The development of programmatic advertising in recent years has been enormous. In 2023, according to data from IAB Spain, automated purchasing models reached 72.3% of total investments in digital media and are expected to reach 80% in 2024, thus achieving the final consolidation of this industry within the digital advertising ecosystem.
Jochen SchlosserCTO of Adform, wanted to highlight the big issues facing the programmatic industry in this new year. The disappearance of cookies, sustainability, oligopolies in the industry, retail media and omnichannel will be the most important trends that we cannot lose sight of this year. “The reality is that we won’t see any big new trends as the market is pretty solid and stable, but the key will be what to focus on and what not to focus on in 2024.” It says Locksmith.
1. Disappearance of cookies and the privacy sandbox
2024 appears to be the last year that third-party cookies disappear. Anyone who hasn’t already taken action on this needs to step up and make sure they move to first-party data this year. As soon as they are done, They may consider using Google’s Privacy Sandbox.
The focus on high-quality first-party data will continue to increase, but the key will lie with you Google’s Privacy Sandbox becomes a robust alternative that offers privacy protection to users and solutions to advertisers. It is still too early to say whether the sandbox will be the new standard or, on the contrary, whether it will disappear in a few years. Therefore, you must be prepared for any scenario and have at least two solutions for third-party cookies disappearing.
2. Sustainability needs a new approach
Sustainability was one of the big topics of the past year and seems to have become one of the cornerstones of company strategies. But after the initial excitement, the costs associated with developing a plan to protect the environment, both in digital advertising and in any other business area, are causing this effort to gradually diminish.
A sustainable approach requires additional costs, for example in identifying suppliers that align with these values or additional costs for processing units. Aside from that, In addition to the necessary software and hardware, human resources must also be made available for these measures.. So as long as it doesn’t cost anything, everyone is committed to sustainability, but when it is necessary to invest in it, the proportion of companies developing such initiatives drops significantly. Only those who have an innovative philosophy and are willing to risk the associated costs will ultimately fully embrace this trend.
3. The industry oligopoly
Given the prospect of a truly open ecosystem, it will be interesting to see how big the oligopoly we have will be in the future. Similar to large media companies, we can observe that in some industries a single player concentrates up to 50% of the market. If 80% of the budget is allocated to social networks and search engines and the rest to large corporations, how much is left for small publishers? How can you monetize a website without resorting to one of the big players?
If every ad purchase requires five clicks, advertisers won’t be willing to buy from five walled gardens, three major publishing groups, and 25 retail media sites because it’s too much work. It certainly won’t be a problem for the Big Five, but it will be for the next 25. Soon we will see advertisers increasingly moving away from small and medium-sized publishers and sticking with the large ones that also deliver results. The problem is that this also poses a major threat to the free press.
4. Retail Media
Given the threats posed by the digital advertising oligopoly, retail media, like traditional media, must be seen as a good opportunity for advertisers to showcase their products and services.
In 2024 From an advertising perspective, retail media must be consolidated as another carrier, but with a special interest.
5. Fragmentation and omnichannel
The tendency to do so Omnichannel shows that there is less and less commitment to specialized players. These may offer advanced functionality, but in the long run no one wants to have one DSP just for DOOH, another just for CTV and another for mobile, or different DSPs for native advertising, display or video. 2024 should be the time of consolidation and evolution towards omnichannel trading platforms.
Omnichannel should be a synonym for “everywhere”, i.e. all spaces in which an advertiser, regardless of medium, has the opportunity to show an ad to the appropriate target group and in a context relevant to their brand. And although omnichannel also presents many challenges in terms of measurement and monitoring due to the different technologies and rules, we will see the necessary unification in the coming years.