Programmatic media in 2022 will be driven by connected TV, preparation for a cookieless future, omnichannel activations, and measurement and attribution, MiQ’s Programmatic Trends for 2022 report has revealed. Read the report HERE.
The global study, which included Australia, and conducted by MiQ, looks at the current state of programmatic advertising and the trends that will define the future.
According to the report, connected TV (CTV) and omnichannel activations will be critical in 2022, with 80% of advertisers looking to boost their ad spend across CTV compared to 2021, and marketers seeking out partners that provide value-add services, including analytics and campaign planning.
Preparing for a cookieless future will also be top-of-mind for marketers in 2022, as they start to look for measurement, reach and performance reporting alternatives, along with reliable partners to help them collect and make sense of first-party data.
The report also provided a glimpse into the media landscape in 2025, predicting a rise in digital ad spending, which will outstrip spend on traditional media advertising. Additionally, spending on programmatic media will increase globally over the next five years, jumping from 60 per cent to almost 90 per cent in Australia and New Zealand by 2025.
The programmatic media landscape has shifted over the past 18 months, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the industry. The MiQ report noted traditional advertising channel spending had dipped by as much as 16 per cent globally, but digital platforms had continued to grow – up 12 per cent year-on-year, buoyed by the emergence of CTV and gaming consoles.
More Australians are now online than ever before, and they are even more active during each of their sessions, consuming more content. Search focuses have shifted since the end of lockdown, according to the study, with audiences looking for arts and entertainment, lifestyle and self-improvement content as they adjust to the new normal.
CTV has also grown significantly over the past 12 months, with the overall viewership rising by 3.9% in Australia over the past six months.
MiQ Australia CEO, Jason Scott, said programmatic media represented a huge opportunity for marketers.
“Our study found that seven out of 10 ad dollars across digital platforms is being spent programmatically and this is only set to continue as the Australian market evolves over the coming years. The future looks really bright for programmatic by 2025; nine out of 10 ad dollars globally will be spent programmatically and adoption rates for programmatic media in Australia will soar,” he said.
“Now is the time for marketers to explore the opportunities provided by both traditional and emerging programmatic channels – digital growth with users growing their footprints across platforms will help marketers, along with a shift towards privacy compliant solutions that will drive innovation within the AdTech space through AI. This can help marketers in terms of planning and executing/measuring results from programmatic campaigns.
“Marketers and agencies need to be strategic in their planning for 2022 – they need to consider their KPIs and what metrics they want to achieve, while also starting to implement those cookieless solutions. Getting their first-party data strategy in order will be critical in the new year – it will go a long way in solving the challenges presented with attribution and cross-channel activation and measurement.”
The study also looked at the channels where marketers want to invest, showing more than half of Australian marketers (55 per cent) considered online display as a top-three channel, with 64 per cent expecting to increase their spend across display campaigns in 2022. Two thirds of both brands and agencies in Australia (63 per cent) used online video as part of the top-three platforms in their existing media plans, and the same amount expected to increase their spend next year. Only half of Australian brands and agencies currently include CTV as part of their media plans, but this is expected to boom to more than 75 per cent in 2022.
The study comes on the back of MiQ’s year-of-lockdown report that established how online shopping and product research had gained massive traction in 2020 and 2021 and that many consumer behaviours introduced during lock-down are here to stay.
