Simpli.fi, a company bringing the power of programmatic advertising to localized advertisers, is sharing this week its insider perspective of programmatic trends to expect in 2018.
The four predictions are based on the company’s experience executing over 80,000 localized programmatic campaigns each month for cable, TV, newspaper, and radio companies that serve local advertisers, and also for national multilocation brands looking to localize their campaigns.
Simpli.fi’s 2018 Programmatic Advertising Predictions include:
1. Programmatic Over-the-Top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) Advertising Comes of Age
Consumer viewing habits continue to evolve toward apps and internet-connected televisions. Currently there are already more than 56 million U.S. consumers who have cut the cord on traditional cable subscriptions (eMarketer), and by 2021 online and multichannel advertising are expected to account for nearly a third of all TV spending (PwC).
The changing landscape of how consumers view television content is influencing how television ad inventory is traded. In 2018 significantly more OTT and CTV inventory will be bought and monetized programmatically. Mobile will continue to be the go-to place for advertising and consumer engagement, but growth in OTT and CTV inventory means localized advertisers will have new opportunities with highly targeted video advertising in 2018.
2. Continued Flight to Quality Will Raise CPMs
Advertisers of all sizes want improved return on their advertising spend. In order to achieve higher ROI, smart advertisers will continue to seek out quality inventory that provides higher viewability and less fraudulent traffic. At the same time, the adoption of Ads.txt will reduce the supply of fraudulent and arbitraged inventory available to buyers.
The increased demand for high-quality inventory, coupled with the reduced supply of spoofed and fraudulent inventory, will cause prices to rise for legitimate, human-viewed inventory. The higher CPMs will in turn encourage more publishers to sell their inventory programmatically, providing more liquidity in the programmatic ecosystem.
3. Advanced Attribution Measures Will Cause a Decline of Dependence on CTR … Finally
Digital advertisers, especially smaller local advertisers, have long depended on the most basic, and often misleading, metric: the click-through-rate. In 2018, advertisers will finally start moving en masse to action-based metrics that provide a better measurement of the effectiveness of their campaigns.
This is because tag management solutions are making it easier for advertisers to place conversion pixels on their sites, and also because location-based attribution models that measure store traffic, like “foot traffic lift,” will be more commonly adopted. The ongoing growth of mobile advertising also supports the use of foot traffic-based attribution.
4. Omni-Channel Platforms Will Continue to Gain Momentum Over Point Solutions
While marketers know that people engage across devices and channels, many marketers still silo their ad programs (video, mobile, in-store, etc.), which limits data sharing both for targeting and attribution. Siloed campaigns can also result in a less-than-perfect customer experience.
In 2018 more advertisers will recognize the need to streamline workflows, leverage data and learnings across different media types, and attain omni-channel attribution. This approach will help localized advertisers identify the most relevant audience and reach them with a pertinent message at the optimal time on the devices they are using at that moment.
“One of the most exciting things about the programmatic advertising space is that it never stands still,” says Frost Prioleau, Simpli.fi Chief Executive Officer. “It’s constantly evolving, which means Simpli.fi is continually innovating. 2018 is going to be an exciting year that will be impacted by video viewing trends, the need for better measurement, and the ongoing momentum of mobile. Simpli.fi already provides unique offerings for our clients to support many of these trends, and we’re eager to continue to lead the market and move them from ‘predictions’ to ‘industry norms.’”
