Andrew Smith.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
Andrew Smith, SVP Product Strategy at DoubleVerify
The digital media landscape is exponentially larger, faster and incrementally more complex than it was last year.
This evolution presents both opportunities and challenges for marketers as they grapple with ensuring media quality and optimising campaign performance.
2025 will require careful navigation of three key market shifts:
Tackling speed and scale simultaneously
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that data can be both a blessing and a burden. The scale of data available for decision-making in advertising is staggering — petabytes of information, spanning countless investment avenues. In fact, DoubleVerify alone sees almost twice the impressions, second by second, as Google sees in search queries.
But data alone isn’t enough. The real challenge lies in acting on it in real time. While brands could once trade off speed for scale, today’s fragmented media landscape demands both, and it requires them immediately.
This is where AI steps in. For instance, creating a deepfake video might take just 60 seconds, but AI-powered tools can detect it in a fraction of that time. AI’s ability to sift through massive datasets, detect anomalies, and provide actionable insights makes it indispensable in navigating today’s media complexity. That’s why we’re focused on investing in our AI capabilities over the next decade.
Everything is a walled garden
We’ve also seen the shift from open auction to an expanding collection of differentiated walled gardens varying in size and complexity.
Take Retail Media Networks (RMNs). Three years ago, we tracked around 80 retail media networks and platforms worldwide, now this has almost quadrupled according to Mimbi. Initially a niche ad play, they’ve now evolved into first-party data powerhouses that are reshaping how brands engage with consumers.
Video is also a key driver in the shift from open auctions to walled gardens. Consumers want to engage with video, and the best user experiences are usually found within proprietary platforms, whether it is on a large screen in the living room or a mobile in the palm of their hand.
For advertisers, these changes mean adopting a more curated approach. The days of broad-stroke campaign planning are giving way to careful analysis of supply chains and handpicked investments. But navigating walled gardens isn’t easy. Operational teams face growing challenges in measuring ROI across fragmented ecosystems, requiring a more nuanced approach to media quality, brand protection, and campaign optimisation.
The rise of customised suitability strategies
For the last decade, tools, and standards to address emerging brand safety challenges and crises were developed by industry and vendors.
Whilst these worked for a while, as the ecosystem continues to evolve these one size fits all strategies are no longer adequate. Standardised approaches to suitability hurts campaign reach, as well as limiting the ability to connect with diverse audiences - potentially impacting on reaching (Corporate Social Responsibility) CSR goals.
We expect to see more brands in 2025 shifting to more precise and customised strategies to drive business outcomes as it is now possible to tie in more nuanced datasets to achieve bespoke results and metrics, including attention and engagement.
As 2025 unfolds, navigating the complexities of media quality will demand a delicate balance of agility, precision, and innovation. The rapid acceleration of data, the rise of walled gardens, and the need for more sophisticated standards are reshaping how marketers are approaching campaign performance. Success will hinge on leveraging AI to tackle scale and speed, whilst adopting nuanced strategies to manage fragmented ecosystems, and a transition from generalised frameworks to tailored solutions.
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