Beyond the cookie: The future of advertising for marketers & publishers
“Change” may not have made Merriam-Webster’s 2020 Word of the Year, but it was the key word for digital advertising. In addition to the upheaval of a global pandemic, digital advertising faced a series of serious challenges. From Google Chrome’s third-party cookie phase-out announcement to mounting privacy regulations to rapidly changing consumer habits, confusion reigned.
Lotame delves deeper into what keeps marketers and publishers up at night in this insightful report
Although digital advertising is no stranger to innovation and agility, Lotame was curious to examine how marketers and publishers were faring amidst so much uncertainty. What exactly did the future of advertising, beyond the cookie, mean and how were its primary stakeholders preparing?
Lotame set out to answer these questions and more with a global survey of over 1,000 marketers and publishers. We asked what keeps them up at night; how they will pivot investments; and what the future of digital advertising should look like? The findings showed similar trends region to region, indicating marketers and publishers the world over are grappling with the same issues. Not surprisingly, marketers and publishers overwhelmingly agreed that the future depends on a connected ecosystem that supports diverse, ad-supported content across the open web. But when asked how to get there, they diverged.
As we’ve seen in digital advertising’s past, ingenuity has transformed seemingly insurmountable challenges into a wellspring of opportunities. Communication and collaboration across and within the industry can create a future of advertising that drives growth and value for all, while doing the right thing by consumers. In that spirit, we present our global survey findings to inform, inspire, and educate both sides of the table (marketers and publishers) on what each needs, wants, and hopes for the future of our industry.
Methodology
Lotame commissioned industry research into the challenges being faced by marketers and publishers in addressing the post-cookie digital advertising landscape.
The global online survey was conducted by Upwave, the brand intelligence platform based in San Francisco. Upwave surveyed 1,000 online respondents in the U.S., UK, Australia, India, and Singapore between December 2020 and January 2021. Respondents work as senior marketers and publishers.
Marketers and publishers were asked individual and joint questions to understand their:
- Preparations for the loss of third-party cookies
- Strategies around adoption of identity solutions
- Data enrichment efforts to build consumer insights, enhance targeting, and aid analysis
