Skip to main content

Ad infinitum: companies to unleash a deluge of digital marketing – Financial Times

Is there anywhere you won’t soon be assaulted by digital advertising?

Uber this week revealed that it is about to serve up “journey ads” when you hail a ride — commercial messages linked to your destination that appear on your phone, and maybe in future on a screen in the back of the car. About to take an international flight? A duty-free store can sponsor your entire trip to the airport.

Meanwhile, Netflix has just set early November for the launch of its new advertising tier, a reduced-price streaming service in 12 countries for people willing to sit through an average of five adverts an hour. True, this is an optional new service, so no one will be forced to watch advertising — but as the economic downturn bites, it might be the only realistic way for many people to keep streaming.

Uber and Netflix are far from the only ones to latch on to advertising as a new source of revenue. Delivery apps, ecommerce marketplaces, mass market retailers, gaming services: it seems nowhere these days is commercial-free.

There are obvious reasons for this stampede into the digital ads business. When audience attention shifts wholesale to new services and channels, advertising dollars inevitably follow. The rise of streaming represents a serious threat to the linear TV model that still accounts for almost all of the $170bn in global TV advertising each year.

High-margin advertising dollars, euros and pounds are also gravy for companies in industries where profit margins are thin or non-existent. For a lossmaking delivery app like DoorDash, which handled $13bn worth of orders in the latest quarter, channelling so much buying power creates an obvious opportunity. Apps like this are in a perfect position to step in front of retailers and restaurants to suggest things their users might want to buy.

Retail media networks are also starting to take off, as merchants like Walmart and Target collect valuable data about shoppers’ habits that advertisers can use to hone their campaigns, either on the retailers’ own sites or on other networks. Walmart disclosed the size of its advertising business for the first time earlier this year, with 2021 revenue of $2.1bn. 

But if there are good reasons for these and other companies to turn to advertising, there is one overriding factor that is driving the shift: the unmet demands of advertisers. Some of the targeting methods that have shaped the digital advertising industry for its entire history are breaking down.

Apple’s decision to let its users choose if they want to be tracked has been a seismic event, robbing advertisers of valuable data. The second shoe to drop will be Google’s long-delayed plan to end support for cookies in its Chrome browser, pulling away the main support for behavioural targeting.

This is starting to shake the duopoly that has dominated the digital advertising world for the past 15 years. Google and Meta generated a combined $325bn of advertising revenue last year, a huge slice of a total market that Zenith media put at $405bn.

The search for new forms of targeting means any business with a significant reserve of first party data — information about its own customers that can be freely used for honing advertising — could be well-placed. As advertising analyst Eric Seufert puts it: these days, everything’s an ad network.

Netflix, for one, has relatively little insight into its users, and will only require people signing up or its ad-supported tier to provide some basic personal information. But there will still be ways to enhance this, according to Chad Engelgau, CEO of data broking company Acxiom: Advertisers will be able to bring their own data to bear as well, refining their understanding of viewers.

In this new world, the companies with the best data and the biggest audiences and user bases should win. Apple, which is taking advantage of the shifting demand for mobile advertising created by its privacy changes to expand its own advertising business, has more than 1bn iPhone users. Amazon’s insight into the buying histories and intentions of its users has already enabled it to build an advertising business that pulled in $31.2bn last year.

These giants will be in the strongest position to take on Google and Facebook. But there are many behind them for whom advertising is about to become a serious revenue stream. Whatever the next 15 years in the advertising business looks like, it won’t be like the last 15.

richard.waters@ft.com



from Digital Marketing – My Blog https://ift.tt/HtzWc1K
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

These money and investing tips can give you a smooth ride in a rough market – MarketWatch

Don’t miss these top money and investing features: Sign up here  to get MarketWatch’s best mutual funds and ETF stories emailed to you weekly! INVESTING NEWS & TRENDS How to approach rebalancing your portfolio for 2023 It’s not a good idea to rebalance your portfolio at preset intervals Read More Bonds aren’t more attractive than stocks even as yields register a 15-year high The S&P 500’s return is similar when the 10-year Treasury yield is high or low. Read More Here’s who’s been trading crypto, and how they’re doing A new study finds that most people who entered the cryptocurrency market have lost money — and that those people are young men. Read More BlackRock sees these thematic ETFs potentially outperforming in 2023 In this week’s ETF Wrap, MarketWatch spoke with BlackRock’s Jay Jacobs on investing themes he likes for 2023 as investors worry about a slowing economy and monetary tightening. Read More Three seasonal effects in the stock market begin around T...
Post a Comment
Read more

Four months until SACSCOC visits Auburn: Four things you might not know about SACSCOC – Office of Communications and Marketing

Notice body There’s less than four months remaining until Auburn University’s accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, or SACSCOC, arrives for its on-site visit. As the Accreditation team prepares for the on-site phase of the reaffirmation process, we want to share four things you might not know about SACSCOC: 1. SACSCOC is self-governed by the accredited institutions SACSCOC’s Principles of Accreditation requires a model of shared governance of its member institutions and holds itself to the same standards. The Commission on Colleges is operated by the SACSCOC Board of Trustees. The 77 Board members are elected by the College Delegate Assembly, or CDA, which is comprised of one voting representative from each of the 780 SACSCOC-accredited institutions. Each representative is the president or other chief executive of their respective college or university. In other words, the election of SACSSCOC’s leadership is in the hands of its ...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 YouTube features to use to boost engagement – Sprout Social

When you want to explore a new hobby or learn something new, where do you go? The answer is probably “YouTube.” The second-most popular social platform has come a long way since the “Charlie bit my finger” days. And new YouTube features are making it even more beneficial to marketers and creators—YouTube Shorts topped 1.5 billion monthly users in just two years. With 51% of consumers anticipating YouTube will be one of the social media platforms they use most this year, it’s a digital space your audience most likely uses. But with 500+ hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, high popularity also means high competition. Whether you’re new to YouTube or conducting a YouTube audit , using some of these features can help you stay ahead, grow your audience and give your channels a boost. 5 free YouTube features you need to use more often To help your audience find your videos in YouTube and Google search alike, you need to use the right tools. From underused YouTube sear...
Post a Comment
Read more