But every year, inventions and improvements in ad-tech technology, as well as new advertising possibilities, emerge – and 2022 will be no different.

The below list of programmatic trends in 2022 will make a great cheat sheet for every marketer and brand looking to scale their business. 

Key trends for programmatic advertising in 2022

In this article, we have listed a set of the most important programmatic trends for 2022. Following those should be undoubtedly a significant point of any brand’s and advertiser’s agenda for this year.

It highlights the pivotal directions that the programmatic advertising industry will follow in the months to come, and as the year progresses, the programmatic advertising world will have a chance to track trends’ relevancy and adjust strategies.

UX-centric approach

One of the key programmatic advertising trends for 2022 for all the brands and advertisers is putting an increased effort into the UX. User demands are changing over time, so it is crucial to be regularly updated about the latest trends and behaviors.

Currently, brands need to take really good care of the user experience while being presented with their campaigns. As the audience tends to base their judgment on their comfort, the wisest marketing tactics would be to deliver the highest standard of service.

A two-way trust between a brand and its audience is beneficial for the well-being of any programmatic campaign in 2022. Modern internet users are highly conscious of their privacy but are not unwilling to share their data. The trust is being built by allowing them to choose who should be processing it and for what purposes.

Another trend that really helps brands achieve a desired level of UX is sustaining proper ad relevancy and intention-based targeting. By showing already purchase-driven users content they expect, brands can easily challenge competition while still delivering a pertinent ad to the audience.

Cookieless-based approach

Rising concerns over online privacy and third-party data circulation enforced major changes to the way information about users is perceived by brands and marketers. To win the audience’s trust, a company must be following the expectations regarding the usage of data within marketing efforts.

As a shift toward safe first-party data could have been worrying about some advertisers, in 2022 the trend will only intensify. Some brands worry that changes will disable all possible ways of audience targeting, but this concern is unfounded. With programmatic ad buying solutions relying on first-party data, advertisers are able to target their audience precisely based on their intent.

This is definitely something the whole industry should be really careful about. We recommend visiting our blogpost on the future of programmatic advertising in a cookieless world to find out more about the topic.

Leveraging first-party data

Following the patterns of third-party data processing is a trend that brands and marketers should follow in order to fulfill environmental expectations. Should a respected brand follow outdated, third-party cookies-based schemes and solutions, it could potentially lose credibility among the audience.

The marketing industry should firstly be highly aware of their target users’ preferences, and secondly, make the greatest use of first-party-based solutions. This way users’ online privacy inclinations are satisfied as the data is processed in a highly competent, safe, and professional manner.

NewProgrammatic ad exchange platform offers exactly that – proper data processing, and safe and user-compliant methods of receiving it.

Brand safety and brand visibility

Programmatic advertising enabled the whole marketing industry to really guard brands’ good reputations. The decision of trusting the programmatic buying solutions created a safe space for advertisers where they are able to filter out all the unwanted traffic and attract only a specific type of audience.

Using programmatic keyword targeting allows brands to focus on specific search queries and keywords. This filters out all the potential unwanted programmatic displays on unwanted domains.

This type of management has become a crucial part of creating a brand’s online presence and is definitely a beneficial marketing practice.

Many advertisers tend to forget how important the image of a brand (as media buyers) is when it comes to online advertising. Having a respected environment of ad display is, by all means, helpful, and raises the possibility of conversion with an engaged user is much higher.

The same solutions are being constantly used as a form of reaching the potential customer before the competition, as well as a way to build the brand’s presence and recognizability. Brand awareness among potential customers is the foundation of creating a strong position in the market. Programmatic ad tech is a solution that enables that at an unparalleled-before rate and precision.

New Generations of the programmatic advertising audience

The two newest generations of consumers and media users are revolutionary for the advertising industry, as both of them have been raised with broad access to technologies. Now that Gen Z and Millennials are making purchase decisions and are responsible for market trends, their behaviors and preferences should be taken into serious consideration by all the marketing industry – the programmatic field in particular.

New technology as a platform to deliver ads

With younger consumers being more technologically advanced and competent with different kinds of devices, it would be unwise for advertisers to neglect the rising importance of innovation.

The numbers represent it clearly. Statista presented us with research findings that claimed that in 2020 there were 83.7 million AR (Augmented Reality) and a combined 50,2 million VR (Virtual Reality) users in the U.S. only. This has become even more important, as both AR and VR tools are starting to be the cornerstone of metaverse advertising that is being intensely developed as per Q1 of 2022.

The predictions are that by 2023 the U.S. AR user count will increase to 110.1 million while the VR device user count will exceed 66 million. This exponential rise in popularity of those tech solutions will in fact be something to explore in the future, especially with metaverse possibly reaching new highs in the years to come.

Connected TV (CTV) ad opportunities

Programmatic CTV is also a trend that has been visible for a long time, and it refers to increasing accessibility to internet-connected TV devices. In 2022 Connected TV is more popular than ever, and streaming services have finally started to monetize their immense traffic by advertising.

Brands are once again given another chance to reach a new type of customer by accessing the content provider users’ first-party data. For advertisers, it means that they could narrow their targeting even more and contextually try to interest a specified type of viewer.

Search advertising possibilities

Voice search functionality was at first (when introduced at the beginning of the second decade of the XXI century) only innovation, and the market would not perceive it as a groundbreaking change.

But with the improvements in artificial intelligence, major upgrades of virtual assistants, and the introduction of smart devices (such as speakers), people have started to use voice search more intensively. Voicebot.ai report shows that over a third of adults have used this kind of search, and the numbers will be rising.

This tool is not only a great solution for visually and physically impaired users but also something that programmatic advertising professionals should look carefully into. Voice queries are usually longer than what a user would search by typing (even up to 5 or 6 words long), and most often have a form of a question rather than a keyword cluster.

The video ads sector is keeping its trajectory

Video formats are something that advertising brands embraced a few years ago when text-based formats had to give the floor to newer solutions. This is strongly based on user preferences, and the rising popularity of TikTok is only another proof of the concept.

Ephemeral video clips are clearly something that the audience seeks in 2022, and it’s a perfect opportunity for advertisers. The digital ad spend for video formats has also been rising, and as Statista predicts, in 2022, it will reach $43 billion. It is almost double of video programmatic ad spend from 2019, which was $24.5 billion.

Mobile importance

A good idea for any advertiser would be to really focus on mobile advertising opportunities. This relates both to implementing more mobile-friendly solutions and introducing programmatic advertising to new portable devices.

Wearable tech is yet another way of reaching ad receivers, as smartwatches, smart bands, and other smart devices become more accessible and are equipped with better screens now.

The marketing industry has already become almost entirely mobile-optimized in a response to user preferences and year-by-year mobile growth. This is definitely something that brands and advertisers should stick to and definitely good practice for any marketing team member.

Buy now – pay later platforms

When analyzing buy now-pay later platforms, marketers should have two perspectives in mind. The first one is user-centric, and the other focuses on how brands could benefit from engaging with such traffic sources.

For a brand, it is always beneficial to narrow the campaigns down to those users, who are already convinced to make a purchase. By approaching positive consumers, the marketer increases the conversion chance of a programmatic ad campaign, while basically doing the user a real favor.

The well-targeted campaign will be a perfect response to the search query, with the possibility of customer bouncing significantly decreasing. The buy now – pay later model enables more brand safety, as the trail of the user is more likely to lead to a conversion.

The studies show that younger adults have currently very little trust for any form of loan or credit. Simply delaying the payment without going into any debt is a perfect answer for their needs.

One of the most prolific buy now-pay later is of course Klarna, which recorded $80 billion gross merchandise volume in 2021. Offering both highly efficient Search Autocomplete and Tiles traffic, it showcases how efficient NewProgrammatic features can become in a capable advertiser’s hands.

What is also a very important peculiarity of this type of online shopping, is the fact that it most usually revolves around transactions of a higher cost. Buy now – pay later platforms are obviously most widely used during more expensive purchases. This is why it’s a very convenient tool for those brands that want to attract higher-spending users.

Vertical search engines

In order to receive exact and already-filtered search results, users have begun to pay increased attention to specialized search engines. Vertical search programmatic advertising allows the brands to really omit the traditional, horizontal search engine (like Google) struggle to position the ads.

Instead of that, marketers can reach users based on their intentions within vertical search engines. Those are really easy to find out, as in this case, the audience more eagerly shares their data. Most often, they visit the search engine in order to make a purchase. Reaching an already-convinced audience is one of the most effective strategies in the industry, and is highly recommended for all advertisers.

In-house programmatic advertising

Another trend that brands are currently intensively following, is the progressive shift towards in-house programmatic advertising.

In the past, due to the technological complexity of programmatic solutions, this particular area of marketing was slightly falling behind other fields of advertising in terms of the ongoing in-house shift. As most of the marketing (i.e., traditional advertising) was gradually absorbed by companies, marketing professionals focusing on programmatic ad solutions were still mostly outsourced. But as a broad understanding of the topic rose, more and more experts have been hired to operate in-house for the companies.

The in-house form of conducting campaigns imposes the necessity of having only the highest-skilled professionals on board. In this configuration, utilizing a trusted programmatic advertising platform could outperform any other form of outsourced programmatic ads operations.

This particular type of employment allows marketers to better fathom and plan a brand’s programmatic ads strategy, decreasing the operation’s expenditure and making space for more extensive programmatic ad spending. It is also a brilliant way of holding more control over successive steps of the campaign planning and bringing transparency to programmatic campaigns – without any external middlemen.

According to IAB’s 2020 research, as much as 74% of EU-based programmatic advertising was conducted in-house, while in the U.S. it reached 69%. The researchers expect both of those values to rise in the following years.

Intent-based ads

Based on 1st party processed by trusted publishers, quality programmatic advertising platforms allow marketers to bid for digital ad space that best reaches those members of the audience, who show the most probable intention of purchase.

While in the past this approach was heavily reliant on third-party cookies, nowadays thanks to programmatic advertising technology, marketers and brands are able to operate on first-party data.

Once again, it is an optimal practice for companies, especially since, although cookies and third-party data are still present online, they soon will be discarded. It’s also a matter of brand safety of the respected entities to follow new, privacy-focused trends. Otherwise, users could not be so eager to engage with a campaign they are being shown.

Contextual targeting

With programmatic advertising platforms, it becomes possible to display ads in accordance with the context of the website. Brands shall use this functionality for precise audience targeting – for example, sportswear brands will benefit most from programmatic display on sports-related websites, and not just any other domain. Approaching an interest-correlative audience thoroughly increases the chance of conversion, as relevant content will simply attract more users’ attention.

Keyword targeting

It has also become a good practice for advertisers to narrow down their campaigns by using keyword targeting. This is yet another form of contextual advertising which allows marketers to focus on bidding for a certain audience. This allows brands to reach a highly qualified and marginal type of relevant users, and also filter out all the unwanted traffic.

Although this method of targeting has been already recognized by worldwide brands for a long time, the new, cookieless online environment highlights the best qualities of this feature – brand safety and precision.

Conclusions

Every marketer and each brand that wants to stay relevant needs to pay close attention to trending user-behavior patterns, preferred technologies, and ad formats. This is to ensure the maximum efficiency of their campaigns.

Up-to-date knowledge of all the latest programmatic advertising trends is the only way for brands to fully reach the potential of their marketing campaigns. Escalating intent-based and contextual targeting is one way to do that.

Most of the programmatic trends for 2022 will be continuations of what the industry started noticing in the previous years. Still, neglecting those could turn out to be a critical mistake, as doing so could potentially decelerate brand development.

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The digital marketing landscape has indeed changed a lot in the last decades, and online advertising is now facing a new era. So, what is the future of programmatic advertising going to be like in this new, cookieless world? Let’s find out.

The state of digital advertising in 2021 is looking good

The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t been easy for anyone and 2020 was indeed a challenging moment for the digital advertising industry, too. Still, despite the pandemic and major changes happening to third-party data tracking (that have really put a strain on the ad-tech world for a moment) programmatic came out of the turmoil in a pretty good and unshaken state — while also showing significant growth.

According to Statista, the global ad spend for programmatic advertising in 2020 reached an estimated 129 billion dollars, and is now predicted to exceed 150 billion dollars in 2021. As reported, such growth can be attributed to the rapidly increasing use of software and algorithms that help streamline and automate the ad buying and serving process, thanks to which programmatic has become “one of the most indispensable digital marketing tools worldwide”.

Also, according to IAB Europe and Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising Report 2020, we’re currently experiencing significant investment growth as programmatic budgets continue to increase. The percentage of advertisers who invest more than 41% of their display ads using programmatic solutions increased to 70% in 2020, from 55% recorded in 2019. 

The remaining months of 2021 will probably build even more anticipation for the great third-party cookies phase-out from Chrome, but this should only be seen as means to forming new strategies and adapting to new opportunities brought by the privacy-oriented trends that will continue throughout 2022. 

Overall, with new programmatic solutions emerging on the market every year, as well as brands and marketers increasingly recognizing the potential that lies with data-driven yet brand-safe solutions, the future is looking more than promising for the programmatic industry. 

The end of third-party cookies doesn’t mean the end of ad targeting

Speaking of the long-planned depreciation of third-party data tracking by all major browsers on the market, one thing is clear. The end of third-party cookies does not mean the end of user-targeted advertising. 

What it means is that brands and marketers now find themselves in need of user-oriented solutions that can still deliver desired results, but at the same time meet newly introduced privacy regulations. 

Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have naturally followed suit and thus responded with their own ways of enabling advertisers user-oriented ad targeting that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies. Because some of the proposed solutions haven’t been fully released to the ad-tech world just yet, as tech giants are constantly working on improving their post-cookies targeting systems, it’s hard to say which option is ultimately the best. 

Still, the good news for advertisers who have heavily relied on third-party data tracking in the past, and would like to continue targeting users in a similar yet privacy-compliant way, is that there will be ways to secure that kind of supply. And from many possible options, Google’s Privacy Sandbox seems to be at the forefront of a cookieless targeting race. 

Google Privacy Sandbox

The Privacy Sandbox initiative was announced in August 2019 and was first meant to be introduced in 2021. Due to a bigger scope of work needed for the project to fulfill its purpose, earlier this year Google has announced that they’ll be pushing the release date a year later — that is until 2023. 

But why the delay and what actually is Google’s solution to third-party cookies depreciation? 

The Privacy Sandbox by Google is a series of smaller projects and initiatives aiming to enable broad user targeting without third-party cookies or cross-site data targeting that could violate user privacy. What’s important is that the ideas come from other stakeholders in the ecosystem (the W3C group), not just the Chrome team alone. There are over 30 proposals that cover different scenarios, and Google developers are working on the key initiatives to deliver both user-friendly and advertiser-satisfactory solutions. 

The two core elements include:

• Replacement solutions for cross-site tracking that don’t rely on third-party cookies.
• Removing third-party cookies from Chrome completely once new solutions are implemented. 

Thus far, the key initiatives were FLoC (later on replaced by Topics API) and FLEDGE (TURTLEDOVE). 

FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts)

One of Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiatives is FLoC, a system of Federated Learning of Cohorst, aiming at creating a privacy-first mechanism for advertisers to target users based on collecting information regarding their interests rather than cross-browser data tracking. 

The way FLoC is supposed to enable Chrome and other browsers in the ecosystem to do that without third-party cookie tracking is the following.

• From the advertiser’s perspective: advertisers should add the FLoC algorithm code to their websites, which will allow browsers to collect the cohort data that can be then shared with various ad-tech platforms. If such a platform learns that a specific website provides a specific segment of cohorts that record shared interests, adequate ads will be served to that cohort. 
• From a user perspective: when a user enters various websites with the FLoC code added, their browser collects information about user interests. The FLoC algorithm then streamlines the interest data collected from various websites and browsers, and assigns interest cohorts to that user, without sharing other user or browsing data. 

FLEDGE (TURTLEDOVE)

To better understand the differences between the FLEDGE and FLoC proposal, there’s yet another term that needs discussing — it’s TURTLEDOVE.

• TURTLEDOVE stands for Two Uncorrelated Requests, Then Locally-Executed Decision on Victory and is more of a conceptual proposal rather than a technical solution.
• FLEDGE on the other hand is the subsequent technical experiment based on the concept of TURTLEDOVE. Similar to FLoC, it also has to do with collecting interest cohort information from browsers using the FLEDGE API.
• FLoC vs. FLEDGE — for the first solution it’s the internet browsers that assigns the cohort to a user. While the second one gives such possibility to publishers and ad-tech platforms, also allowing them to define the events that make a user belong to a specific cohort. So, the two options are similar in terms of creating audience segments and cohort-targeting but differ on the cohort-determination level. 

Topics API

After introducing the FLoC initiative in 2021, Google faced considerable criticism. The privacy-centric approach to tracking was found to have substantial shortcomings, potentially exposing Chrome users to discriminatory targeting practices.

After pushing the project’s launch date to 2022 and then 2023, the FLoC idea has recently been killed and replaced with Topics API.

• In Topics API, each website that chooses to participate would be manually mapped to a topic (based only on domains, not subpages).
• Users would be assigned topics from a limited pool of options (provided by both IAB’s Content Taxonomy and Google’s own review) based on their browsing habits from the previous three weeks.
• Topics associated with a particular user would be shared with each website that user visits to help advertisers show more relevant ads without revealing the browsing history of a user.

Why first-party data are the future of programmatic advertising

As Google pushes the Privacy Sandbox release date forward, brands and marketers are not eager to just sit and wait. Many stakeholders don’t want to be associated with third-party data tracking already, others don’t want to invest in solutions that can soon become deprecated, while others are simply hesitant towards soon-to-be targeting mechanisms that are still quite vague and not fully implemented. So, what’s left? 

The answer is first-party data, a brand-safe and privacy-friendly solution coming directly from users who voluntarily agree to share their data. And given third-party data seems so out-of-fashion in 2021, a new approach towards first-party data advertising has been adopted.

Possible solutions for brands to deliver ads without the use of third-party data tracking are:

• Waiting until Google’s Privacy Sandbox solution is released to the public. 
• Creating their own first-party data collection base.
• Partnering with ad-tech companies offering to enable the creation of such a client base.
• Relying on contextual advertising solutions working on first-party data only.
• Partnering with ad-tech companies enabling both creations of first-party data client base and contextual advertising solutions for brand-safe and cookie-free advertising strategy. 

Digital marketing trends for a cookieless future 

Digital marketing is facing the dawn of a cookieless era. This means that brands and marketers need to focus on both — securing a steady streamline of first-party data or another reasonable solution to track users on a broad scale, as well as tapping into the cookieless advertising trends quickly emerging on the market. 

Since no marketer wants to miss that train, here are our top 5 choices for digital marketing trends in a new, cookie-free world.

Programmatic advertising reigns supreme

As already reported, the prognoses are looking more than good for the programmatic industry in the upcoming year. With the global ad spend estimated to surpass 150 billion dollars in 2021, a 20% rise in marketers who claim to treat programmatic as one of their major advertising strategies, global efforts to establish new ways for advertisers to target their programmatic ads on a large scale without the use of third-party or cross-site data tracking, and even showing significant growth during and post-pandemic, there’s no doubt that programmatic ad serving will reign supreme in 2021 and upcoming years. 

Programmatic brought in-house

Due to advertising budget cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic threat, as well as the growing accessibility of programmatic solutions for both ad-tech savvy companies and brands that only recently became interested in automated ad buying, programmatic is now being brought in-house. 

It does not mean that each brand is now focused on building their own programmatic platforms — it costs time, energy, talent, and money. But with new programmatic solutions available on the market, it’s much easier to manage the process in-house while partnering up with platforms that have the technology and experience in helping brands make the most of their solutions. 

Growing investment in brand-safe solutions 

As a result of the shift in bringing the online advertising strategy in-house rather than relying on agencies only, as well as new opportunities emerging on the market, more brands are eager to invest in their own programmatic solutions. Also, brands are eager to invest more thanks to budget savings generated thanks to cutting out the middleman. Another explanation is that due to the pandemic, programmatic turned out to be one of the most direct ways for brands to reach their customers. Hence, increased investments into what seemed an only viable option, and has since proven effective — even in the post-pandemic time. 

First party-data over third-party targeting 

Naturally, those in the programmatic industry who want to stay on top of their game have to undergo a major transformation, too. That’s because programmatic advertising in a new cookieless era cannot afford to rely on outdated targeting methods or ad formats that don’t guarantee brand satisfaction. If brands are now looking for new programmatic solutions to meet their customer demand, ad-tech platforms need to do the same.

New solutions for cookieless advertising 

With a proven track record of successful programmatic campaigns through most difficult times, more brands using programmatic in-house, growing investments, and user-oriented changes made globally, the emergence of new programmatic solutions (especially at a dawn of a new cookieless era in advertising) is a natural consequence. Ad-tech platforms are now in for a treat to tap into a whole new demand market, and brands can’t wait for what the tech platforms have in store. 

Contextual advertising is back even though it has never left

Contextual advertising can be described as one of the oldest forms of advertising in general — whether it’s print or digital. And even though it has significantly evolved and transformed into a fully automated process of online media buying and selling, contextual advertising is now back to save the cookie-less world.

In the past years, cross-site tracking and third-party cookie targeting became extremely popular methods of identifying specific users online. Because of that, contextual advertising was moved to the sidelines. But with the recent call for increased user privacy and better transparency in data-sharing practices, major browsers needed to take actions to limit the use of third-party-data tracking. The shift in user privacy has now given way to the advent of contextual targeting — in a new, updated form.  

Contextual advertising can be now seen as a user-friendly and brand-safe way to connect with users based on their choice — instead of breaching user privacy and trust — becoming one of the easiest and most easily accessible alternatives to online advertising in a post-cookie world as reported by Forbes.

It doesn’t involve third-party cookies and is based solely on users’ choice to engage with a specific type of content. The evolved technology helps streamline the most adequate ad matching as well as allows for effective and efficient content categorization. But most importantly, it offers a continued and undisturbed supply of revenue for both advertisers and publishers, as well as a brand-safe and privacy-oriented form of advertising for brands and marketers. 

Brands that use programmatic solutions to up their game

With all the available answers to the problem we’re yet about to face — as third-party data tracking is still possible today, but soon won’t be — brands and marketers are now testing what strategy works best for their needs. And by brands, we mean a variety of products from cosmetics to gin brands. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google’s plans to restrict third-party data targeting prompted big brands to revamp their data strategies. This time the brand in question was Bacardi, testing their programmatic alternatives for Bombay Sapphire — one of the most popular gins on the market. After conducting test campaigns focused on targeting anonymized users, the WSJ reported that the brand saw an increase in CTR and cost efficiency while refraining from third-party data usage:

Bacardi says those and other encouraging signs give it confidence in its ability to build its brand and sell products even once it no longer has access to individual ad tracking and targeting technology that Google plans to move against next year.

But not all brands are happy to follow the suit — some try yet alternative methods for user targeting and try to outsmart tech-giants in their customer data collection practices as reported by the Wall Street Journal in their article on sidestepping Apple’s privacy rules. 

Yet for brands in need of cookieless solutions that don’t cause turmoil, we recommend following NewProgrammatic case studies that prove programmatic advertising can be both effective and brand-safe.

How can marketers prepare for a cookieless future?

The rapid evolution of data processing and proliferation of automated ad serving allowed for programmatic to shift its position from means only accessible to those with a strong technical background to a real game-changer available not only for media-buying agencies and advertisers, but also brands who now bring programmatic in-house. 

The digital landscape is constantly changing and tech platforms are now making everything they can to answer the demand for brand-safe and cookieless advertising that will appeal to both users and marketers. 

That’s why the best piece of advice anyone in the programmatic industry can get right now is to look for multiple privacy-oriented solutions to then diversify their digital strategy using both tried and tested, as well as newly emerged strategies to serve relevant ads that users want to receive.

Book a demo & see how NewProgrammatic can help your brand grow in a cookie-less world.

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