AdTech Predictions: Hereâ€™s what is in store for 2022

In 2021, technology advancements, increased customer demands, and changing content consumption patterns have transformed the advertising industry in India. An unforeseen consequence of the otherwise negative impact of the pandemic was that it acted as a catalyst in accelerating digital adoption, uncovering a host of opportunities for brands in the digital advertising domain.

What are some of the advancements or new regulations in the ad tech space that will revolutionise the industry in 2022 and beyond? Nachiket Deole, Head of Sales – India, DoubleVerify, crystal gazes...

Digital Advertising to Pave the Way in India

Even before the pandemic, digital advertising adoption was gaining momentum in India. The share of digital advertising has grown rapidly in the region – from 20% in 2019 to 29.4% in 2021 and is further projected to reach 32.7% by the end of 2022, as per advertising spend forecast for Asia Pacific (APAC) by the advertising firm Dentsu.

The proliferation of the use of the Internet accelerated digital transformation and, along with the shift in consumer behaviour, has made it profitable for brands to invest in the digital space. With budget allocations being more restrictive than ever and marketers focusing on metrics that drive ROI, we predict that digital advertising spending will continue to grow in India come 2022.

Increased Demand for Third-party Verification Solutions to Battle Ad Fraud

This past year, DoubleVerify found that India actually saw a 19% YoY decrease in post-bid fraud/ SIVT violations rates, indicating a positive trend for the region. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the amount of ad fraud in the ad ecosystem decreased, but rather that advertisers were employing effective pre-bid solutions to protect their media investment. We also see an increasing demand from advertisers to invest in third-party verification providers and identify fraud on a real-time basis to continue building a safe and transparent ecosystem. However, that doesn’t mean that fraudsters have completely gone away.

As the saying goes, fraud follows the money. As digital adspend increases in India, digital ad fraud will continue to pose a threat. The industry should continue to come together to create awareness about this growing issue and understand the types of ad fraud that are impacting the Indian market.

The Growth of CTV in India and the Call for Transparency

Consumers are drawn towards the convenience ofstreaming premium content on their devices anytime and anywhere, and this was further accelerated by the lockdown. Even though India is still a fairly young market in terms of CTV adoption, it presents a huge opportunity for advertisers to make use of the untapped potential of the medium.

While linear TV provides show, episode, and time slot information from their TV buys, advertisers are sometimes running CTV campaigns with minimal information, if any at all. This black box is not only a measurement and targeting problem, but also a brand suitability problem. As advertisers continue to move ad spend to CTV in 2022, we’ll see an increased demand for transparency and industry standardisation across all CTV buys – and an effort from publishers to solve for it.

The Need for Privacy-friendly Performance Solutions as Third-party Cookies Crumble

Third-party cookies have been an integral part of digital marketing for over a decade, helping companies target, track, and remarket to consumers. Aside from the Personal Data Protection Bill, India needs to introduce new policies that allow consumers to make more informed decisions about their data.

The post-cookie world will usher a universal shift away from third-party audience targeting to solutions that are privacy-safe on one hand and offer precise forms of measurement and optimisation on the other. We see a shift in the industry from user-level targeting – which will become harder and harder as user tracking gets locked down by browsers – towards contextual targeting. We believe that context is really key when it comes to relevance.

Attention Metrics Will Become the New Advertising Currency for Performance

Disruption, from tighter privacy controls to cookie deprecation, is impacting how brands target consumers and measure performance in their digital campaigns. We believe there will also be a demand for privacy-friendly attention metrics that go beyond traditional KPIs such as viewability and clicks and provide granular insights into user presence, user engagement, and ad presentation.

In 2022, brands will want to continue to drive outcomes from spend. Putting it another way, if you’re advertising a new product, the goal isn’t to drive a specific number of impressions, ultimately, it’s to drive an outcome like a sale. Attention metrics – such as audibility, quartile completion, screen touches, screen real estate, and more – provide powerful new sets of data that are more predictive of an outcome and allow brands to optimise their campaigns. Likewise, brands can achieve this without tracking consumers or requiring personal information.

The shift to attention as the industry’s new currency isn’t only reactive, it grows out of verification solutions. Advances in verification in recent years have continually improved the baseline quality for ads by tackling fraudsters, boosting safety, and providing brands with clarity over their ad performance – the attention ecosystem is the next stage in its evolution.

Moving forward, brands and advertisers need to be on their guard to ensure they are aligning their advertising strategies with the latest market trends in order to stay afloat.