It’s safe to say it’s been a rocky year. With the broadcast year kicked off, we are hitting crunch time as the holidays and End of Year creep up on us. We all know Q4 isn’t just about making it to year-end – but it’s also about getting in front of the latest trends, and setting yourself up for a more successful year to follow.
To help you get ahead, we have addressed some of the key industry trends and developments that can help you buy and sell convergent TV more dynamically, and stay on top of the evolving landscape.
Economic forces continue to drive pressure, as well as the redistribution of ad dollars
As if all of the change facing the ecosystem wasn’t enough, the macroeconomic future continues to be unpredictable – driving marketers’ fears of overcommitting to plans and spending. Per Magna, while US ad spending is expected to be up 5.2% in 2023, traditional ad spending is expected to be down 3.6%.
Clearly, ad budgets are slightly up, but the distribution of budgets is trending differently than before. The majority of these “up” budgets are going to more digitally innovative properties – as well as the ones that have adtech prowess, and can prove the return on marketing investments.
How to take action: Align people, processes, and tech around identity, in order to enable the ultimate fluidity of impressions for the ecosystem to activate, measure, and scale. This will be a more attractive option for brands as they unlock more budgets.
CTV growth is stabilizing while linear steadily declines
Recently, Insider Intelligence forecasted that 2023 would mark linear ad spend shrinking 8.0% YoY, while CTV ad spend would grow more than 20%.
This shift in spend means buyers and sellers need a holistic view of their investment and inventory in order to make the best decisions. Both buyers and sellers need to be able to manage the shift, and accurately view and value cross-screen impressions. Additionally, managing reach and frequency cross-screen can help manage both linear and streaming.
How to take action: As TV advertising spend continues to be in flux, both the buy and sell side can improve how media is bought and sold with interoperable identity – no matter how the media is consumed. Interoperable identity enables seamless activation and measurement, which increases the value of CTV placements.
Furthermore, high-quality deterministic identity enables you to track the right consumer across any touchpoint, in order to place, manage, and sell media on audiences – not platforms, airdates, or dayparts. When marketers can take advantage of cross-screen measurement, they can maximize their advertising efficiency and ROI, as well as better action on any insights using custom audiences. This will help to increase their profit margins, as well as create marketing optimizations.
Demand for alternative currencies, correct cross-screen counting, and attribution rages on
With 2024 Upfronts planning kicking off in January, we’re nearing the peak of alternative currency’s momentum. Cross-screen measurement is critical to currency, as it enables a holistic view of inventory and performance, enabling publishers to prioritize and price inventory in order to drive the best results for them. The future of cross-screen measurement lies in deterministic, foundational identity, which helps the ecosystem to create a unified view of the consumer – making for better outcomes. While data collaboration is not the only way to measure, it is the most sophisticated, and ensures accountable and advanced insights across inventory.
How to take action: As the ecosystem continues its quest towards an alternative currency marketplace, identity is still the critical foundation for cross-screen measurement. A strong, deterministic, people-based identity can:
- Drive better personalized experiences across all of convergent TV. Deterministic identity can power engagement at not just a household level, but also a person level, helping to power optimal reach and frequency within audiences.
- Help measure effectiveness more accurately. Deterministic, people-based identity enables an omnichannel view of consumers, enabling marketers to connect ad exposures to business outcomes, as well as conversions.
Having a strong foundation of deterministic, interoperable identity unlocks better counting, greater precision, more effective testing, and more efficient optimizations, all of which are core to the alternative currency movement.
Data is still the most valuable asset
This trend should come as no surprise. Amidst everything, and no matter what 2024 may hold, better investments and better strategy start with better insights across the ecosystem – and data unlocks these insights. As companies get a better handle on their data, they can also look to minimize data movement, which saves money, reduces wasted time, enables increased privacy, reduces third-party dependencies, and maximizes insights, all while enabling more use cases.
Fraud threatens ad revenue
As stated by DoubleVerify, fraud seems to follow ad spend, and CTV is no different: in 2022, ad fraud surged on CTV by 69% over the previous year, and with CTV set for another banner year, even more fraud can be expected to follow.
How to take action: Just as leveraging data and identity helps with addressability, it can also help with fraud. When marketers can leverage people-based marketing, they can benefit from an omnichannel view of every touchpoint with a consumer, all the way through to conversions and real business outcomes.
Continue making your data as valuable as possible by reading LiveRamp’s ebook, “Maximizing Convergent TV in 2023.”
