Advertisers and publishers have faced their fair share of economic and regulatory headwinds in recent years, but that doesn’t mean they’ve taken a step backward. The publishing and advertising worlds don’t evolve based on limitations. They evolve—always—based on the desire to do better.
Regardless of new challenges—and in some instances, because of them—the industry has an opportunity to forge a more sustainable path for itself. To do so, it must pursue opportunities where the benefits to advertisers, publishers and consumers are all aligned, rather than achieved at the expense of one another.
Here are the key areas the industry can, and should, be pushing forward in 2024 and beyond.
Reduce friction for consumers
The industry has been talking about the importance of customer centricity for decades now. Unfortunately, friction in the consumer experience continues to manifest itself in many ways, but for the most part, it’s represented by unnecessary delays and steps when it comes to a user trying to execute a desired task—be it viewing content or making a purchase.
Such complexity in user experience is often a reflection of the complexity of the digital landscape itself and the many players that have a vested interest in a user’s actions (e.g., publishers, agencies, advertisers, ad-tech providers and everything in between).
Reducing friction in user experiences benefits all parties. Take, for example, the simple act of downloading an app. Consumers want this process to happen simply and seamlessly. After all, when they decide to download an app, it’s usually because they have a certain task in mind.
When the industry reduces steps and points of friction in this process, consumers get to those tasks faster. For brands looking to drive those downloads, that leads to a boost across all measures of success—more downloads, more opens, and more app usage. For publishers, it boosts the efficacy of their ad offerings, improving their monetization rates and overall success.
Friction-free experiences provide a lift to everyone in the value chain, and it’s an area where our industry needs to continue to invest. The virtuous cycle created by a good user experience is simply too powerful to ignore.
Do more with the best data
The advertising industry has historically focused on amassing and connecting the dots among as many data sets as possible, in hopes of finding scale and meaningful insights into the audiences that matter most to advertisers. However, there’s more to be gained by placing a deeper emphasis on quality and looking to do more with different types of data.
Deterministic data with large seed sets represent the best starting place in today’s data-driven advertising landscape, but what matters most is how that data is then put to use. High-quality deterministic data seed sets should be extrapolated to help publishers and advertisers predict the needs and preferences of consumers so that offers are extended only to users with the highest likelihood of finding value in them.
Let’s take app downloads as an example again. By starting with carrier-level deterministic data sets, marketers not only understand which users are most likely to download an app, but also which users are most likely to engage with that app (and least likely to uninstall it). By leveraging data in this way, all parties see a benefit: Consumers get more relevant and useful app suggestions, advertisers see less waste within their ad spend and publishers achieve better returns on their inventory.
Lean into stronger metrics
There are infinite measurements and metrics marketers can look at in digital marketing, but many of them simply aren’t as meaningful, complete or indicative of the true outcomes as they would like. That’s an opportunity for improvement—and an area where there’s tremendous new value to be unlocked for all.
For example, the mobile industry has long built its measurement and monetization models around app downloads. But as countless studies have shown, most people who install an app tend to uninstall that same app within a week—hardly the high-value acquisition that advertisers are seeking. What’s more meaningful as a measurement is actual, continued engagement with an app.
By prioritizing more valuable metrics like this, publishers and advertisers can gain better insight into a brand’s optimal audiences and refine their strategies for reaching and personalizing messaging to these groups from the outset.
Again, it’s a virtuous cycle that’s created. Advertisers can better understand and engage their highest-value audiences, thereby leading to less wasted ad spend. Publishers can yield better results for their advertisers and improve their monetization measures. And consumers can receive far more valuable and less intrusive ads that are built on a real understanding of their wants and needs.
As advertisers, publishers and the rest of the digital advertising ecosystem chart their courses forward, it shouldn’t be on diverging paths. The industry has an opportunity to build a better future for itself, where everyone’s interests are more aligned. Let’s all do better—together—in 2024 and beyond by working together as an industry.
—
As head of ecosystem and strategy at T-Mobile Advertising Solutions, Erica Chriss is in charge of all media supply partnerships, data partnerships, T-Mobile owned and operated media, and new business development opportunities. She is constantly spearheading new solutions and partnerships that unify ethically sourced data with meaningful media experiences.
