Online video advertising and rich media has boomed in recent years, but what are the key display marketing trends to prepare for this year? Gustav Mellentin, CEO at Adform, looks at why video and social will be big drivers in online display advertising campaigns in 2013.
As we venture into 2013, the display marketing world is in the best shape it has been in for some while. Towards the back end of last year, a report I read on Broadband TV News revealed that global online advertising revenues will reach $143 billion in 2017. What’s more, it revealed that the 2017 total is more than double the $66 billion recorded in 2010 and considerably up from the $92 billion predicted for 2012.
The industry’s fantastic health is welcomed by all in the industry – with many putting its roaring success down to two factors. The first is the rise in automated technologies, specifically real-time bidding (RTB), which has made buying ads a much simpler process while also improving the ease with which campaign budgets can be managed. The second is the increased adoption of rich media formats – which have made online ads both more engaging and relevant to the average consumer’s surfing habits.
Over the course of the next three months however, certain steps will need to be taken to keep display’s success alive.
Making display approachable
With industry success comes hype, with hype comes enthusiasm and with enthusiasm comes industry jargon. Many other sectors have seen this before and online display advertising is the latest victim of this chain of events. Research we carried out at ad:tech London 2012 showed this, where under a third of marketers (32 per cent) can decipher the term RTB, despite IDC claims that the real-time bidding market is expected to be worth around £4 billion in ad spend by 2015 in the U. S. and major markets in Western Europe. Other key terms are unfamiliar to digital marketers, with only 26 per cent recognising DSP, 18 per cent understanding SSP and only 4 per cent identifying DCO (dynamic creative optimisation).
As display looks to achieve better integration with other marketing channels, the industry’s community should avoid speaking in riddles that are lost on other digital marketers and instead, focus on making display an approachable part of the multichannel mix.
Maximising mobile’s role
Mobile advertising spend doubled in 2012 to £500 million, pretty incredible when you consider that four years ago this figure was instead something closer to £25 million. Where the uptake of smartphones among consumers has boomed, brands have fallen over themselves to cobble together mobile propositions – with different levels of success.
Brands that will be best placed to successfully jump on the mobile marketing revolution in 2013 will need to consider two things. First: they need to take care not to get carried away to the point where mobile campaigns become segregated from the wider display strategy. Mobile needs to be integrated into the wider marketing mix just as any other element would be.
Second: the effectiveness of mobile marketing activities needs to be quantified and tested – jumping on the mobile bandwagon without a predetermined notion of how it will benefit the business is a dangerous move.
Working towards a single platform
Display marketers can seek the support of countless specialists to support various aspects of a campaign including those focused on dynamic creative optimisation, product re-targeting, exchange buying and campaign optimisation. But the research we carried out at ad:tech London also showed that marketers are growing increasingly frustrated by the numerous vendors they’re having to use to produce campaigns. Respondents pointed to their annoyance at the current inaccessibility of online display advertising solutions, with 53 per cent of marketers frustrated about having to use multiple platforms to run campaigns.
In response, it comes as little surprise that nearly three quarters (73 per cent) said they would hope to use a fully functioning single platform to run all elements of their display marketing campaigns in the next five years. It is with this in mind that a single demand side platform is only set to become ever more popular over the course of the next 12 months – all in aid of promoting display as a simple, accessible and most importantly, effective channel for brands to advertise over.
By Gustav Mellentin
CEO
Adform
www.adform.com
