With online ad spend expected to overtake print by 2016, investment is growing at a rapid pace. Until now brands have stuck to a blanket approach with adverts on every site, but are they really getting the most out of their ad spend? As we move into 2014, we are going to see the savvy marketers and advertisers begin using new technologies to exercise an increasingly targeted approach in order to deliver the right campaigns to the right customers at the right time. In 2014, technology will drive further innovation in digital advertising, but what trends will lead this digital revolution?
Display will drive online advertising growth
Online advertising has often been associated with performance marketing, especially in Europe. This has led to a focus on the bottom of the funnel or “conversion” rather than the full picture. Advertisers’ have been ploughing money into Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) budgets, putting display in the back seat. But now things have changed, display has constantly been reinventing itself and marketers are starting to see the limits of concentrating their budgets on bottom of the funnel channels. With the rise of programmatic buying (or Real Time Bidding) and Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), display will take the lead in online ad growth next year, providing more transparency, accountability and performance measurement.
Real Time Bidding will be a game change in the key European markets
Perception is everything in online advertising and the notion that innovation starts in the US is deeply rooted. However it is only partially true. Site Retargeting as a major driver of conversions actually started in Europe, and so have PMPs and private exchanges. In 2014, the growth rate of RTB will be faster in the key European markets (UK, France, Germany) than in the US. Europe will, in fact, catch up with the US much faster than has been predicted. There are a number of reasons for this, media-buying is more concentrated in Europe, campaigns are on average more performance-led and agency trading desks are more engrained in the culture. This will combine to unleash rapid RTB growth which will profoundly transform the display industry and the entire online advertising market.
Data is the new king
Big data has become a very generalised concept and is mostly referred to in terms of volume rather than quality. It’s generally assumed that having a large amount of data means you’ll eventually get it right. What the industry actually needs to do is look at the quality of their data, its relevance, how recent it is and whether it’s first or third party. Thanks to machine-learning, DSPs and increases in computing, storage and server capabilities, the online advertising industry is moving towards audience-targeting with segments of one. It’s data, not content, which is king and it will give the edge to advertisers, agencies, publishers and programmatic display buyers.
Search retargeting will become one of the fastest growing segments of display
Search Retargeting is a direct product of the increasing focus of the industry towards specific data sets, and a sign of sophistication of the industry. Some data is more useful than others and should be treated as such. Search Retargeting looks at search data as an indication of behaviour and delivers relevant display banner advertising based on intent and propensity of purchase. It’s driving some of the most important changes in advertising: making advertising more relevant to the user, enhancing performance and ROI for the advertiser. Its technology makes intelligent decisions based on user intent that only search can show and because of this, next year we will see Search Retargeting conquer the European market.
By Dominic Joseph, Co-founder of Captify.
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