10 Key Takeaways: Panel Discussion from Industry Experts on CTV, Retail Media, & Cookie Deprecation

On October 18th, we hosted an insightful webinar that featured a panel of industry experts, including Michelle Thibeault, Director of Digital Ad Operations at CBC/Radio-Canada; Gavin Dunaway, Product Marketing Lead at The Media Trust, formerly associated with Ad Monsters; Jens Hansen, Account Executive (Northern Europe) at ADvendio; and Matthew Rohrs, Sales Director (US) at ADvendio. This event served as a platform for these thought leaders to share their invaluable insights into the ever-evolving advertising landscape.

In this blog post, we’ll share a summary of the key takeaways from this webinar, focusing on critical topics such as Connected TV (CTV) and the challenges brought about by cookie deprecation. For insights into the dynamic world of Retail Media, we encourage you to access the full recording of the webinar.

1. The CTV Shift:

Michelle Thibeault set the tone by highlighting a significant shift in revenue allocation and ad spending, with a noticeable migration from traditional linear TV to CTV. This transition is driven by changing audience preferences, as well as the advanced targeting capabilities of CTV. Nevertheless, Michelle pointed out that the fragmentation within the CTV landscape remains a significant challenge. Broadcasters, and publishers each operate with distinct measurements and IDs. To address this issue, the call for standardization rang loud and clear, aiming to ensure a seamless ad experience for consumers.

2. The Importance of Consent:

Within the CTV realm, consent is an absolute imperative. Collaboration between tech and content providers is essential to maintain user privacy, with regular audits playing a key role as the industry undergoes rapid changes. Michelle believes that keeping partners accountable for their privacy practices is a top priority.

3. Attention Metrics:

Discussions during the webinar extended to the issue of the recording of CTV impressions even when the TV is turned off. The challenge lies in accurately determining when the actual screen is inactive. Working with companies that track attention metrics, as highlighted by Michelle, is highly recommended to filter out such situations and combat invalid traffic (IVT).

4. Keeping Audiences Engaged:

Simply following consumers to their preferred devices is no longer enough. The primary challenge is to keep them engaged. Cross-device targeting may assist advertisers, but, as Michelle emphasized, the true game-changer is enhancing user experience (UX). Artificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated to play a pivotal role in delivering personalized ads and refining advertiser strategies. Additionally, the prospect of conducting interactive ad purchases directly through CTV, or even via secondary devices using QR codes, is on the horizon.

5. Content Control:

Gavin Dunaway joined in the CTV discussion and mentioned that while frequency capping is currently a major concern for CTV, questions regarding appropriate ad content are expected to increase. As contentious events like U.S. elections loom, the need for more control over ad content becomes a pressing requirement for CTV publishers.

6. Privacy-First Future:

Jens Hansen shed light on the looming crisis of cookie deprecation. While it presents substantial challenges, it also represents an open field of opportunities. As Jens pointed out, the industry urgently requires some form of ID standardization and interoperability within the open ecosystem to compete effectively with walled gardens. All eyes are on Google and Apple, as they each adopt distinct approaches to the privacy-first future.

7. First-Party Data Strategies:

First-party data strategies are rapidly becoming indispensable, particularly for tier-1 publishers. However, implementing a data management platform (DMP) is a significant investment and not a plug-and-play solution. Privacy and legal concerns surrounding data processing and data management must be addressed. Shifting buyer behaviors is a process that spans years, not mere weeks.

8. The End of Third-Party Cookies:

Gavin Dunaway stated that the impending deprecation of third-party cookies has been met with a collective sigh of relief by many in the publishing industry. These cookies have caused numerous issues, including data scraping that devalued publishers’ inventory. Advertisers are increasingly turning to first-party data segmentation, with premium publishers using DMPs achieving success with direct sales and private marketplaces (PMPs). Gavin believes that the next step is for mid- and long-tail publishers to harness the power of IAB Seller-Defined Audiences, although caution prevails.

9. Identity Pool Limitations:

Gavin also highlighted that advertisers are increasingly relying on their own data; however, there is a limited amount of authenticated traffic in the open ecosystem, typically not exceeding 15%.

10. Privacy Sandbox and Fenced Frames:

While the Privacy Sandbox is intricate and perplexing, it should not be dismissed. Google’s Fenced Frames concept is being introduced to ensure data privacy. However, it may introduce challenges in measurement. Google does expect everyone to adapt.

Conclusion

The webinar delivered a wealth of insights into the evolving landscape of CTV and the challenges posed by cookie deprecation. While we’ve summarized the key takeaways related to these topics in this blog post, we must emphasize that there’s much more to explore. Delve in to these topics further including the dynamic world of Retail Media by accessing the full recording of the webinar on-demand by following this link.