By Robert Webster. VP Strategy at CvE
What are the key factors marketers must consider in 2023 to achieve sustainable growth and build competitive marketing strategies?
Last year my marketing predictions had largely all come true by the end of Q1. This year my 2023 predictions will be a little more difficult though. I think that the economic downturn will a) slow some of the new news coming in privacy and legislation whilst simultaneously turbocharging much needed and overdue change in response to what has gone before. Tough economic times act as a time of renewal where only those that can adapt survive.
This is the first article released on a series of three pieces written by CvE’s marketing growth consultants. Don’t miss reading Effectiveness Measurement, Data Strategy and Adtech Trends 2023 and Retail Media Networks trends for 2023.
Privacy and Identity – A time to take stock
This space has been going at a huge pace for the last couple of years. However, I now think we will have a quieter time of new big changes be legislators or the tech giants giving the industry time to catch up with what has come before. In Europe, the case against the TCF has been kicked to the European court and unlikely to be done before mid-2024. Google has also stated no big changes before 2024. As the economy hits the buffers, we can expect regulators and giants alike to leave this alone for a period before the privacy revolution is completed in 2024 and 2025.
The year of Apple
As new privacy changes take a back seat Advertisers will realise that the changes Apple made with IOS 14 and ITP (internet tracking prevention) have massively impacted their data reach and ability to measure on Apple devices – the audience with the most disposable income in our society. Steps to overcome this gap and probably new advertising products (an Apple DSP is being developed) will I believe be the major story of 2023. You simply cannot ignore the marketing of the richest half of users in the market as is happening now (though not being discussed). It’s time for those who have solutions to get their time in the sun and those that don’t to disappear.
Resetting Marketing Data and Technology
Many advertisers have not yet rebuilt their marketing data and technology setups for the new privacy first world. This technical debt needs to be repaid in order to deliver marketing efficiency and automation. This is vital for advertisers’ ability to compete in the new world. CDPs (Customer Data Platforms) and, to my next prediction, clean rooms will grow but also consolidate. All advertisers will need to have a developed strategy on how they are going to behave in the new data economy and the infrastructure they need to power it.
Data Clean Rooms come of age
This has been a much talked about sector but the amount of actual marketing done has always lagged the rhetoric. Expect to see data clean rooms come of age in 2023 (Google PAIR will be a big driver) and some answers as to who the winners are in this space. The combination of Snowflake and HABU looks powerful so the likes of InfoSum and even LiveRamp will need to up their game in terms of partnerships to get ahead. I expect some M&A news in this space in 2023 or early 2024 – consolidating what has been a disparate market.
New Advertising Ecosystems
Retail media networks have been one of the trends of 2022 and this will grow into 2023. Yet the impact goes far beyond retail as many brands realise that in a data-first world being able to maximise the value of that data is vital and that their new customers are other brands’ current customers. So, expect to see data-rich advertisers in all sectors start to act like publishers and turn the investment they have put into data infrastructure into revenue and company growth. Such an asset particularly in tough economic times.
Long Tail DR Display loses its Mojo
Display always attracts more column inches than it deserves given it’s only a small part of the total amount of money spent on advertising. The reality is it’s not a channel that most advertisers really care about. Running ads on small low-quality sites that can only be measured by dubious post-view metrics is what powered much of the programmatic push and gave us high valuations for a variety of companies – many of which as it turned out were a flash in the pan. Those days are gone as advertisers really don’t care much about this space and now Google Performance max can at little effort hoover up what value there is. Indeed, the giants of GAFA, already hurt by their first slowdown in revenues will be going after these budgets aggressively and those in the long tail space can look forward to a four-pronged attack from Google (Performance Max), Amazon Advertising, Meta and most interestingly as discussed above Apple (though that will likely be more premium). So, this sector can be quite rightly consigned to the margins and we can focus on much more important areas.
Quality Publishers Push Back
Because display always should have been about quality publishers and great environments. These publishers are realising that to survive they need to take control of their own destiny and not allow their fate to be in the hands of GAFA. The privacy revolution has meant they need to take control of their data and stop the programmatic leaking and now a new premium display world built on quality and partnerships can finally emerge in 2023. More aligned to CTV (Which is also a large publisher world) using programmatic technologies as infrastructure but private privacy first setups to activate (clean rooms, CDPs, direct-to-header buying). A very short supply path, publisher data control, partnerships and transparency will be the hallmarks of this world.
Keeping up with trends consistently is not easy. It requires research, networking, getting involved in your industry, observing competitors, and having the right partners by your side. To succeed in a business landscape that is changing at an ever-greater pace, marketing as a discipline has become much more business-critical and complex. At CvE we believe that marketing should sit at the top of the board agenda as a company’s primary route to growth, and we enable companies to achieve that.
With that, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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