosystem. Whether you’re an adtech or martech company in identity, measurement and CDPs, or on the buy side with agencies and marketers themselves, we’re in the midst of a mass realization of how drastically the collaboration, privacy and governance features of data clean rooms benefit all parties involved.
"We’re going to see improved campaign performance across the board as marketers evolve from targeting and measuring off of just their cookies, instead using their actual customer data to provide better targeting to improve marketing performance and measurement. The data clean room conversation will shift from discussing the technology to focusing on its ability to deliver actual performance at scale."
Retail media matures and moves up funnel and off platform
"With margins on retail media much higher than the traditional retail business itself, we’re going to see retailers start to move up the funnel and leverage data and insights off platform to generate more ad revenue. Retail media will extend into ad categories like brand or television advertising as well as connected television. Retail media advertising will only get healthier as they move up funnel past search and they expand into these multiple ad formats and categories.
"Sports betting will be a growing ad category amidst economic uncertainty - While many consumer marketers typically pull back on spend in a recession or economic downturn, there are always new ad categories that get created or accelerated during these times. We’re seeing a feverish race to acquire customers in sports betting as it becomes legal across U.S. states. While you may see a pull back on categories like auto and travel, sports betting will help buoy advertising revenue in 2023."
Cross-cloud data collaboration leads to a renaissance in multi-currency measurement
"Measurement has always been held back by the requirement of having to copy and move data. Company’s today now have the technology to retain their marketing exposure data in their own environment but measure across cloud environments and publishers. This means you can do de-duplication, incremental reach and frequency on your own with a data clean room - measurement no longer needs to be off the least common denominator."
Audrey Michelin, Director of Account Management ANZ, OpenX
"In today’s economic climate, advertisers and brands need to be prudent with their ad spend more than ever and ensure maximum ROI for their ad campaigns. Instead of putting all their ad spending into just one bucket, we see brands increasingly diversifying their investments into emerging channels – gaming, Connected TV (CTV), and audio - to retarget audiences.
"The proliferation of these new media is powering the growth of programmatic advertising. Especially in Australia, where programmatic has already become a part of the marketing mix, with a 70% increase in programmatic spend, noted in our report, The State of Programmatic in JAPAC. We see this growth and confidence continuing in 2023.
"There are also lingering challenges and concerns for the Australian digital advertising industry. According to our report, 65% of brands, agencies and publishers are concerned about identifier deprecation, where only 15% have access to first-party data.
"In the coming year the industry will explore other solutions to mitigate the impact of identifier deprecation, such as shifting spend to walled gardens, contextual and CTV, and exploring adtech partnerships. In fact, we are already seeing an increase in brands, agencies and publishers partnering with ad exchanges, third-party ID authentication solutions and direct partnerships to find ideal solutions.
"Over 50% of Australian industry players are also highly concerned about ad fraud and quality-related issues. In response, 62% have run a supply path optimization (SPO) review in the past 18 months. We expect more focus on SPO as publishers target top-grade inventory, while brands ensure their ads appear in brand safe environment.
"Lastly, amid rising concerns around climate change, the advertising industry needs to immediately evaluate their carbon footprint, optimize their supply chain, and prepare a robust strategy to achieve net zero on all Scope 1, 2 and 3 levels. In 2023, sustainability will be a primary conversation in the industry, moving industry players to take a proactive approach towards sustainability."
Josephine Lanzarone, Vice President of Marketing, APAC at Pluralsight:
“This year has been a year of many lessons, however one that truly stands out is that fostering genuine relationships with customer advocates is key to flourishing and evolving marketing strategies. Advocates help to reinforce the storytelling initiatives that come into play with any marketing strategy and add a layer of authenticity that reinforces the initiatives you go to market with.
"Throughout this year, customer advocates have helped to cut through the noise of a congested space that is B2B marketing and will continue to play an important role throughout the next year.
"On top of this, gaining a stronger understanding of why customers want your products can help steer and enhance any marketing strategies coming into the new year. Knowing the real reason behind customer intentions can greatly impact the outcome of a strategy with clear and specific objectives.
"As we push forward, relationships with customer advocates and a clear focus on ‘why’ will provide marketers in the B2B space with a strong foundation for success.”
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