While there are plenty of benefits to digital meetups, there is no denying that live events provide unmatched networking opportunities. This year, thanks to loosening restrictions, many key organizers are gearing up to bring back the digital marketing events as we know them from before. 

Media buyers, entrepreneurs, business owners, and agencies are all looking for insights, experience, and most importantly, networking opportunities. To ensure no deadline is missed, it’s best to make a list of potentially valuable events ahead of time. 

To make it easier, we’ve listed summits, conferences, and expos that are not only relevant to the programmatic industry but also worthwhile to attend for anyone interested in growing a brand in a digital space.

NRF 2022 Retail’s Big Show

The NRF 2022 Retail’s Big Show conference brings together representatives from retail companies all over the world. This event is not limited to digital marketing. The sessions cover a wide range of topics, from entrepreneur and investment advice to innovation and opportunities. The NRF Big Show is an experience tailored to retail visionaries.

Since 2018, the event organizers have put greater focus on showcasing new technologies from both online and offline retail spaces. Consequently, a part of the event is dedicated to budding solutions that aim to revolutionize the retail space. 

RampUp 2022

RampUp is a conference where marketing technology enthusiasts meet to discuss the future of the industry. The 1.5-day event encompasses sessions on dealing with the most pressing digital marketing issues as well as strategies on improving data handling, partnerships, and performance optimization strategies.

This year, RampUp will be happening in hybrid mode. What’s more, all participants will be given the possibility to access the sessions online, regardless of whether they participated live or online.

Mobile World Capital (MWC)

Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an annual event dedicated to the mobile communications industry. The participants usually include such technological giants as Facebook, Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, LG, or Vodafone. The theme for 2022 is Discover Connectivity Unleashed and the event is directed at business and marketing professionals from the mobile advertising sector.

While two previous editions encountered hiccups and presenter withdrawals caused by the pandemic, this year, the event is anticipated to meet the standard of the pre-pandemic editions, while offering the added benefits of the hybrid model.

The date of the MWC Los Angeles Edition is yet to be announced, while the MWC 2022 Shanghai Edition will be happening June 29th – July 1st. 

Affiliate World Global

Affiliate World Global is the official offline meeting place for affiliate marketers from all over the world. The conference intends to focus on all things affiliate marketing, with special emphasis on Facebook ad tracking, lead generation, eCommerce, and additional sessions on pressing topics such as email marketing, native advertising, or chatbots.

This edition of the Affiliate World conference will actually combine two previously canceled events – Affiliate World Europe 2021 and Affiliate World Asia 2021. All attendees receive a special pass to replay sessions online for 3 months after the event.

Affiliate Grand Slam 

Affiliate Grand Slam is yet another digital marketing event that brings together the industry leaders, innovators, affiliates, companies, and businesses operating within the sphere of online marketing. While the in-person gathering is about scouting for business opportunities in the world of affiliate marketing, search and programmatic enthusiasts can still benefit from the shared knowledge.

With two editions – one in Dubai and the other one in Europe, the event tackles such topics as digital ad tech and upcoming technological revolutions, marketing automation, market trends, e-commerce, social media marketing, content creation, and many more. 

The 2022 editions are set to begin as planned.

LeadsCon

LeadsCon is a meetup point for lead generation and performance marketing enthusiasts from all over the world. This digital marketing event offers its participants the opportunity to discover new business partnerships, gain strategic insights on performance marketing and lead generation as well as introduce practical solutions for dealing with the ever-changing market.

While most attendees of LeadsCon are lead buyers and agencies, this is an important event for agencies and marketing professionals from all corners of the online marketing industry.

Affiliate Summit

Affiliate Summit is yet another conference with multiple locations. The conference revolves all around scaling online businesses in the fast-growing retail environment. The event is aimed at affiliates and media buyers working with the ecommerce industry but it’s also the perfect place to search for innovative ideas to grow your business. 

The affiliate summit is split into 4 in-person events although not all of them are planned to take place this year. 

Search and Performance Insider Summit 

Search and Performance Insider Summit is the first conference on the list that focuses strictly on programmatic marketing. This is a must-attend digital marketing event for performance marketers, agencies, and business leaders in search of technology companies providing the latest trends in programmatic advertising solutions. 

Previous editions of SPIS provided new insights into programmatic strategies after COVID-19. They also touched upon the ongoing changes in terms of growing privacy concerns. We can only expect the new edition to offer more valuable insights on the critical updates in the sphere of online privacy.

Digital Marketing Expo & Conference (DMEXCO)

The Digital Marketing Expo & Conference is an annual event gathering the best of the best from the digital marketing industry. This is the largest conference tackling the subject of digital advertising and the program is so varied as to appeal to any kind of audience. DMEXCO offers seminars, debates, expositions, and masterclasses. It also covers a wide array of marketing channels, including programmatic. 

Last year’s event didn’t shy away from topics like privacy changes, brand safety, and upcoming cookieless revolutions. It’s safe to say we can expect a lot more of that this year.

Traffic & Conversion Summit

Traffic & Conversion Summit lasts 3 days and is packed with sessions straight from industry leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators. The agenda includes the staple of digital marketing, that is, future predictions, social and influencer marketing, content, email, automation, e-commerce strategies, and a corner for media buyers.

Whether you choose the in-person event providing an unmatched networking experience or the virtual digital marketing event that can be comfortably experienced from anywhere in the world, there is bound to be something valuable for all niches of the advertising community.

Digiday Publishing Summit

While the Digiday Publishing Summit is on the expensive side, the networking functions of the event are unlike any other. On top of three days of discussions and insights, attendees are granted two or four eight-minute sessions with publishing executives of their choice. The one-on-one meetings are what makes this digital marketing event special. 

The publishing summit will be happening in person. The differently priced passes vary only in the number of one-on-one sessions available and the benefit of early access booking. 

Note: September edition as well and the Europe edition are yet to be announced.

Brandweek

Brandweek is a conference from the leading source of digital marketing information – Adweek. The event, just like the rest of the platform, touches on topics from the advertising industry, such as innovative technology, content strategy, privacy issues, brand building, and anything in between. 

While the organizational details for 2022 are still tentative, previous editions included attendees from just about every sphere of life e.g. sports, social media, food, fashion, technology, transport, and many more.

Digiday Media Buying Summit

Digiday Media Buying Summit is another digital marketing event hosted by the Digiday crew. This time, focused on media buying, the summit will deal with challenges and opportunities the mid-pandemic world will bring to agencies as well as business and marketing professionals. 

Similar to the Digiday Publishing Summit, the event offers the unique benefit of accessing special one-on-one sessions with executives of one’s choice and the number of such sessions depends on the level of pass purchased.

What? Digiday Media Buying Summit

When? March 7th – 9th

Where? New Orleans 

Moscow Affiliate Conference (MAC)

While there is still little information on the 2022 MAC edition, last year’s event had around 3000 attendees and 2 full days packed with top agencies and media buying professionals. While the majority of attendees fall under the category of webmasters and marketers, programmatic newbies and gurus alike can benefit from the event.

The 2020 digital marketing event had to be postponed due to the Covid outbreak, however, the 2021 edition took place as planned and there are no issues anticipated for 2022 either.

Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit is yet another version of the previously mentioned events by Digiday. This time, the focus lies solely on programmatic strategies. While third-party cookies are dying, programmatic marketing is changing rapidly. 

The leading experts of the industry will attempt to answer the most burning questions regarding the new programmatic landscape.

Web Summit

Web Summit has been called the world’s premier tech conference. In 2021, it brought together over 40k people including many senior leaders and technology pioneers of the vast webspace. The event is not limited to digital advertising but focuses on the whole online entertainment industry, including eCommerce. 

Last year’s topics included such niches as advertising, crypto, gaming, investment, leadership, sport, social media, and many many more. In short, there is no company that wouldn’t fit the criteria to benefit from this conference. 

eCom World

Ecom World is the largest e-commerce conference that comes exclusively in an online form. It deals with the topic of leading and growing an e-commerce business from the ground up. Consequently, the topics cover every aspect of such an operation, including customer service, store design, brand building, and advertising (including search advertising).

It’s possible to attend as a solution provider or a freelancer, brand, or e-commerce store. The difference between the kind of ticket is the option to get featured on the marketplace, plus prolonged access to conference benefits.

Hero Conf 

Hero Conf is a meeting place for brands, agencies, and SaaS companies from all over the world. The event is aimed not only at professional-level enterprises but also at freelancers and affiliate marketers that are only getting into the business. PPC advertising is the theme of this conference.

Hero Conf comes in two editions. The schedule for the Austin event is already out and it includes such topics as Programmatic Advertising for PPC Experts. So, while this isn’t strictly a programmatic event, it will be useful for business and marketing professionals who want to expand their knowledge.

Search Love Conference

The Searchlove Conference is a two-day event offering all kinds of skill-building workshops. Despite the name, the conference covers a much broader range of subjects than search. From SEO, analytics, and customer experience to email marketing, search and Google algorithm updates, Searchlove provides value to anyone from the digital marketing sphere.

Searchlove comes in three in-person editions. What’s more, all attendees can access the slides after the conference or opt to purchase a special video ticket that grants access to conference recordings.

DigiMarCon

DigiMarCon is the largest digital marketing conference series in the world. The lineup of events includes 40 separate events in 18 different countries. When it comes to topics, there is no specific focus point. Everything connected to media, advertising, and marketing gets its fair share of attention. 

While not all events will have their online counterparts, DigiMarCon enthusiasts who can’t or won’t be able to attend the events can still benefit from a special online edition. 

We won’t be sharing the full lineup here due to a large number of events, but the full list of conferences with dates and locations can be accessed here.

MozCon

MozCon is a conference for SEO professionals that also touches upon other topics from the online marketing sphere. Agencies and executives looking to expand the outreach of their businesses are bound to benefit from this event. However, if your interest is purely in programmatic advertising, this event might be the most optional position on our list.

The agenda for 2022 is set to be announced in spring this year. Moz customers, however, are already able to purchase the early bird tickets.

Programmatic Summit Melbourne/Sydney

Marketing professionals from down under can’t miss the Programmatic Summit created in partnership with IAB Australia. The event is aimed at digital marketing professionals from both supply and demand sides of the programmatic industry. 

There are two editions of the Programmatic Summit and while this is a large regional event, presenters are not limited to locals and the agenda tackles global marketing issues.

Munich International Search Summit

The Munich International Search Summit focuses on global problems and challenges of working with search traffic. While Search engine marketing is the primary focus of this conference, search engine optimization is an area that won’t be omitted. 

The 2022 agenda is not yet fully developed, however, sessions that are already planned include the latest trends in Google Ads, SEO content clustering, and practical solutions for search marketers.

What’s more, three additional editions are in the works. Search Summit London, Global, and Barcelona are all set to return in 2022, however, details are yet to be announced.

UnGagged London

The UnGagged London conference is advertised as an edgy, liberating event without the sales pitches and trivial bits. It’s aimed at intermediate to professional digital marketers and offers a broad program including programmatic marketing. 

While in the previous years, Ungagged appeared in the US as well, in 2022 only the UK version has been announced so far. What’s more, there is no online coverage. The event organizers take pride in providing the attendees with practical solutions that have not yet been made common knowledge.

Programmatic I/O

Programmatic I/O is a strictly programmatic conference for both the sell-side and buy-side of the digital marketing industry. The event allows attendees to meet leading experts and decision-makers in the sphere of programmatic advertising. The two-day event is aimed at anyone operating in the new cookieless world. 

While the 2022 agenda is yet to be announced, last year’s schedule covered all the key areas of programmatic growth (e.g. privacy changes, first-party data takeover, or new forms of performance measurement).

Programmatic Pioneers Summit 

The Programmatic Pioneers Summit unites programmatic and marketing leaders from all over Europe. The event includes brands, agencies, technology providers, platform providers, and anyone else operating in the programmatic space. 

With the key topics revolving around the cookieless future of digital marketing, this advertising conference provides all the strategic insights for brands planning to grow their business in 2022.

Inbound

The Inbound conference is not limited to programmatic media but encompasses the whole sphere of digital marketing. Apart from the latest trends and innovations, Inbound provides the fundamentals needed to immerse yourself in the world of online, e.g. meetups allowing you to connect with peers and exchange ideas.

Hosted by Hubspot, Inbound is gearing up to organize its biggest online event in 2022. All details are yet to be announced, however, Inbound has a proven track record of delivering one of the best virtual events amongst digital marketing conferences.

Conclusions

There is no shortage of networking events available in 2022. In fact, many suspended events or online events are back to their regular in-person form. Marketers and agencies looking to discover new solutions are presented with a varied line-up with a focus on any sphere of affiliate marketing. 

2022 will be a year of making connections and discovering new solutions. 

See what NewProgrammatic has to offer.

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The post Programmatic Advertising Conferences – Most valuable events to attend in 2022 appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Regardless of the size and characteristics of the agency, we’ve distinguished five categories of top advertising agency tools to help with optimizing the performance of the business from the inside as well as the outside.

Performance Marketing Agency Tools for Advertising

Marketing agencies who have a lot of aces up their sleeve are more likely to surprise clients with creative ways of finding new audiences and converting them into paying customers. While most consumers hate advertising, without it brands don’t stand a chance of survival. That’s why advertising agency software for smoother and more efficient audience outreach is the first position on this list.

NewProgrammatic

NewProgrammatic is a performance marketing platform that allows for acquiring customers before they complete entering their search query. NewProgrammatic ad formats rely on contextual targeting without involving cookies or other personal identifiers. In addition to meeting the highest standard of brand safety, they seamlessly connect potential customers with a brand in the right place at the right time –  in the search bar.

NewProgrammatic can be a great addition to other forms of advertising but as an underutilized search ad format, it can carry a successful campaign as a standalone advertising strategy. 

As a provider of advertising solutions, NewProgrammatic gives your agency access to hundreds of thousand users daily at an ad display price starting from $0.01. You can learn more about NewProgrammatic by booking a call with an expert or reading one of the case studies. 

Socital 

Socital provides a set of tools for data collection, email database segmentation, conversion optimization, targeting, and personalization. It’s an ad agency software aimed at e-commerce businesses. Socital helps in managing user journeys from start to finish by collecting data in a GDPR-friendly manner and providing personalized pop-up messages which, in turn, can help reduce cart abandonment.

Socital offers different types of campaigns, depending on the needs of the brand. Naturally, pop-ups and contact forms are fully editable with a variety of ready-made templates to streamline the process of creating campaigns. For the more demanding ad agencies, Socital integrated with the majority of popular email marketing platforms.

The pricing of Socital depends on the website’s pageviews and it ranges from a free version to an Enterprise plan for $157 per month (billed annually).

Drip

Drip is an ad agency software for managing and segmenting mailing lists. The functionality of Drip focuses mainly on running email and SMS marketing campaigns based on precise audience segmentation and 1st party data. The complementary form templates and automation workflows are what makes Drip one of the best advertising agency tools for growing e-commerce businesses.

To make project management easier, Drip integrates with a wide range of e-commerce tools including such popular solutions as Shopify and WooCommerce, and reaching far more specific tools such as Podia (for creating online courses) or Wishlist Member (for gating websites behind membership tiers).

Drip membership depends on the number of customers on your mailing list. Small mailing lists of up to 500 members have pricing of $19 while lists with over 130,000 contacts will require a plan for $1.499 per month or higher. There are additional costs depending on how many SMS messages are planned to be sent out each month.

SendPulse

SendPulse is a tool for creating chatbots for Facebook, Instagram, Viber, Telegram, and WhatsApp as well as for sending emails, SMS, and push notifications. The cloud-based ad agency software operates in more than 200 countries and allows for full automation of a message-dispatch schedule. What’s more, the suite of marketing tools has a drag and drop editor as well as a system for nurturing leads that can be automatically triggered by events.

Chatbots, however, might be SendPulse’s most important feature. The interactive flows are not only a form of providing efficient customer support. They can also serve as a means of streamlining the shopping experience or engaging with customers mentioning the brand on social media.

SendPulse has varied pricing strategies depending on what features are needed. There is a free plan providing up to 3 chatbots with limited variables. The plans are made to grow alongside the business and a plan with a subscriber count of 50,000 costs €143.20 per month (billed annually).

Pitchbox

Pitchbox is an advertising agency software that helps with connecting with influencers and promoting content across various channels. It’s aimed at agencies with extensive outreach programs – not only does it automate the outreach process, but it also has a reliable keyword search feature that makes finding bloggers, publishers, and influencers easier than ever.

What’s more, Pitchbox has many integrations and its functionality grows beyond outreach to the general area of content and email marketing. Accordingly, the campaign dashboard, white-label reports, and pipeline provide the necessary project management tools.

While the pricing is only available on request, there are case studies, a knowledge base, and an attentive support team to answer any questions regarding the product. 

Project management and agency management software

Planning and management software is the basis of any business, not just ad agencies. While there is a large number of popular solutions on the market, their functionality is often similar with minor differences in workflow management. Here are ten tried and tested contenders for the best advertising agency tools for management.

Monday

Monday is a project management platform offering task management, resource management, and time-tracking features that can make team collaboration as smooth as possible. What’s more, users have access to a timeline, dependencies, and unlimited boards all contained in a user-friendly dashboard.

The Monday marketing software is aimed at a variety of businesses from marketing to IT and HR. The pricing depends on the plan and on the number of team members. Individual plan for up to two users is free while the Pro plan with more extensive functionality costs $16 per seat. 

Productive

Productive is an ad agency management platform with tools and features that check all the boxes for managing each project from start to finish. Apart from basic functionality such as time-tracking and project management, it focuses most heavily on financial reporting. While task management lies at its core, Productive is an agency software ideal for budgeting and keeping track of salaries, profit margins, rates, and revenue.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial period and after that pricing depends on the number of users and on the plan tier. The standard plan starts at $12.50, and an advanced Enterprise plan starts at 100+ users and has custom pricing.

Forecast

Forecast is an all-in-one advertising agency software for task management, team collaboration, and business intelligence. What makes it unique are the capable AI features for project automation and resource management. While Forecast is a capable marketing tool it’s most suitable for web development and IT-leaning businesses due to the built-in cooperative features for Agile, Scrum, or Kanban business processes.

Forecast offers a free trial and three plans which differ in features such as the available integrations. The simplest Lite plan starts at 27€ per seat a month for a minimum of 10 seats. The Plus plan offers full customization.

Wrike 

Wrike is an all-around project management software with supreme organization features. It’s suitable for both small and large marketing agencies and the available integrations (Salesforce, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.) make collaboration and file sharing a breeze, especially for creative teams. Wrike makes it easy to assign tasks and manage real-time collaboration while remaining user-friendly and intuitive.

Wrike has both a free plan for teams that are only getting started and a free trial for any of their available plans. The cheapest plan comes at $9.80 per user, billed monthly. More advanced plans offer many customization options and are priced individually.

Mavenlink

Mavenlink is an ad agency software with a holistic approach to running a marketing business. The tool specializes in resource management and project management and offers extensive reporting tools and integrations with the most popular business suits. While it’s project managers who gain the most by picking Mavenlink, this task management program has capabilities to help a wide range of specialists as well as clients. 

Mavenlink doesn’t publicly disclose its prices and before reaching out to them, you have to specify the type, size, and geolocation of your company.

ClickUp

ClickUp is a popular project management tool suitable not only for advertising agencies but for a variety of other industries as well. Thanks to the versatility of ClickUp, it provides some unique capabilities such as a widget notepad or easy video recording and sharing. Both internal and external communication is a big focus of the tool, which makes it suitable for advertising agencies of all sizes.

ClickUp has a free plan for personal use and a variety of tiers for teams. The prices start at $5 per person and reach upwards of $19 per person for larger agencies with multiple teams. 

AirTable

AirTable is a cloud-based marketing project management tool that’s based on spreadsheets. It’s aimed at midsize businesses or marketing teams within larger organizations. This ad agency software has the power and functionality of a database but the intuitive interface and easiness of use make it useful for the entire team (not only members with database expertise). Integrations with Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Drive as well as specialized plans make useful additions for departments from and beyond advertising.

Airtable offers a free plan for individuals and small teams offering basic functionality and a limit of records and attachments. The lowest-paid plan starts at $10 per person monthly (billed yearly) and the enterprise plan with higher limits has custom pricing depending on the needs of the ad agency.

SmartSheet

SmartSheet can be an ad agency management software but it can also help manage projects from all types of industries. Just as the option described above (AitTable), this tool bears many similarities with a spreadsheet with additional features and functionality. The customizable dashboards provide a solid foundation for task management and collaboration, workflow, and reports. The equally potent automation features make it an ideal solution for all kinds of professional service businesses. 

The pricing starts at $7 per user a month (billed yearly) for the Pro plan and $25 per user a month (billed yearly) for the Business plan. There are custom pricing options with advanced functionality for larger businesses.

Float

Float is one of the best advertising agency software due to its simplicity. It has everything that’s needed in an agency management system and what makes it unique is the user-friendliness and clarity in reading data such as time-tracking and workload management. Team members can also use the iOS or Android apps for easier access and Slack or email notifications can keep them up to date in real-time.

Float has a 30-day free trial and after that, there are two options – Resource planning for $6 per person per month (billed annually), or Resource Planning + Time Tracking for $10 per person per month (billed annually).

Hygger

Hygger is said to be the perfect project management option between a simple board such as Trello, and a complex solution such as Jira. It can be used by digital marketing agencies but it’s limited to creative teams when it comes to features for collaboration. In addition to standard project management functionality, the software has extensive options for prioritization, product strategy, and client communication.

Hygger has a free version with unlimited users, boards, projects, and 100MB of storage. The Standard paid version costs $7 per user per month (billed annually) and the Enterprise plan starts at $14 per user per month and includes such advanced features as unlimited API access.

Data and reporting marketing agency tools

While agency management program is essential to team collaboration and task management, in order to track the performance of marketing campaigns, additional reporting software might be required. Here is a list of useful tools for tracking and gathering data on your marketing and business operations. 

Improvado

Improvado is a marketing data aggregation tool used to create dashboards and reports for both internal and external use. It’s cloud-hosted but has an option for on-premise hosting which makes it perfect for both big and small advertising agencies. 

Improvado is integrated with many advertising channels including Facebook ads, Google Ads, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and many others. The available integrations provide superior insights into a wide range of campaigns and the flexibility of data aggregation and reporting meet the requirements of the most unique advertising agency needs.

Although the pricing is not publicly available, there is a contact form with some basic information that needs to be filled out to receive the pricing. There is also a free trial version available, however, as Improvado is not a self-service platform, it’s necessary to schedule a demo in order to set up a test account.

Whatagraph

Whatagraph is a cloud-based advertising agency tool that helps in creating and automating marketing reports using predefined templates and various data sources. What Whatagraph does especially well is establishing brand identity by allowing businesses to white-label the reports by dressing data in elements of branded design. 

Reports can be automated and notifications can be sent out on a scheduled basis. What’s more, there is a report-building feature that can make creating client reports a quick and painless process. Additionally, the extensive integrations cover just about any tool or traffic source that might be needed by an agency. Overall, this is a solid choice for small to medium-sized agencies with regular needs.

Whatagraph offers three plans. The lowest, professional plan with very limited integrations starts at $119 per month, the premium plan with limited integrations costs $279 and the growth plan with all integrations and public API access costs $699 per month (billed annually). 

AgencyAnalytics

AgencyAnalytics is an all-around tool for gathering and analyzing insights from multiple client accounts and clients’ marketing channels in a single dashboard. It provides an advertising agency with the possibility to connect and monitor the top SEO tools, PPC platforms, social media, email marketing services, and call tracking providers in one place.

AgencyAnalytics focuses on providing a holistic view of all advertising agency operations. The possibility to deliver client reports seamlessly and based on an automated schedule makes working with numerous users on multiple projects a specialty of this advertising agency software. There are some white-labeling options available as well.

Pricing depends on the number of clients and the professional services offered by the agency. For basic functionality, AgencyAnalytics charges $10 per client campaign. For additional functions and a larger client base, it’s $15 per month per client campaign (billed monthly).

Hubspot CRM Suite

Hubspot CRM Suite might be one of the best advertising agency software when it comes to nurturing leads and analyzing business metrics. It’s a solution that focuses most heavily on customer relationship management and collaboration. The Hubspot platform, however, has much more to offer in each of the plans that are aimed at particular functions of a business. 

The Hubspot CRM Suite is a relatively expensive but extremely powerful tool that every big advertising agency will grow to need. However, it is possible to purchase any of the more specialized plans, e.g. designed for sales or customer service, or marketing. Each option contains tools necessary to gain insight into existing processes, be it email automation, sales funnel creation or lead management.

The pricing depends on the CRM Suite starting at €41 per month but additional charges are counted for more than 2 users or a larger contact base than 1000 users. The enterprise solution aimed at big agencies starts at €3,680 and again, additional charges need to be taken into account based on the size of the staff and the customers. 

Tableau

Tableau can help a marketing agency collect data from multiple source points, not only strictly related to marketing. Integrations with SQL databases, spreadsheets, cloud apps like Google Analytics and Salesforce make Tableau the ideal solution for dissecting all data in one place. 

This advertising agency software has extensive capabilities for creating professional reports in visual or interactive ways. What’s more, there is a fully functional app, to make accessing data much easier. Of course, the features of Tableau also include presenting data in a clean illustrative format – making sure it’s understood by the least data-savvy team members. 

Tableau has a role-based licensing format which means that the advertising agency can pay less for team members that are only viewing, vs. team members that are creating. There are three options: creator, explorer, and viewer. What’s more, the pricing depends on whether Tableau is hosted locally or in the cloud. 

Search Engine Optimization ad agency tools

Another type of advertising agency software that is optional but highly recommended is an SEO tool. Depending on the responsibility of a business, the SEO tools can carry the weight of keeping a business site relevant and discoverable or simply help with brand building and content creation. Here are the best advertising agency tool picks for a variety of purposes. 

Semrush

Semrush is a multipurpose SEO tool that doesn’t need an introduction. Its capabilities cover deep insights into Google searches as well as Google PPC advertising. Apart from that, it offers a content marketing toolkit for keyword research and competitor analysis and unique back-link analysis features that are not available on other platforms.

Agencies that deal with both SEO and paid advertising might find Semrush to be the perfect tool. The size of the databases, high limits for daily reporting, and exhaustive insights into CPC competition data (including campaign planning tools) are only some of the tools that make it worth the investment. 

Semrush has a variety of plans starting from a Pro option with limited functionality at $119.95 per month and ending at a Business plan for $449.95 with high limits and a wholly functional marketing platform. There can be additional charges e.g. for an increased number of users, white-labeling SEO reports, or specific advanced features, however, before deciding on the tool there is a free 7-day trial of the two lower plan tiers.

SimilarWeb

Similarweb is a website analytics & competitive traffic intelligence platform. It’s a tool that offers the most in terms of market intelligence and web measurement. The data is gathered by Similarweb’s browser extensions and provides the best insights into any website of interest for your advertising agency.

While gathering intelligence on the competitors is the first step to creating a successful business, SimilarWeb is a powerful tool for delving deeper into their strategies. Other features, including ad creative research or keyword research, makes SimilarWeb an ideal solution for agencies who look to outdo their competition in terms of quality website traffic.

SimilarWeb offers three plans for marketing agencies. The plans have the same functionality but differ in limits and granularity of insights. The simplest, Essential plan starts at $249 billed monthly, the advanced plan comes at $449 and the unlimited plan with no restrictions and available add-ons has custom pricing.

Ahrefs 

Ahrefs is an all-around SEO tool with the most powerful backlinking capabilities that provides insights into various search engines such as Google, Amazon, YouTube, Yahoo, or Bing. This ad agency software can also be especially useful when gaining intelligence on the most popular content on a given topic. 

While most SEO tools cover similar topics and have the same most crucial functions, Ahrefs especially excels at finding new backlinking opportunities and monitoring the performance of the currently active backlinks. What’s more, Ahrefs gives agencies more control of internal linking with a function to automatically generate link ideas. 

Let’s not forget that on top of the powerful linking capabilities, Ahrefs is one of the two most capable SEO software on the market. The pricing starts at $99 with a single-seat, billed monthly, and ends at $999 with 5 seats. For the two lowest plans, there is a week-long trial for $7. 

Moz Pro

Moz Pro is an SEO ad agency software with broad functionality but specializing in keyword research. It provides robust reporting capabilities and offers unique features of website, issue, and digital asset management. 

Moz Pro is intuitive and easy to use which makes it accessible and pleasant to interact with. It’s a capable tool allowing for deep keyword research and it manages to provide unique insights while remaining comparably cheap. 

The pricing starts at $99 billed monthly for the lowest plan and ends at $599 billed monthly for the premium plan. Purchasing a yearly subscription comes with a 20% discount and there is a free trial for the medium plan ($179) that lasts 30 days.

Majestic

Majestic is the best advertising agency software for backlink management. While other tools mentioned in this section provide an array of SEO functionality, Majestic focuses on two things only – backlinking and indexing. 

For an ad agency that needs to focus more heavily on backlinking, Majestic can provide the perfect set of laser-focused tools. With a backlink history function and insights into competitor site information, the reports generated by this tool will provide a holistic view of the site’s connections and influences. 

The pricing for the LITE plan starts at $49.99, however, the functionality offered by this plan is rather limited. The PRO plan for $99.99 per month has more comfortable limits and functionality. For more demanding agencies, there is an API plan with considerable limits and full Majestic API access. 

Design advertising agency software

Last but not least, digital marketing software for design tasks is an integral part of every agency. That type of program might focus on team collaboration, file sharing, time tracking, or simply on creating visual assets. Either way, design and web development are agency branches that require their own software and these are our top pics.

Asana

Asana is a digital workspace for project management that can be especially useful in orchestrating collaboration between teams working on visual assets. The extensive features for workflow management along with goals, dependencies, reporting, to-do lists, and progress tracking make it suitable not only for design work but also for the whole marketing campaign creation process.

What’s more, Asana has detailed organizational capabilities all contained within a clean and user-friendly UI. There is also a high level of customization – custom templates and fields allow for creating the exact kind of custom workflows that are needed by an organization.

Asana has a free basic plan that has unlimited essentials and basic reporting. More advanced plans such as Business for €10.99 per month, or Business for €24.99 per month (billed annually) are options with more advanced features for reporting and workflows. There is also a custom Enterprise plan available.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a different kind of ad agency software as it’s a tool for creating vector graphics and animation. While Adobe Illustrator is not suited for managing projects from start to finish, its core features take into account team collaboration on design files and projects. 

Every ad agency needs software for creating digital assets, be it logos, animations, or banners. Adobe Illustrator is just the right tool for that. It allows for endless possibilities in creating and manipulating vector graphics all within a single platform with additional access from mobile devices.

Adobe Illustrator can be purchased separately for $20.99 per month, billed annually. It can also be purchased as a part of a yearly subscription to Creative Cloud for $52.99 per month.

FileStage

FileStage is a content review platform that puts the most emphasis on a smooth approval workflow. The platform allows users to bring all files, versions, and comments into one platform where both team members and external stakeholders can review and approve tasks. 

For agencies handling repetitive tasks, FileStage offers structured and automated workflows that can be shared across all clients. The file-sharing options and integrations with popular business suites (such as Google, Asana, or Basecamp) make collaboration on designs, videos, websites, articles, and community outreach easier.

FileStage has different pricing tiers depending on the size of the ad agency. The Essential plan starts at €9 per month per seat, however, it allows for only one active project at a time. The Advanced plan with more capabilities comes out at €19 per month per seat and the Professional plan starts at €39 with a limit of 25 active projects and significantly more storage space.

Ceros

Ceros is a digital experience platform where ad agencies can create interactive landing pages, graphical eBooks, lead generation forms, and infographics without any coding. However, the simple-sounding drag and drop program has a lot more to offer.

Ceros offers creative agencies the possibility of creating white label web designs without having a dedicated web development team. No HTML knowledge is required to operate Ceros and the capabilities are not lacking. Team collaboration and design features make it possible to create professional web assets and the numerous integrations help in tracking, automation, and analytics.

Ceros does not have publicly available pricing.

BugHerd

BugHerd is an issue tracking and project management software for web developers and designers. The most crucial feature of BugHerd is the ability to leave comments on a staged website which allows for the highest precision in team collaboration.

Ad agencies and marketing teams working heavily on website development can not only receive visual feedback and precisely positioned comments but can also access extra information in the form of metadata straight from the staged site. What’s more, the feedback is sent directly to a task management board where it can be picked up and reworked accordingly.

BugHerd has a 14-day free trial. After that, the standard plan for 5 members costs $39 per month, the premium plan for 25 members costs $129, and the Deluxe plan for 50 members costs $229, with additional users for each plan available for $8 per user (billed monthly). There is a custom plan available for agencies with a high number of members.

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The post Marketing agency software – Best tools to manage and grow your business appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Search advertising is often associated with Google Ads only. However, Google is not the single provider of search ad solutions, and search ads don’t come in a singular form either. 

And although the search market is indeed dominated by Google, it’s still a form of digital advertising enabled by various search engines. And almost all of them offer a way to monetize their traffic. 

That’s why in this article we want to present a thorough overview of the search market inventory, talk about different types of search ads, explain how they work, and most importantly, help brand marketers understand how to utilize alternative search advertising solutions.

Search Autocomplete Ads

The first type of search ad we want to discuss today is one of the aforementioned alternatives — that is Search Autocomplete ads. 

Search autocomplete technology offers a unique approach to search advertising in which ads are triggered even before users complete typing the search keyword into their mobile or desktop device search bar. Autocomplete search ads usually appear right underneath the input field (e.g. web search engine bar or a marketplace search) providing the most optimal user experience by showing suggested ads/search results related directly to the searched phrase. 

Search Autocomplete Ads are available for both mobile and desktop devices. Platforms providing this specific search ad format are typically keyboard apps, marketplaces, browsers, and search engines. Although some search traffic providers host their own solutions, a variety of platforms and audiences can be accessed via performance marketing platforms allowing brands and marketers to instantly match with potential clients. 

Simply put, search autocomplete ads utilize the power of contextual targeting to display ads relevant to what the user is looking for, but more importantly, this specific type of search advertising provides marketers with brand-safe and privacy-compliant cookieless solutions.

Search Ad Tiles

Another underutilized way to drive traffic to your brand is working with Search Ad Tiles, also known as Suggestion Tiles. 

Search Ad Tiles allow marketers to display a logo of an advertised brand right in front of users’ eyes, exactly when they need it… or in the right context, one could say. This happens because search ad tiles are displayed in the form of a small icon right below the search bar or a text field your audience uses to enter the related keyword. Some placements can be fixed, and some can be dynamically displayed based on the set targeting. 

The dynamic tile placement works on a similar basis to the Search Autocomplete solutions explained above. In this case, ad tiles appear as soon as users start typing their search queries into a search engine bar or a search text field. Search Ad Tiles are available for both mobile and desktop devices and are provided by a variety of apps, search engines (Opera or AVG Secure Search), or online marketplaces.

Both Autocomplete and Search Ads Tiles are purely intent-based solutions. They help drive users to your website, right from the moment they engage with a search bar. Unlike with the usual search text ads solutions, there’s no middle step of displaying the general SERP. 

Overall, this is the most direct way for users to get what they want which makes Search Ad Tiles the ad format utilizing the fastest search-to-brand route available on the market.

Text Search Ads

Text search ads are the broadest category here, but one that cannot be overlooked. The most popular search text ads solution comes from the Google Search Ads platform, which dominates the search engine market with a 92.47% market share. They show either above or below organic results on the first SERP.

The mechanism behind search text search ads in Google is based on the second price auction. When many bidders place a bid, the highest bid wins, but rather than pay the set price for the bid, the bidder only has to pay $0.01 more than the second-highest bid. Google combines that with its Ad Rank algorithm that decides the position of your ads. The algorithm takes into consideration expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience to decide the quality of your ad. If certain criteria aren’t met, the Google ads platform can decide not to show your ad despite a winning bid.

Search text ads are not exclusive to Google. In fact, other search engines such as Yahoo or Bing, or geo-specific options like Baidu and Yandex, also have their own search ads. Overall, they work similarly to Google’s search platform, often employing the second price auction and a form of ad ranking.

What’s more, Google, among others, offers responsive search ads (a successor to expanded text ads) where the algorithm tests up to 15 headlines and 4 titles to create the best combination for a given keyword or query.

Text search ads are a universal and advanced solution. They have many providers and the Google ads platform alone offers several variants, e.g. dynamic search ads; and additional features, e.g. ad extensions. But the availability and popularity are also what make search ads an extremely competitive field where the most expensive keywords cost $50 or more per click.  

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Shopping (Product) Search Ads

Search ads are by nature high-intent ads so it’s only logical to utilize them in the case of both shopping campaigns and brand awareness campaigns. Nonetheless, one of the most popular types of search ads is shopping ads. And how do shopping ads work? 

Shopping ads (also known as simply product ads)display a tile-like product preview on top of or on the side of the search engine results page. In the case of Google shopping solutions, product previews form a line right under the search bar. They correspond to the search query, just like the rest of the results do, but offer a richer format that includes a product picture, a price, and a source URL.

Google Ads is not the only ad network that makes running shopping campaigns possible. For example, Bing’s search engine also enables shopping ads on the right side of their search engine results page. Pinterest, on the other hand, has shopping ads that seamlessly blend with the rest of the inspirational pictures, with the exception that these ads lead straight to a products page where users can make a purchase. 

Among all the examples of shopping search ads platforms, a very prominent one is naturally the Amazon Advertising platform. Amazon is a product-based search engine which, in 2017, surpassed Google in the number of product searches. While this is not the most up-to-date data, there is no reason to believe that product searches on Amazon should be declining.

Amazon offers similar, although slightly inferior, tracking and optimization capabilities when compared to Google shopping ads. Still, it comes with plenty of advantages. To put it simply, the competition is smaller and targeting options are better, allowing for the most precise display of advertisements. What’s more, Amazon’s product targeting is the most unique and advantageous option that allows marketers to target by brand, star reviews, price, and Prime shipping eligibility.

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Video Search Ads

Video search ads, powered by Google Ads and hosted by the YouTube platform, are among the search ad types perfect for brand awareness campaigns. YouTube Discovery Ads appear on the top of YouTube video search results, the video watch page, or on the YouTube Home feed on mobile devices. These are not auto-playing ads. In fact, these look exactly like organic search results with video thumbnails, titles, and descriptions, with an exception of an ad tag. 

Because users have to click on the ads to actually view them, they are also called TrueView ads as opposed to ads that autoplay unprompted (which does not guarantee they were viewed, let alone intentionally). The last thing to remember is that YouTube Discovery Ads are only for brands that already have a functional YouTube channel. After all, the primary purpose of the campaign is to gather views of the video ad. Gathering subscribers or making sales are secondary goals.

Another example of video ads based on a search engine is Pinterest Video Ads. 

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App Install Search Ads

App Install Ads are a search-based ad format, most commonly used in mobile in-app environments. The two most prominent examples of this ad format are app install ads on Google Play and Apple Search Ads.

Google provides many options for install ads, however, most of them are display ads. The search-based Google Play Store listings are meant to aid in increasing the visibility and discoverability of your app. And with nearly 3.5 million apps in the store, that kind of help is often needed. The ads appear on top of the search results in the Google Play store and are matched based on keyword targeting with three options —  broad, phrase, and exact match. 

The Apple App Store is the second-largest app store in the world with 2.2 million apps. The purpose of Apple search ads is the same as their Google counterparts — to help users discover your app. This high-intent ad format offers keyword targeting and various options for displaying the ad. Your app campaigns can appear in a form of video, a selection of screenshots, or a plain form with text and an icon. The advertised app can be installed straight from the advertisement. 

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Display (Image Ads)

While the notion of display ads is completely different from search ads, the search advertising market doesn’t exclude expanded search formats such as Image Ads. An image ad or a display ad would usually appear in the form of a banner, interstitial, or full-page ad. But it can also be a search ad. 

The best example of an image search ad would be Pinterest, with search-based targeting. Pinterest, although it is a standalone platform used for inspiration, it’s also an image-based search engine. Hence, ads appearing among the organic search results come in the form of images, integrating seamlessly with the grid. 

What’s more, Pinterest is a platform where people look for inspiration and 46% of UK Pinners have discovered new brands or products on Pinterest. The demographics are leaning towards the female audience with higher incomes and the average age of a Pinterest user is 40 years old. 

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Search ads and brand advertising explained

As we mentioned at the beginning, search ads are currently an essential tool for brand marketers. This is because search ads can be hyper-targeted and directed straight at purchase-ready audiences. 

While your marketing strategy can include many ad formats and campaign types, search ads are currently the best solution for brands looking to gain quality leads that turn into paying customers. Let’s consider some benefits.

Benefits of Search Ads for brand marketing

• Specific search ad types can reduce the customer journey to a maximum extent – skipping the search engine results page and leading users from the search bar straight to the brand’s website.
• Search ads are contextual and directly related to the search bar input, hence, they provide a high-quality user experience that isn’t distracting or intrusive.
• The short path from the intent-focused search query to the brand’s website leads to an overall higher conversion rate.
• If your brand’s website is lacking in SERP positioning, using search ads is a faster way of increasing visibility than through the process of search engine optimization.
• Search ad platforms allow you to test your strategies in a quick and efficient way by providing you with actionable data on clicks and conversions. 
• Relying on programmatic advertising platforms offering search traffic inventory helps marketers maximize the reach and utilize the full potential of the available search market.

New programmatic solutions to revolutionize your business

What all search ad types have in common is that they lead the customer from the search bar through the search engine results page, and then show relevant ads right at the top as the most visible suggestions. There are, however, two ad types that skip the middle step. 

Search Autocomplete Ads, as well as Search Ad Tiles, are both types of search ads triggered the second customer starts typing in a query. These ads will appear there and then, right under the search bar field. There is even no need to press enter and wait for the search results to load. 

This is what makes such Google search ads alternatives a unique approach to a saturated and competitive market. This is also why and how NewProgramamtic solutions help performance marketers tap into a whole new search advertising market and get a headstart for the brands they promote. It’s also worth adding that both aforementioned ad formats work on the CPC cost model and offer worldwide inventory with robust targeting options. 

Apart from the main targeting options being Branded Search (redirecting users looking for the brand’s product straight to the brand’s website) and Generic Keyword Search (redirecting users looking for the brand’s or related products straight to the brand’s or a related yet authorized site), users can be targeted based on devices and locations. 

Please note there are no cookies involved in the process which makes Tiles and Autocomplete Search ads meet the highest standards of privacy.

Search Autocomplete Ads and Search Ad Tiles are simply a straightforward solution that works particularly well with an intent-driven audience, especially given the recent (and still growing!) shift towards product-specific marketplaces rather than broad search engine searches users now tend to perform.

Conclusions

What all search ads have in common is intent-based targeting. Users typing in a query into the search signifies readiness to discover, research, and finally buy a product. Search text ads are the most common type of search advertising so far, but the constantly evolving market and need for innovation called for new programmatic solutions to come onto the stage and take their fair share of the market. In a nutshell, global investments into online marketplaces keep increasing which gives way to more solutions providing marketers with a chance to match users with desired products exactly when and where they’re looking for them. 

If you’d like to try an alternative approach to search advertising, we welcome you to book a demo and find out how NewProgrammatic can prove to be exactly what your business needs.

Book a NewProgrammatic demo today!

The post 7 Types of Search Ads Brand Marketers Need to Know About appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Each digital marketing method has its perks, and if you combine that with a clear outline of your marketing strategy, you have a two-step recipe for growth. However, opting for popular solutions puts your brand up against a very saturated market. And it might seem like just about anything in terms of advertising has been done already. But some solutions, albeit popular, remain underutilized. And that’s exactly what can help you grow your brand.  

The bravest attempts at pioneering in advertising, such as Uber’s clever drone campaign, have left the world speechless. But paving the way with extravagant campaigns is unaffordable or inefficient for most brands. Uber’s campaign, although it was newsworthy and went viral, was also considered too much.

On the other side of the spectrum are the time-tested solutions. They’ve been here for nearly two decades, and what they have in common is that people either grew to accept them or hate them. The percentage of US users using an adblocker grew by 72% since 2014. Also, a recent study from HubSpot revealed that the omnipresent pop-up ads are actually the most hated ad format. Pre or mid-roll video ads were a close second with 100% of consumers skipping such ads whenever possible. Invasiveness and excessive frequency were also cited as one of the things most likely to turn the sentiment against the brand to negative.  

Another study quoted modal, intra-content, and autoplay ads as the most hated. Deceptive links made the top of the list as well. The common pattern is – if the ad is begging for attention, it’s not likely to get it. It’s just going to build brand resentment. 

Similarly, looking for unknown and unique ways of promoting your brand can easily backfire. Experimental ad placements on gaming consoles, smart fridges, smart TVs, and even space satellites are a hot topic, but they’re not exactly painted in the best light. In fact, these formats have not yet reached the status of popularity and there are already solutions for blocking them.

But we’re not here to tell you what ads to avoid, we’re here to bring your attention to the underutilized ad formats with potential. They often have proven track records of bringing solid results but they’re not overused (yet!). 

Let’s take a look at the 7 underutilized ways of driving traffic to your website.

1. Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising is currently the top contender to take the place of overall best ad format. Since third-party cookies are becoming more and more scarce, cookieless ad formats are the future of privacy-first advertising. Contextual targeting is promising not only a similar level of performance but also a targeting method that is not as intrusive and meets the highest standards of brand safety. Consumer attitudes towards contextual personalization are most favorable in comparison with other types of personalization, such as behavioral, retargeting, demographic, etc.

Driving traffic to your brand via contextual advertising ensures that ads will be displayed in a relevant context. Such ad formats include (but are not limited to) in-app advertising and search traffic, especially from alternative search engines. 

That’s why in-app ads, being a prime example of contextual ads, are considered brand-safe, because the environment of the app is highly controlled. Apps are also preferred over mobile sites due to better user experience, speed, and extra features. 58% of millennials prefer shopping through apps because of the streamlined process and pre-saved data. Apps are simply more engaging. And moving your online advertising into a controlled in-app shopping experience with keyword targeting is a good way to drive more conversions. An example of an in-app ad provider is AdColony but you can find other DSPs offering in-app mobile amongst other ad formats.

Another example of brand-safe advertising are contextual search ads. This method of direct-to-customer advertising can be provided by Google Search, Brave In-Browser Ads, but also NewProgrammatic solutions. At NewProgrammatic, we offer two ad formats based on user intent – whenever users start typing something into a search bar, they’re immediately provided with thematic suggestions. Such precise targeting is made possible by close relationships with trusted publishers like mobile keyword apps, search engines, or similar. 

2. Social ads 

Social ads might be a surprise on a list of underutilized ad formats, however, the social space is currently so vast, there are still apps and sites that haven’t been fully exploited. Of course, Google Ads and Facebook ads will not be discussed here. The ‘duopoly’ already dominates the ad tech industry with a combined share of close to 80% of the £14bn digital advertising market. 

Social media marketing, however, is not limited to the giants. Many other platforms offer advertising placements and unique platform-native ad formats. Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are full of video ads, rolls, brand-made filters, interactive spots, and other creative solutions.  

Let’s take a look at some of the underappreciated social media platforms with solid advertising options:

Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is a platform where users can save pictures and videos on their dashboards. It’s the most common platform for grouping ideas and inspiration. Pinterest’s audience is made up of 70% of women, and 85% of usage occurs on mobile devices. Pinterest Ads look like pins, so they blend in seamlessly with the rest of the content. 

The available options include: static ads, video ads, install ads, carousel ads, shopping ads, and collection ads. With Pinterest, you can target keywords and interests, demographics, audience lists, and specific ad placements.  

Quora Ads

Quora is a forum-like platform offering the community to ask and answer each other’s questions. The platform has a 43/57 female to male audience ratio, and mobile is the audience segment that generates the most clicks on Quora Ads. What’s more interesting is that 65% of Quora users have a college degree and 54% of adult users report a yearly income of $100k or more.

Quora Ads are based on contextual targeting or behavioral targeting. The ads are placed amongst user-generated responses to questions and can be seen as topically related content. Quora ads are intent-based and similar to Google Ads with the advantage of being a less saturated platform.

TikTok Ads

TikTok is a video-sharing platform that focuses on social networking through sharing short videos. The platform has only been established in 2016 but the user base has already reached nearly 700 million monthly active users. Also, 60% of TikTok’s worldwide audience are between 25 to 44 years old, with US statistics alone learning towards the younger demographic with 69% of users being between 13 and 24 years old.

TikTok ads come in the form of videos that blend in with the rest of the content. The ads can be placed on various pages (e.g. in-feed or details) and the supported targeting includes audience, demographics, interests and behaviors, as well as detailed device segmentation. 

3. Real-time bidding (RTB) Advertising

Real-time bidding is actually a mechanism that enables programmatic mass advertising via ad exchange platforms combining both demand-side (DSP) and supply-side platforms (SSPs). Ads can be bought by impression or click in real-time so there is no need for a direct relationship between the advertiser and the publisher. In fact, platforms based on real-time bidding are often self-served and have an array of targeting options to place bids on. 

Some examples of RTB-based programmatic ad formats are push notifications or domain redirects.

Push notifications can drive traffic to your brand by appearing directly on user devices. Push ads are most popular on Android mobile devices thanks to their native appearance; however, you can also display push notifications on desktop devices and iOS mobile devices thanks to the in-page push variant. Push ads are extremely cheap in comparison to other brand-suitable marketing formats and they can instantly reach the highest volumes of traffic. 

Push ads audience consists of users who subscribe to receive notifications from websites they are interested in. Ad exchanges group them into audiences that are most likely to display interest in a certain topic (e.g. travel, education, or e-commerce); but you can also choose to target all of the available volumes in a particular location to reach the widest audience.

Opt-in rates for push notifications amount to roughly 81% on Android devices and 51% on iOS devices. Open rates differ across the industries but the overall medium open rate for iOS is 3.4% and 4.6% for Android. Plain and generic push notifications are also not the preferred medium of promotion and there’s a much higher likelihood of success with optimized campaigns.

Emojis (20%), rich formats (25%), tailored send times (40%), advanced targeting (threefold), and personalization (fourfold) can all improve reaction rates. 

Domain redirects, on the other hand, allow you to bid on misspelled URLs – after entering such a URL in the search bar, a user would be redirected to your chosen destination. This type of traffic is also known as parked domain traffic or zero-click traffic. It is another cheap method of driving traffic to your website based on search intent.

For example, if someone looking for a particular domain, let’s say, a store with cocktail dresses misspells the URL of the site, you can bid on that exact misspelling and lead them straight to your brand (presumably also selling cocktail dresses). The targeting options are based on keyword targeting — brand to brand or generic. You can also segment your audience based on other parameters such as a device used or location depending on what the ad exchange platform has to offer.

4. Augmented reality ads

Augmented reality has been a growing trend in the advertising industry. It might also be one of the most creative and engaging ways of advertising. 

But what’s the use of augmented reality in advertising? It’s simple –  it provides an additional layer to a physical experience. Some notable examples of applying AR to digital marketing are: visualizing the view from stadium seats before purchasing, virtually trying on cosmetics, clothes or accessories, and decorating your home through an IKEA app. 

But that’s not all. Augmented reality has made some unforgettable advertising campaigns in the public space as well. Bus stops seem to be the objects most easily adjustable for an augmented reality experience. That’s why campaigns like Pepsi’s Sci-Fi experience went viral worldwide and brought an increase in Pepsi Max sales 35% year on year (YoY) for the month the campaign was live.

Augmented reality ads, however, cannot be purchased from a programmatic advertising solution. They are provided by creative agencies such as Grand Visual and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years to plan and execute. 

5. Help a reporter out – HARO

Volunteering your expert knowledge to reporters can be a great way to put your company out there with very little effort. HARO is a special system for journalists to submit requests for expert insights about a certain subject. On the other end of that system, there are professionals and brand representatives who possess expert knowledge on certain subjects. 

While signing up for HARO, you can specify exactly what is your area of expertise. Then, you will receive multiple requests a day and it will be up to you to pick them, get in touch, and discuss what you can offer. Getting featured in a story can not only increase your website traffic but also provide SEO benefits in the form of a quality backlink. There are some things to remember as HARO can be rather competitive:

• Be quick – the requests are sent out in the form of mass-mailing and there can be hundreds of brand representatives with relevant experience ready to pitch their brand.
• Be persistent – for the same reason as above, it might take some time for you to be chosen as the expert that receives recognition.
• Be honest – only pitch if your expertise is exactly what’s needed. HARO is a system for reporters to find experts and you offering inapplicable knowledge is only going to waste everyone’s time.

In short, HARO can be a great free method of gaining and maintaining PR. If your pitch is good enough and you get contacted by a reporter from a known site, you get the kind of exposure you would otherwise have to pay hundreds of dollars for.

6. Content marketing

If you’re wondering why content marketing is on the list of underutilized ways of driving traffic to your brand, it’s because there is a lot more to it than first meets the eye. Content marketing is all about attracting customers to your brand with content. You can have an informative blog and share insightful social posts but you can also go one step further and employ some of the underused tactics. Let us show you two note-worthy options. 

Newsjacking

Newsjacking is the practice of capitalizing on popular news stories to drive traffic to your own site. While the name of that practice might suggest shady activities, when done right, newsjacking can be beneficial from the PR standpoint and can generate organic traffic for weeks to come. 

While the simplest of newsjacking would be to spin an angle on a popular news story to make it relevant to your industry, or sharing your commentary as an expert, there are more creative ways to go about it. 

Have you heard about McDonald’s losing their Big Mac trademark in Europe? When Burger King Sweden heard about it, they decided to exploit that to their advantage by poking a little fun and naming their sandwiches ‘Big Mac-ish but flame-grilled of course’ or ‘Like a Big Mac but actually big’. 

Nonetheless, stealing another’s brand’s spotlight is not a necessary SEO technique. Content marketing entails not only search engine optimization but also gaining referral traffic from sources such as social media channels, an email marketing campaign, guest posting, or video marketing. While it might seem like you’d need a massive marketing department to handle all of that, there is a much better solution.

Recycling and repurposing content

Recycling and repurposing content can generate more traffic with only some additional effort. It also makes scaling your audience easier by reaching people on different platforms and in different ways. If not all channels align with your audience’s preferences, repurposing content is bound to reach the nooks and crannies and bring you more customers. 

How can you repurpose and recycle content?

Assuming that you have the base – the first piece of content e.g. an article – you can now turn into a different kind of content:

• Illustrative video content,
• A podcast or a series of podcasts expanding on the subject,
• Various guest posts adding a host-specific angle,
• An infographic to be posted on social media,
• Gated content with the purpose of lead generation and/or exclusive content inside,
• A live webinar,
• Create a roundup or a learning hub,
• A course sharing your brand’s expertise on the subject,
• Organize a live event in collaboration with other experts.

Some Internet users prefer to read, others to listen, to watch, or to interact. And while your own site and social media might be one of the biggest players among the channels used in marketing in 2021, your SEO efforts should expand further beyond, preferably over most of the available channels.

Just remember that sharing old content with superficial updates is not content repurposing. While you can build off of something, old materials should not be reused just for the sake of attracting new customers without bringing any additional value.  

7. Loyalty programs

Continuously attracting new customers to the brand still doesn’t fully account for its success. Generating more sales through search engine optimization, guest blogging, finding new sources of website traffic or paid advertising is not enough to guarantee prosperity. That’s because returning customers spend 67% more than new customers. What’s more, the cost of acquisition of a new customer is 5 to 10 times higher than selling to an existing customer. 

Loyalty programs are on the rise and the reason is that they are effective. Despite the relatively saturated market (with more than 90% of companies having some sort of loyalty program), and the lesser importance of loyalty programs among younger generations, focusing on a program that maximizes value can bring a competitive advantage.

Loyalty programs can take many forms. However, the most common ones in the e-commerce world focus on gathering points either for the number of purchased items or for the money spent. What customers can receive in return is cashback, discounts, additional promotions, coupons, early access, free shipping, free products, or coupons for affiliated brands.

Additionally, providing an individualized loyalty program experience takes customer satisfaction to the next level. According to Bond’s Loyalty report, an increase in personalization of a program increases member satisfaction by over 6 times. That means that if the first-party data gathered on the user base is used in an efficient and relevant way, it can increase not only the feeling of brand affiliation but also customer retention and spend.

Overall, loyalty programs are a solid option for driving traffic to your brand but they do come with certain drawbacks as well.

Conclusions

Growing your business means expanding the reach of your advertising efforts. That can mean adding more advertising campaigns, cultivating mutually beneficial partnerships, targeting wider keywords, investing in search engine optimization, or buying into any of the ad tech industry’s trends.

However, just as much as going with tried and tested results might not work for your business, being innovative and thinking outside the box can bring varied results. Ultimately, it’s about what works best for your business, and the advertising market is filled with solutions that still have some untapped potential. 

We talked about contextual targeting as the best brand-safe way to increase traffic to your website. We also mentioned social media ads as many brands don’t look past social media influencers and the ad tech duopoly – thus missing out on underused platforms that have the capability to generate significant traffic. Next, we brought your attention to real-time bidding (RTB), which despite being a very popular method, is often omitted from brands’ advertising strategies. 

The list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning less conventional methods of gaining recognition such as helping out reporters or going big with augmented reality ads. Despite SEO ranking being on the mind of every website manager, strategies such as newsjacking or repurposing content can boost your brand’s organic traffic without taking a long time to complete. Lastly, loyalty programs are everywhere because they work. So, make yours count and keep the churn rate down.

Don’t know where to start? Start from the beginning!

Try contextual advertising with NewProgrammatic

The post 7 underutilized ways to drive traffic to your brand appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Mixing fake news with genuine digital advertising is not what any brand wants. That’s why it’s important to educate yourself on brand safety issues, and this article is written with that purpose in mind. 

What is brand safety?

Brand safety is taking measures to ensure that a brand’s digital marketing campaigns won’t appear next to any content that is deemed inappropriate, illegal, dangerous, or radically controversial. For example, content promoting illegal drugs, containing hate speech, or exhorting violence towards a particular social group would be deemed non-brand-safe. Moreover, websites containing potentially controversial keywords (e.g. black, gay, covid-19) could also be considered as potentially brand unsafe.

Brand safety is a long-existing issue that came to prominence in 2017 and was further highlighted in 2020.

The most infamous brand-safety incidents occurred in 2017. Google overlooked the monetization of offensive content on YouTube and through the Google Display Network. Later the same year, it was discovered that more violent and sexualized content was being monetized on YouTube. The two weren’t the only incidents occurring in 2017. Due to many other oversights that happened at the same time, the advertisers immediately stopped or limited their spending on non-search-related ad formats. Brands such as Guardian, AT&T, Verizon, Starbucks, Walmart, and more pulled their ad campaigns from YouTube.    

Although the events brought on many new changes and improvements in how YouTube content is moderated, some troubles resurfaced again in 2019, resulting in more boycotting from many brands. The advertisers weren’t the only ones affected. The purge has led to the demonetization of YouTube channels (some unfairly so) because of the content of the videos.  

Moreover, the topic of brand safety doesn’t usually stand alone. There are, in fact, two connected terms that should be known to marketers, media buyers, and anyone taking brand safety measures seriously. 

Brand suitability relates to the promotion of content on websites that are in agreement with the advertiser’s values while not necessarily being controversial or harmful. Brand suitability regards mostly the tone, the audience, and the kind of message the company propagates. 

Brand compliance relates to following guidelines and laws existing in a given area, e.g. local restrictions on gambling ads, site restriction on political content, or age restrictions disallowing advertisements of adult content or alcohol. Disobeying such laws results mainly in fines.

Why is brand safety important?

While it might be assumed that advertising is separate and independent from the content of the page where it appears, that is not entirely the case. Consumers create associations and while that can work in your favor when forming partnerships with other well-established brands, it’s been proven to have a negative effect via association with inappropriate content.

Consumers associate brands with the content they appear near as an implied endorsement of that content. A negative implied endorsement can have long-term impacts on brand equity for years to come.  

A good reputation of the brand is crucial to the success and prosperity of the business. Consumers are generally more likely to interact with a brand if the ads appear beside legitimate content. There is also a common belief held by the consumers that it’s the brand’s responsibility to position itself among the highest quality of content. Otherwise, the majority of polled consumers said they would stop using a brand if it appeared next to fake news or offensive content, according to a study by DoubleVerify. 

Furthermore, positive or negative associations have a direct impact on the performance of your digital marketing campaigns. In a case study undertaken by the IPG ad agency, ads placed on credible news sites saw a 9% reduction in CPM and a staggering 143% higher click-through rate than a control campaign. This effectively proved that using brand safety vendors creates an impression of quality and reliability among consumers leading to more genuine interest.

Lastly, first impressions matter. While a long-established brand might not suffer big losses in ad revenue from a single incident (and might even come back to the publisher, just like some companies boycotting YouTube came back later on), a smaller brand needs reliable sources to build credibility.

What are the brand safety measures?

Although it’s nearly impossible to measure brand safety by numbers, a set of criteria can be used to assess how safe a certain ad placement really is. 

Ad format/platform

Each ad format, platform, or ad placement carries a certain risk. In order to upkeep a brand’s reputation, it’s crucial to be aware of the risks and know how to avoid them. When it comes to ad display mediums, some are safer than others. For example, mobile in-app advertising is one of the most brand-safe solutions. That’s because the environment (the content of the app) is in most cases completely controlled. With additional targeting or blacklisting options enabled, the risk of safety violations is trivial.

When choosing an ad platform, make sure to check what kind of publishing partners your DSP works with. To give you an example, here at NewProgrammatic, we only pick partners that deliver both in the categories of user privacy as well as brand safety. Our ad formats come from trusted apps, browsers, and search engines such as Opera, Xiaomi, and Samsung. 

On the other end of the spectrum, we have, for example, native ad DSPs. Native ads appear on various sites with new content published daily. It’s impossible to control what kind of content appears around every ad placement, making them a non-brand-safe ad format.

Context

Unsafe content appearing alongside ads is what causes brand safety violations. This is usually reported by users and consumers at which point bad press for the company might be unavoidable. Context, unfortunately, is very difficult to control. Most of the time brands rely on the brand safety technology implemented by the publishers or advertising agencies. 

Environments within apps are the easiest to control. Websites and social media platforms can vary in provided safety measures, depending on the implemented solutions and the nature of each platform. In the case of advertising on news websites, key credibility factors include whether news platforms avoid deceptive headlines, correct or clarify errors, and differentiate between news and opinion.

Brand suitability

While brand suitability is a distinct concept it also plays a crucial role in brand safety. Depending on the brand’s target audience, the advertising campaign can vary in tone and values. While a health supplement brand wouldn’t want to appear next to an article on the uselessness of health supplements, an ad for a sports clothing brand with a target audience of teens and young adults wouldn’t blend in too well on a website on activities for seniors.  

In this case, publisher transparency on data and audience breakdown is critical in creating a brand-safe and suitable environment.   

Brand safety vs. ad reach

The issue of brand safety vs. campaign reach is another thing to consider. While using some ad formats and advertising methods (influencer advertising, banners on news sites, social media), filtering out the inventory can significantly limit the available audience. Advertisers who turn to elaborate blacklists (of keywords, channels, or publishers) are at risk of blocking a lot of the wanted content as well.

The BS technology is also labeling large swaths of mainstream sites’ pages as “unsafe” resulting in ad revenue being suppressed — e.g. “21% of economist.com articles, 30.3% of nytimes.com, 43% of wsj.com, and 52.8% of articles on vice.com are being labeled as “brand unsafe”. 

As sometimes separating the brand name from the other meaning of the word (Jaguar the car vs. jaguar the cat) is very difficult, there is a need for more advanced technology. Using context to determine the overall topic of the page, as opposed to URL only, is a good first step. 

​​“Brand safety has had some unfortunate, unintended consequences for publishers as it’s given them less inventory [that] they’re able to monetize…”

However, there are new contextual solutions on the way that are supposed to make it easier for the industry to remain brand-safe and brand-suitable without losing a significant portion of the inventory.

What can you do to ensure brand safety?

Brand safety in digital advertising is something not to be taken lightly. It affects the brand’s reputation and consequently the ad revenue and sales. There are, however, common strategies for gaining more control over where the brand ads appear. Let’s find out what their advantages and disadvantages are.

Whitelisting and blacklisting

This is something we’ve already mentioned. This is also one of the most popular brand safety practices. Blacklisting and whitelisting is the easiest way to keep marketing efforts on a narrow path of suitability and safety. By providing a whitelist, companies can choose who to compete with and what other brands they want to be associated with. However, this will limit the incoming traffic significantly.

On the other hand, by providing a blacklist they can avoid undesirable associations. However, similarly to whitelisting, it can cause ad reach to be significantly limited. Because of excessive keyword blocking and because of ambiguous keywords, ads can end up hidden from the wrong audiences, and sites can be wrongfully labeled as unsafe.

As mentioned by IAB, the need for more advanced contextual matching tools is propelled by the unavoidable mistakes in keyword matching. 

Private deals 

Because of the incidents with Google and YouTube in 2017, programmatic PMP deals have become much more popular. The immediate consequence was that 74.5% of digital display ads were run via private marketplaces in the US. 

PMP programmatic advertising is somewhat in between an open exchange and buying direct. It allows advertisers to set pre-bid targeting (as well as keyword blocking and whitelisting) and choose the inventory selectively. Private deals coupled with brand-safe ad formats are one of the best ways to ensure a high level of visibility while retaining safety. 

Buying direct

Buying direct from a publisher is a good option, as long as the publisher is open and transparent about their brand safety credentials. The publisher site should be fool-proofed against bot traffic, invalid traffic, shady practices, and the ‘dirty dozen’. The last point would require a multi-factor verification system for every article published on the site. Making sure the publisher has an automated semantic content analysis or a manual safety checkbox for every new article are additional steps that can (and should) be taken to ensure you are getting your money’s worth in safe ad placements. 

Use brand-safe ad formats 

Lastly, the best possible way for advertisers to protect the brand reputation is to use contextual or intent-based advertising. This way your ad will only appear in the context of keywords you want to target, be it brand keywords or generic keywords.

Moreover, since the ad tech industry is moving towards cookieless, privacy-oriented ad formats, contextual advertising has been highlighted as one of the best ways to get your message across while remaining compliant with many existing and upcoming laws. 

Conclusions

Although the topic has been brought to light as a consequence of Google’s and YouTube’s transgressions, it’s been on the minds of advertisers since the popularization of digital advertising. 

Most brands protect themselves by using whitelists and blacklists, however, such technologies are still deeply flawed and carry the consequences of limited ad reach and faulty exclusion of safe sites. Another good option is tightening the relationship between advertisers and publishers. However, as long as retargeting is used, there is no way to ensure an ad wouldn’t follow a consumer from a legitimate site to a darker corner of the web.

The perfect brand safety detection technology doesn’t exist yet. But brand-safe ad formats are already here.

Pick NewProgrammatic and play by the brand-safety rules.

The post The importance of brand safety in digital advertising – brand-safe solutions. appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

However, targeted ads are not hard to notice. And when the consumers realized they were being followed by ads, they demanded to have their privacy back. So, digital advertising in that form could no longer exist. 

Let’s take a look at the most recent changes in user privacy regulations and their impact on the ad tech industry. 

Recent developments in GDPR and anti-cookie policies

In 2011, The Wall Street Journal published an article on the loss of online privacy. They asked experts from various areas related to privacy, Internet research, and journalism to share their opinions on how much people should care about privacy. The answers were not uniform.

While privacy is something not to be taken lightly, the loss of privacy is an integral part of joining a social network. As the services gaining in popularity in the 2010s, such as Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, were focused on connecting people, and thus, allowing them to publicize personal information, the loss of privacy was imminent and often willingly given. 

The experts noted that, unfortunately, the cost of free content is consumer data. Sharing personal data on Facebook is not wrong or irresponsible in itself. It’s the way such companies use it. And quite often, it’s not about what users share in their messages and posts, it’s what they click on, what sites they visit simultaneously, and what their geolocation is. This is the data that digital advertising companies collect and use to serve ads.

This is also the real danger of online spaces. The data that’s collected without people’s explicit consent.

At that time, the experts decided that unintended consequences of introducing stricter online privacy acts (such as more paywalls, less free content, and devaluation of online media) outweigh the benefits. Nonetheless, the public disagreed, expressing the need for more privacy and less targeted advertising.

How is personal data handled by the most popular browsers?

Fast forward ten years into the future and most popular Internet browsers have made a stand against tracking. There were many regulations and events that led to browsers limiting ad targeting and giving users more control over their data. Apple was the first company to enable ad blocking, thus limiting the outreach of advertisers relying on Safari revenue. 

This is how browsers currently handle user data, third-party cookies, and tracking cookies.

Apple’s Safari is blocking all third-party cookies by default. In short, no advertisers can follow Safari users around gathering data on their browsing habits. Additionally, users can disallow first-party cookies from being shared across sites, and login IDs can’t be used by ad trackers for digital fingerprinting. Apple continues to be a pioneer of data privacy standards.

Mozilla follows closely behind. In Mozilla Firefox 89, both the regular and private browsing modes have something called Total Cookie Protection. This technology not only covers well-known trackers but just about anything designed to follow users across the web. The only exception is allowing cookies that enable cross-site login or similar functionality. Overall, Mozilla keeps a high standard of consumer privacy. 

Advertising is responsible for over 80% of Google’s revenue. This is also why Google Chrome is not blocking third-party cookies by default. Google’s Privacy Sandbox, announced in 2019, was the first step towards prioritizing user privacy. However, Google isn’t so keen on limiting tracking. The company only plans to phase out third-party cookies by 2023. The lengthy (in comparison to other browsers) time window for the procedure allows Google to come up with alternative methods of targeted marketing and data collection, however, the Privacy Sandbox timeline keeps facing delays.

While Google, being the market leader in online advertising for over a decade, remains adamant about keeping cookies alive, other browsers have already entered a new privacy-focused era. Digital advertising is not going away, nonetheless, it’s no longer that easy to serve well-targeted ads.  

What are the effects of the third-party cookie phaseouts?

Cookies have been the backbone of digital advertising for the past 25 years. And although the collective decision to phase out cookies was not a surprise, it did cause a stir in the market. The consequences ranged from loss of revenue for the big players in the industry to inconsequential panic among affiliate marketers practicing media buying at small to medium ad networks.

Overall, agencies, brands, and media buyers had to battle some of the following:

• Third-party cookie-based ad trackers could no longer work (as third-party cookies were blocked by default).
• Google Analytics has lost accuracy (due to shortened life of a first-party cookie). 
• It became more difficult to serve relevant ads and personalized content (because of more types of cookies being blocked by default). 
• Conversion attribution became a challenge (as cookies could no longer freely follow users around the web).

Who was actually affected by the move towards consumer privacy?

According to an article by Digiday, real-time bidding platforms, as well as cookie-reliant advertising methods, were the ones facing the biggest consequences. Real-time bidding, due to its nature, is not GDPR compliant. Hence, those looking for a brand-safe way of advertising would opt for a different method. 

Cookie-based targeting, on the other hand, has been progressively restricted by browsers and platforms alike. With Apple leading the way, third-party cookies have been eliminated from iOS devices and other browsers following in Apple’s footsteps. Companies that relied on targeting and tracking their sales via third parties have experienced significant losses.

Google has published a report on the effect of disabling third-party cookies on publisher revenue. According to the experiment and the subsequent analysis:

While a handful of publishers have a small revenue loss (<10%), the majority of publishers have losses of 50% or more, with some losing over 75% of their revenue.

How much do consumers really care about privacy?

Let’s not forget that the potential losses depend entirely on how much consumers really care about their privacy. While third-party cookies are blocked by default there is always the possibility to enable them. Similarly, there are consent popups on most websites that offer users the possibility to choose what cookies they want to accept. 

In April 2021, Apple made yet another move to protect its customers. New pop-ups started to appear on Apple devices asking users if they consent to be tracked. Every business (app) that wanted to gather data for the purpose of advertising had to now seek explicit permission. 

According to Reuters, some mobile advertising analysts believed that fewer than one in three users are likely to grant permission. Similarly, Facebook analysts assessed that the platform faces up to a 7% decline in second-quarter revenue if 80% of its users block the company from tracking them on iPhones.

The reality was bleaker than expected. As it turns out consumers do care about their privacy on the web and 96% of US users opted out of app tracking in the iOS 14.5 update, as reported by Flurry Analytics. As for Facebook, the consequences differed across the types of advertisers. E-commerce stores (using Shopify) were amongst the most severely affected. The shops lost their ability to retarget ads and track sales. While the average decrease in tracking accuracy amounted to 50%, in some cases it reached a loss of a staggering 90% of captured sales. 

What can brands do to mitigate the consequences of stricter privacy policies?

While the new privacy regulations have a significant impact on data privacy, they also force companies to look beyond the old methods of targeting. Personalizing ads based on the collected data needs to be replaced by other methods to stay fully compliant with the most recent regulations. 

The General Data Protection Regulation, for example, has made a small but significant change in how the consent was obtained. Before GDPR, businesses could assume they had user consent unless the user opted out. After the introduction of GDPR, it was no longer allowed to assume anything. The user had to clearly and willingly agree to be considered as ‘opted in’. 

The fines for non-compliance were as high as 20 million dollars (or up to 4% of their total global turnover of the next fiscal year, whichever is higher). Hence, targeted advertising had to be replaced by contextual advertising. As Digiday points out, there’s been an increase in the amount of contextual targeting even among companies who chose to still do personalized advertising.  

Use contextual targeting

Contextual targeting is similar to keyword targeting with some additional parameters. This method is not about gathering data, however, it still belongs to the category of personalized advertising. Rather than following consumers around the web, contextual advertising networks (Google Ads, Terminus, The Trade Desk, Oracle’s Grapeshot, NewProgrammatic) display the digital ads among relevant content and in a relevant location. 

While contextual advertising comes in many forms, or ad formats to be precise, in each case it is based on keywords. Each site is described by keywords and thus it’s categorized as containing a certain kind of content. Context-based ad formats require manual input from the publishers – the ad needs to be described and categorized (by keywords and negative keywords) in such a way as to ensure as exact placement pairing as possible.

In the case of NewProgrammatic, ads would be displayed based on what the user is searching for. Upon entering a keyword in the search bar, an ad for a brand with relevant content or a shop that has the particular product would be displayed.

So, as opposed to cookie targeting, the user would not be followed and the ad would not be based on their previous action but on something that’s relevant to them at the moment. If they’re browsing reviews of Nike running shoes, they will be presented with an ad for a shop with Nike running shoes. No data on that user will be gained, saved, or stored anywhere.

Focus on first-party data

Although personalization of digital advertising has been based mainly on third-party data, first-party data provides an equal, if not better, data infrastructure. What’s most important is that first-party cookies are always consented to. Websites don’t save login data or preferences unless a user specifically asks them to. 

Hence, many companies are seeing first-party relationships as instrumental in navigating the new era of privacy. For example, in Germany, 20 companies created a unified consumer login product where consumers would be able to decide exactly what data and with whom they’re willing to share. Platforms that gather data through surveys, saving preferences, or coupon incentives are still able to personalize content and ads while staying in the clear. 

Base targeting on user choice and consent 

To expand on the previous section, the future of advertising lies in context and consent. Third-party tracking had to go because it was a shady practice that became abused for the purpose of online marketing. While making data collection transparent was a good first step, it didn’t eliminate the illegal practices or workarounds (e.g. burying the ‘Decline All’ button two layers deep into a cookie consent pop-up). 

To comply with the privacy laws and keep transparency trends, companies should establish a healthy line of communication. In fact, 71% of people prefer to share their data instead of paying a monetary fee when given an informed choice and a clear explanation. This user-oriented digital marketing approach is the only way to continue interest-based advertising while being fully compliant with GDPR and internet privacy directives.

Here are some options of permission-based data collection strategies:

• Rewarding users with virtual coins or points for agreeing to share data;
• Creating feedback communities for those who want to share data and help improve the experience;
• Asking for permission before sending promotional emails;
• Assigning tokens that don’t identify the browser or the user;
• Providing exclusive for customers who opt-in to share data.

Conclusions

Data-driven advertising methods used a surveillance system (known as third-party cookie tracking) to gather data on the consumers with a complete disregard for user privacy. Data protection policies enforced consent pop-ups which were frequently put to wrong use (and rendered ineffective). It was Apple’s Safari, followed by other browsers that changed the entire industry. 

Third-party web cookies along with other questionable data collection practices are on their last legs. Advertisers and publishers alike will have to apply different strategies to please customers without losing their ad revenue. Luckily, there are alternative, privacy-compliant methods that deliver ads based on context rather than data. 

NewProgrammatic uses the search intent to lead customers to where they need to be without relying on any data.

Are you looking for a context-driven advertising method?
Book a NewProgrammatic demo 

The post How to advertise in the user privacy era? appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Cookies are a part of a large browser tracking scheme that allows advertisers to do their jobs effectively. While some internet users appreciate the well-targeted ads, many raise their concerns about a possible threat they pose to online privacy. 

Over the years, opinions on browser cookies have changed but the mistrust remained the same. The NewProgrammatic blog brings you the complete history of cookies, the changing of attitudes, and their effects on digital advertising. 

The early history of cookies

Before 1995 it was not possible to know whether someone browsing the Internet has seen the same site twice. All kinds of transactions had to be completed in one go or started over again on the next visit. While the first online banner ad appeared in 1994, it was placed on one site only and had no other targeting than the visitors of said website. 

Browsing the web was largely anonymous until 1995 when the first cookie was created. Lou Montulii, a programmer working for Netscape Communications, came up with the idea to track users by placing a cookie on their computer. The purpose of that new technology was to make browsing sites easier. The products stayed in the shopping cart for the user’s next visit and websites became ‘aware’ of who visits them, what action that user takes, and how often they come back.

Cookies were almost immediately adopted by Internet Explorer. Despite both the Microsoft browser and the Netscape browser keeping cookies under the table, those privy to the inner workings of the web had already become concerned about what cookies could be used for.

Cookies enter the world of online advertising

While cookies were designed to be working within the same site (and related sites), there was a simple loophole. Companies could easily agree to share these cookies with third parties. Actually, companies anonymously aggregating user information could easily do so for the purpose of advertising. It didn’t take long for the large Internet advertising companies to get a hold of that.

DoubleClick and Engage were the first companies to try it. They used a common cookie across the web to keep track of what the user was doing. By that point, banner ads were already scattered around the web. It was already possible to identify a potentially suitable audience. But it was only when cookies came about that tracking the performance of ads became feasible. 

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, by 2010 some sites were using over 100 tracking cookies at a time. Among the surveyed sites “some two-thirds of the tracking tools installed—2,224—came from 131 companies that, for the most part, are in the business of following Internet users to create rich databases of consumer profiles that can be sold.”

Third-party cookies became a very popular media topic at the time. Tracking users and consumer privacy was a controversial issue. Nonetheless, despite multiple attempts to stop advertising companies from gathering user data for the purpose of targeting ads, all the directives and laws were either ignored or bypassed. 

The phasing out of the third party cookies

Since 2011, the ad tech industry has grown to insane proportions. Despite Google Ads and Facebook dominating the advertising industry, there were many smaller and bigger ad networks created. DoubleClick (later bought by Google), Yahoo!, Baidu, Criteo, and others were all working alongside social media platforms in filling the web with advertisements. 

In fact, the online advertising market grew by 93% between 2011 and 2016 as reported by European Audiovisual Observatory. Additionally, in 2016, online advertising surpassed TV advertising in revenue. And thus the data collected about individuals browsing the web became worth its weight in gold.

However, to meet the rising consumer expectations and concerns, cross-site tracking had to be limited. This time… effectively.

The main reason for changes was that cookie consent notices established in 2009 were found to be largely ineffective. According to academic research on GDPR consent notices, most pop-ups didn’t fulfill their purpose. They failed to be informative, they offered pre-selected switches in favor of ad tracking, or they offered a single confirmation button with no visible option to decline third-party data.

Apple takes the stand against ad tracking

Apple was the company that took the first step towards limiting ad tracking and protecting the user identity on the worldwide web. In 2015, the release of iOS 9 brought many improvements along with one special functionality – to block ads in Safari. It then became possible to create all kinds of ad content blocking extensions for iOS devices. 

The decision has not been met with enthusiasm from Google and the whole $70 billion mobile marketing business. Publications like the WSJ’s Apple’s Ad Blockers Rile Publishers, or Tech Times’ Ad-Blocking Feature In iOS 9 May Cripple Mobile Advertising Industry, and Techwalls’ Apple’s Anti-ads iOS 9 will Worry the Media Industry expressed the attitudes clearly. 

Apple was doing the right thing. However, it was not the right thing for the advertising industry. Limiting the availability of ad spots could raise the prices for iOS publishers and make it generally more difficult to advertise on iOS devices. And while Google has already been in trouble once for circumventing the privacy measures in Safari, it was once again sharing tips on how to get around the new Apple security rules. 

That was the first blow to mobile advertising. According to Statista, Apple has sold over 230 million devices all over the world, just in the year 2015. By giving that many users control over whether they want to see ads or not, Apple has caused anxiety to many web publishers relying on mobile audiences. 

In 2017, Apple decided to go one step further by introducing Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 (ITP 2.0). While this update made Safari one of the best web browsers when it comes to user’s privacy, it severely complicated the lives of performance marketers. Third-party cookies were no longer allowed unless extra steps were taken. The workarounds, however, often made it more difficult to accurately track data. 

Apple’s decision to kill third-party cookies had, once again, a negative impact on companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Ads could still be shared, however, since personal data and preferences were no longer recorded, the ads could not be properly managed. 

The introduction of ITP 2.1 and 2.2 deepened the problem. As of May 2019, first-party cookies were filtered by functionality, and the analytical ones were deleted after 24 hours. And what does that mean for advertising? The workarounds no longer worked. Ad tech giants could no longer track user activity outside a 24-hour window in the Safari browser.

E-commerce advertisers who used the first-party cookie to save data about website visitors could no longer use that. It used to be possible to score a conversion after sending reminders to users who have abandoned their shopping carts or didn’t make a purchase after browsing the site. After Apple’s ITP (2.1, 2.2, and then 2.3) a user had to make a purchase within the same session. Otherwise, the funnel (displaying an ad – sending an email reminder – receiving a conversion) would be broken. An advertiser would still receive a conversion but without accurate data on where it actually came from (email campaigns vs. the original ad).   

Firefox takes steps to improve user privacy

Starting in 2018, Firefox began to gradually improve its privacy policies. At first, third-party cookie blocking and tracker blocking became possible. In January 2019, Firefox 65 introduced options for handling third-party cookies. 

In an opinion piece by What’s New in Publishing, the new options have been called a mere bump in the road. The author claims the Firefox update is most likely to affect only smaller and less trusted publishers. Additionally, Firefox’s insignificant global share of the market (under 5%) means not many businesses will be affected. 

Although Mozilla’s actions were nowhere near as severe as Apple’s, they allowed users to decide how much they’re willing to share. The three options – standard, strict, and custom gave users options to refuse cookies from all unvisited websites, all third-party cookies, or all cookies (including first-party cookies). The strictest options came with a warning about causing some websites to break or malfunction.

In further updates, third-party cookie blocking became a default (not only for the private mode as was the case before). By January 2020, Firefox added default blocking of crypto miners, device fingerprinting, social tracking protection, and a Facebook Container. That last feature made it very difficult for Facebook to collect data about what the logged-in users are doing on other websites.

As reported by Wired, Mozilla has acknowledged that there will be a negative impact on publishers, however, it’s only a matter of time before new technologies will replace third-party cookies. Finding alternative privacy-oriented solutions is a sustainable long-term investment, so rather than worrying about the revenue, publishers will find better ways to target ads.

The beginning of Google’s Privacy Sandbox

Finally, Google was forced to take initiative. In August 2019, Google announced the Privacy Sandbox. While acknowledging the issue of the invasiveness of the omnipresent third-party cookies, Google noticed that the attempt to replace them gave rise to another tracking technology, namely, fingerprinting. As a consequence, Google’s proposal was to create new web standards that would protect users’ privacy while retaining some form of individual user tracking and ad targeting.  

In January 2020, Google announced plans to gradually phase out third-party cookies in Chrome. Their two-year plan included limiting cross-site tracking and giving users more control over third-party cookies. The announcement posted on the Chromium blog also criticized the actions of other browsers saying that blocking third-party cookies, […] has unintended consequences that can negatively impact both users and the web ecosystem. 

Although third-party cookie data will no longer be used to track users, HubSpot reminds all those concerned about the integrity of the ad tech supply chain that this is not the end of online advertising. Google – the search giant – has stated in their blog post they will work with advertisers to ensure that targeting ads will be possible without infringing on user privacy.

Additionally, first-party cookies are still vital. They would remain an integral part of every user’s browser to ensure a smooth experience within the same site. Google’s Privacy Sandbox is also meant to include a replacement for third-party cookies in Chrome. 

What’s the current state of Internet cookies?

When in 2019 Europe’s high court ruled that pre-checked consent boxes for tracking were illegal, a large part of the advertising industry noted significant reporting losses. Tracking without explicit user consent was outlawed permanently. At that point, it was known that changes were coming. 

As of March 2020, third-party cookies are automatically blocked in Safari. Apple was once again the first company to make another big move towards protecting the privacy of its users. Additionally, Apple also blocked fingerprinting, thus making it virtually impossible to track the same user across different sites in the Safari browser.

However, the popular misconception that Google Analytics will no longer work in Safari is not true. Yes, third-party trackers known to collect information about individual users will be blocked. However, as Google Analytics is not one of those trackers, it will continue to work as before. 

One year later, in February 2021, Mozilla introduced total cookie protection in Firefox 86. In simple terms, Firefox will now not only block cookies left by popular tracking companies, but it will also keep all cookies separate. Meaning, no cookies can be used to track you from site to site as you browse the web.  

At last, Google’s original plan to replace third-party cookies by 2022 had to be postponed to late 2023. The reasoning behind this decision was to give more time to advertisers and publishers to familiarize themselves with new ad technologies. The new cookie-replacing solutions are supposed to be integrated into the Chrome Browser before late 2022. This would give the digital advertising industry a long period to move and adapt before the final cut-off in late 2023.

Still, the ad tech industry is skeptical about some of the new third-party cookie alternatives. Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) was Google’s first web tracking alternative that was meant to be developed as a part of Google’s Privacy sandbox. Instead of sharing user data with third-party companies, it would store the data inside the browser. It would also group people into ‘cohorts’ based on the demographic, their habits, and interests.  

Soon after the announcement, The Wall Street Journal and many others have reported that both Mozilla and a lesser-known browser – Brave, are not planning to participate in using the system. The main argument against FLoC is that it harms user privacy in a different way than cookies did, possibly more severely. DigiDay points out that this particular method of targeting could enable discriminatory targeting or data use.

Furthermore, Financial Times said the delay along with the introduction of FLoC seems to be designed to benefit Google. They’re not only responsible for the design of cohorts but also for the effectiveness of the new system. The new developments have even sparked an antitrust investigation into Google’s practices. 

By October 2021, FLoC had been rejected by all major browsers, pushing back the end of the testing phase from the end of Q2 to the end of Q3 2022. In January 2022, the FLoC project has been scrapped and replaced with Topics API.

Topics API assigns each website a topic and then collects information on user browsing habits based on said topics. The main difference between FLoC and Topics API is that users are not grouped in cohorts, thus preventing unique user identification. While Topics API seems to be an improvement over FLoC when it comes to privacy, Search Engine Land claims it’s unlikely that Firefox, Safari, Edge or other browsers will adopt Google’s proposal […].

As reported by The Drum, there’s already been some harsh criticism from advertisers. The solution is said to provide some value to large advertisers but none to smaller businesses with lesser budgets. Targeting based on a limited number of Topics is simply not accurate enough to yield satisfactory results.

While Google works to replace third-party cookies, advertisers can discover the blooming market of alternative advertising solutions and cookieless ad formats.

Conclusion 

Although the invention of cookies has brought a lot of improvements to the way the web works, it’s also brought a lot of concerns in terms of Internet browsers handling personal data. The growth of the digital advertising industry fueled by a breakneck gathering of behavioral data has caused third-party cookies to be one of the most talked-about subjects of the previous decade. 

Nonetheless, the rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions slowly brought back privacy for the web community but as a consequence weakened the ad tech industry. 

As of now, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox are both blocking third-party cookies by default. They both have additional options to block first-party data from being shared across sites.

Opera and Edge don’t block third-party cookies by default, however, they both have certain options to increase privacy. 

Google Chrome does not block third-party cookies by default although it does provide extensive options for managing privacy settings. As the most popular browser, it relies most heavily on the ad tech ecosystem. That’s also why instead of making drastic changes, Google announced they will be slowly phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the next two years. 

As existing technologies are departing from their reliance on third-party data, digital marketers will have to adjust. The ad tech giants can rely on first-party data but brands and agencies will have other options to turn to.  

You don’t have to feel powerless against the constantly changing cookie regulations. If you’re looking for an innovative cookieless way to advertise your brand, NewProgrammatic can help you achieve consistent results.

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The post What’s happening with browser cookies? Advertising industry in the face of third-party cookie phase-outs. appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.

Before the Internet evolved to its present form it was a lot less practical. Each visit was a separate, completely anonymous event. But that didn’t work so well for many sites, especially e-commerce ones. As necessity is the mother of inventions, it was necessary to give the web a memory. 

And thus cookies were created. They allowed websites to keep track of who visits them and what they’re looking at. It wasn’t long before the advertising industry saw the immense potential of using cookies to personalize ads. 

If you’re curious about the peculiarities of cookies and how they transformed the advertising industry, read on and learn how a small text file can cause so much controversy.

What are cookies?

Cookies, often referred to as HTML cookies, HTTP cookies, Internet cookies, or browser cookies, are small text files used to identify individual users browsing the web. They are indigenous to the visited websites and are stored on the user’s computer via web browsers. Essentially, cookies allow each site to recognize a user as the same person that has visited the site before.

In practice, when you visit a website it drops a cookie on your computer. That cookie keeps you logged in and keeps track of your activities (such as setting filters while browsing a store or storing items in your cart). When you visit next time, the site knows it’s the same person again.

Cookies can have different purposes as well. While we’ll discuss the types of cookies in the next section, they all serve one of the following two purposes:

• Managing a single browsing session – these are the cookies briefly described above. They keep track of browsing activities within the same session, thus ensuring a smooth user experience and streamlined e-commerce transactions. 
• Managing multiple separate sessions – these are the cookies that are able to identify an individual user over multiple separate sessions. They’re used in cases such as keeping users logged in or saving browsing preferences and history. 

What are different the types of cookies?

Apart from the most popular distinction into third-party and first-party cookies (to be discussed below), HTTP cookies can be divided by the period of activity.

Session cookies – also called transient cookies or temporary cookies, last only one same site session. A session cookie is not stored on the hard drive and is deleted as soon as the user is done browsing the site. This is the cookie that has a unique session identifier that allows it to recognize a single user as they move through the site.

Persistent cookies – also referred to as permanent cookies, last over multiple sessions. Among the most popular ones are tracking cookies and authentication cookies, however, their range of functionality also includes remembering any changes made to a website including language, theme, favorites, preferred shipping addresses, payment methods, etc.

Flash cookies – are no longer in use, however, they were not a type of HTTP cookie. They weren’t stored in the browser but in the Adobe Flash browser application. Because of that, they had to be managed (cleared) separately. 

Before the end of Adobe Flash Player in late 2020, flash cookies were the most popular type of zombie cookies. Zombie cookies take the form of a small bit of code (rather than a text file) which is capable of recreating removed HTTP cookies. Flash cookies were also extremely difficult (or impossible) to delete which, in 2010, has brought on a lawsuit on companies who used them. 

Third-party vs. First-party cookies

The biggest distinction in browser cookies is based on who the cookie belongs to. There are no other technical differences, meaning, both cookies are the same in characteristics but different in origin and usage. 

A first-party cookie belongs to the owner of the website. It’s created by the host domain and its main purpose is to manage the single browsing session. It remembers what users are doing, what parts of the website they’re visiting, and the changes they make to the site (e.g. adding items to the shopping cart). Apart from ensuring a good web browsing experience, first-party cookies collect analytical information that can only be accessed by the owner of the website. 

A third-party cookie belongs to someone other than the website owner, e.g. an ad tech platform. The main purpose of a third-party cookie is to track user activity across the web. Sometimes, these cookies are used to provide third-party services (such as a live chat), however, most of the time, they’re used for online advertising activities.  

How are first-party cookies used in advertising?

First-party cookies are generally not used in advertising. They belong to the website owner and they can only be used by the said owner. There are, however, some exceptions. First-party data can be stored in data management systems. From there, it is possible to share it with third-party vendors. First-party data can also be shared as a form of partnership between websites.

How are third-party cookies used in advertising?

Third-party cookies are an integral part of the web pages that millions of users visit on a daily basis. The browser stores them on a user’s computer, essentially allowing the third parties to gather an extensive profile of each unique user on their web server. And if a certain ad company knows the location, reading habits, interests, and recent purchases of a single individual, they can target and retarget ads between various sites and companies to serve ads of products that individual is actually interested in. 

And how does a third-party cookie find its way into a website? It’s a simple process. A lot of websites make money by ‘renting’ space to advertisers. Hence, they simply allow others to place cookies in the form of an ad or an invisible pixel on their site. 

Also, web pages used to have no limits on storing cookies. Before regulations introduced by Apple, Mozilla, and finally Google, each user could have been tracked by multiple 3rd-party cookies at the same time. That way, a user’s browsing history, preferences, areas of interest over multiple visits, user’s shopping cart, and various other data was known to other websites and used for the purpose of ad targeting.

Are cookies good or bad?

The answer to this question is not straightforward. Cookies have a purpose – to remember what a user is doing and where just so they can facilitate a smooth web browsing experience. Thanks to cookies, we stay logged in, we have a list of favorites and we receive ads of products we looked at. Cookies can provide users with ads of products they wanted to buy anyway but with a special discount. They can be useful but at the cost of privacy. 

It will be clear from the following section why third-party cookies are slowly eliminated. However, before we judge cookies as either good or bad, it is important to learn what they’re capable of and where the privacy concerns are coming from.

The early history of cookies

To understand the current attitudes towards cookies we need to take a look at their history. Cookies were created in 1994 by Lou Montulli, a web browser programmer at Netscape Communications. The idea behind cookies was simple – they would allow people shopping at an e-commerce site to store their items in a virtual shopping cart. As reported by The New York Times, this was the first instance in the history of the Internet where a website’s data could be reliably stored on a user’s computer. 

In 1995, Montulli applied for the patent for the cookie technology, and just the same year it was implemented in version 2 of Internet Explorer. Although cookies have already become an integral part of the web experience, they were working entirely behind the scenes.

This is where the first concerns appeared as well. While the public enjoyed the comfort that came with individual tracking, the more tech-savvy user raised their concerns. That led to the publication by the Financial Times in February 1996. It wasn’t what the cookies were that alarmed people, it was what they might be used for. 

And thus the issue of consumer online privacy was born. Let’s remember that at that point in time, cookies were not used for advertising purposes. It didn’t mean, however, that their potential wasn’t noticed and considered in a much broader light that far exceeded their initial purpose.

The first directive to block third-party cookies

The realization that cookies could be shared with and exchanged between their origin websites and across a whole network of sites made cookies, and to be exact, third-party cookies a hot topic. Within a year, the existing advertising companies have already begun exploiting third-party cookies to track users and follow them around with ad campaigns. 

This is also the reason why the Internet Engineering Task Force’s recommendation (RFC 2109) to block third-party cookies was not followed. Both the then-popular Netscape Navigator browser and the newcomer Internet Explorer ignored the plea. The browsers were set to automatically accept third-party cookies and, at the time, there was no way of enforcing a different state of action.

To curb the arising negativity and dispel any rumors, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) released a statement explaining exactly what cookies are and what they are not. Here is the beginning of the statement:

The popular rumors about web cookies describe them as programs that can scan your hard drive and gather information about you including: passwords, credit card numbers, and a list of the software on your computer. None of this is close to the truth. A cookie is a short piece of data, not code, which is sent from a web server to a web browser when that browser visits the server’s site. The cookie is stored on the user’s machine, but it is not an executable program and cannot do anything to your machine.

The start of a war on third-party cookies

Coming into the 21st century, the ad tech industry was becoming adept at utilizing third-party cookies. In 1999, DoubleClick (one of the biggest internet advertising companies, now part of Google) had planned to merge with a company specializing in collecting user’s personal data for the purpose of online advertising. The negative public reaction was so severe that the plan had to be abandoned.

In 2000, another RFC directive was released. This highly technical document specified how and when each kind of cookie is supposed to be used. This was supposed to cater to the needs of the browsers that didn’t comply with the RFC 2109 directive. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The new types of cookies were hardly ever used and quickly sunk into oblivion.

Rapid gathering of third-party data

In the meantime, the usage of cookies runs rampant. According to the investigation done by The Wall Street Journal in 2010, user data was being regularly exchanged for website access. The 50 sites checked by TWSJ have installed over 3,000 tracking files on the computer used in the study. 

As expected, it was the ad tech giants that were tracking users most scrupulously. The concept of user privacy was slowly disappearing. Some sites didn’t allow for blocking third-party cookies and although tracking was disclosed in the privacy policies, the extent of it was further than people could imagine. The 2002 ePrivacy directive, requiring websites to inform users about what data is being tracked and allowing them to opt-out was not entirely successful.

Third parties would not only gather data on users’ behavior, and location, but also on their age, gender, income, marital status, health concerns, purchases, and interests. Some would go as far as recording keystrokes thus completely violating consumer privacy in the race for most accurate data collection. 

The cookie law 

The unrestrained user tracking finally led to firm actions from the Federal Trade Commission and the European Union. In 2011, the Cookie Law came into play. Otherwise known as the Directive 2009/136/EC, it established that it’s illegal to place third-party cookies on a user’s device without their consent. Companies were no longer allowed to collect data without informing users and receiving their permissions.

Of course, the directive didn’t include first-party cookies or any other tracking technologies used to provide a smooth user experience. It was simply the breakthrough moment when all of the pop-ups started appearing asking users for permission to collect third-party data. An ad network could still target ads but only to those who explicitly consented.

Why are third-party browser cookies disappearing?

The web community has always been skeptical about web servers gathering information about user browsing habits. After all, cookies store not only information necessary for the functioning of websites, but also information about their interests and interactions. That might include sensitive data and personally identifiable information. 

Cookies created without user consent could follow individuals around the web. Despite GDPR laws and directives, consent pop-ups were still designed to trick users into accepting browser cookies. And while it was possible to delete cookies, some (like Zombie cookies) would stay on the visitor’s computer without their permission, thus propelling shady advertising practices. 

That prompted a new privacy-oriented trend. Started by Apple in 2015, browser cookies were given less and less power in favor of user control. Despite the ad tech industry’s reliance on permanent cookies, the biggest web browsers on the market started taking these security concerns seriously. After Apple has enabled ad blocking in Safari, other browsers followed with increasingly stricter cookie policies. 

A timeline of browser cookie phase-outs

2015 – Apple allows third-party ad blockers on Safari. Users who didn’t want to see any more ads could simply install an ad blocker from the app store. A browser cookie that would normally be ‘hidden’ in an ad, would no longer be able to land on the user’s computer.

2017 – Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 disables browser cookies coming from third parties. Users would still be shown ads, however, as Safari wouldn’t accept cookies from the publishers of the ad, the data stored in a cookie was no longer available. Hence – no accurate tracking and revenue attribution.

2019 – Mozilla introduces options for handling cookies and the option to disable cookies coming from third parties. This decision affected mainly smaller publishers but it paved the way for other browsers to further disable cookies used for tracking.

2019 – Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.2 limits the tracking functionality of first-party cookies. So first-party data became only accessible for 24 hours which didn’t restrict website functionality but made it difficult to analyze data coming from complicated funnels that used first-party cookies. 

2019 – Google announces the Privacy Sandbox. As the browser that relies most heavily on advertising revenue, Google Chrome was most reluctant to introduce any changes. That’s why the Privacy Sandbox project was meant to focus on finding alternatives to persistent cookies rather than removing them completely. 

2020 – Safari introduces automatic third-party cookie blocking.

2020/2021 – Google announces plans to gradually phase out third-party cookies by early 2023. Initially, the plan was to be realized by 2022, however, Google keeps postponing further steps due to the ongoing development of alternative tracking solutions and the rejection of FLoC by all major browsers. 

2021 – Mozilla introduces total cookie protection completely limiting tracking its users across multiple sites.

2022 – Google abandons FLoC in favor of a new, less controversial solution – Topics API.

By mid-2021 cookies have slowly become obsolete. While first-party cookies are here to stay, third-party data will no longer be gathered and shared between the ad tech giants and the rest of the advertising industry. If every time a user starts an app they are asked for permission to be tracked, they will only agree only 25% of the time, as shown by the most recent Apple update.  

These developments have brought cookies back to their primary form. They’re once again used to make the browsing experience easier and more convenient without infringing on user privacy. 

What’s the future of advertising?

There is no place for third-party cookies in the future of advertising. After third-party cookie-based ad formats peaked in the 2010s there’s been a growing tendency towards more privacy-oriented solutions. 

It was Apple that started the trend of giving consumers more control over being tracked around the web for the purpose of ad targeting. Consequently, the attitudes have changed and now all of the major browsers are either limiting or eliminating third-party tracking altogether. Thus, old targeting and retargeting methods are no longer working. There is, however, more space for alternative advertising solutions, be it first-party data, contextual targeting, or a yet-to-be-discovered technology.

Google, Facebook, and other tech giants who are most affected by the changes will continue to search for alternative methods of keeping their ad businesses alive. In the meantime, the last bits of third-party advertising is dying and brands are moving to cookieless ad formats.

If you’d like to learn more about the most recent changes, read about the state of the advertising industry in the face of third-party cookie phaseouts.

Conclusion

As for the ad tech industry, it is hard at work trying to replace browser cookies with other methods of effective advertising. For the past couple of years, it’s been clear that browser cookies coming from third parties (tracking cookies) are not welcome anymore.

Some of the largest companies in the world are now in the rush to future-proof their advertising. To answer the suddenly increasing demand, innovative and cookie-less ad formats are starting to emerge. These can not only bring customers to the desired website without cookies or any other third-party tags or trackers but also do it more effectively than traditional ad formats while maintaining brand safety and user privacy.

Would you like to learn more about future-proofing your advertising with cookie-less ad formats? Request an exploratory call with a NewProgrammatic expert, and let’s get the ball rolling!

 Ask us about effective cookie-less ad formats!

The post What are browser cookies? The history of cookies in digital advertising. appeared first on NewProgrammatic Blog.