About two years ago, rumors started circulating that Google was going to immunize its super-popular Chrome browser from cookies-those little snippets of code we use in retargeting. Now, in what is starting to feel an awful lot like a Groundhog Day-like phenomenon, Google has once again announced it is delaying third-party cookie
Digital price hikes are coming, but NOT necessarily for you.
We’ve received word that “significant” price hikes are expected to be folded into the world’s digital ad framework over the next few months. Those hikes follow the 2022 trend on many types of goods and services the world has seen skyrocket lately. Most of you probably aren’t too surprised to hear that inflation is about to hit our business. However, the industry is hiding a couple pretty darn important facts.
Fact 1: Brand Deliver works in the Real-Time Bid (RTB) market–an auction system set up to receive and accept bids on each impression we place. In fact, there is no “price” for any ad we place; the amount the ad costs us is based on how much higher we’re willing to bid than others. Reportely, 94 percent of all internet ads are placed through this massive system. And any prediction that this competitive marketplace is going to raise the threshold prices publishers demand just isn’t correct. When an open ad space if available on their pubished pages, no one is going to demand higher bids before it’s placed for one main reason: the amount of content suitable for ads has skyrocketed. New sites are introduced to the digital ad market daily, and we’re in a supply and demand business. The more space available, the more intense the competition is to receive ads.
Fact 2: Unlike most other digital ad houses, Brand Deliver is an ACTIVE trader. Many other firms actually hand off their communications to ad reps who decide how and where to place display ads…and that’s fine for some. However, we’ve learned that constantly monitoring ad placement and being willing to move quickly when opportnities arise is the key to effective AND economical campaigns.
Fact 3: The only price definitely going up is the “suggested bidding guidelines” the exchanges try to foist on us. For each locale we’re advertising in, we receive “suggested bid amounts,” the dollar amount the exchanges urge you to be willing to pay. Those suggestions are often the target of scorn and ridicule by buyers like Brand Deliver — we would be committing professional malpractice to blindly spend the money as fast as the exchanges would like. Our job is to get our customers the most repeated views we can from the best audience we can find. Doing that is a partly art and partly science. But budget allocation is an equally vital part of the process. And at Brand Deliver, our clients rely on us to be a smart buyer.
So when you hear about ad prices going up…relax. We have your back.
Larger budget? Diversify your channels.
Advertisers should branch out into the digital channels that maximize their impact and efficiency this election cycle. Many political marketers are focused on old-school political advertising, but gone are the days of only a handful of cable channels: the fragmentation of linear TV means that it doesn’t offer the same mass-reach that it used to. As such, a well-rounded, multi-channel approach is the best way for political advertisers to reach their audiences in 2022.
Connected TV is catching on big time—in fact, CTV share in programmatic political advertising grew a whopping 280% from 2018 to 2020. And while CTV will come with a higher price tag leading up to Election Day—Basis’ Spring 2020 survey of political marketing organizations showed that eCPMs for CTV averaged 3.5X that of other platforms and devices—political marketers have determined that the emotional impact, targetability, and unskippability of CTV ads make it well worth the investment.
A channel that political advertisers aren’t tapping into, but probably should be? Digital audio. It was barely used in political ads in 2020 (in part due to platform-based limitations), but in 2022 it’s the fastest-growing category in digital advertising as a whole. Political marketers should consider the high-quality audiences offered by audio: long-time podcast listeners who have trusted relationships with hosts, for example, or Spotify—which now allows political ads, by the way—listeners who are completely engaged with audio entertainment as they commute or take care of household chores.