OPINION: 3 future trends financial services advertisers need to know

By Mike Gray, Director of Client Partnerships EMEA at MiQ

To adjust their media strategies to the new normal in 2023, marketers have to quickly come up with a plan of action, particularly those in the financial services sector. It’s obvious the sector needs to tread carefully and act with sensitivity because of financial stress of soaring energy bills and the cost of living.

The future is hard to predict. But by using data from the past and present our Programmatic Trends for 2022 report attempts to do just that. Identifying user behaviour across ad supported media inventories, we look to the future and predict the three key trends financial services marketers need to think about as they plan.

ONE: Forecasts predict a cookieless future
After Google changed the deprecation date for third-party cookies to 2024, cookieless preparation fell down the priority list for most marketers. But no matter whether you are an advertiser or an agency, starting early is key to seamlessly transition into the cookieless future. There is unlikely to be a silver bullet for advertisers so looking at alternatives is the best bet. We know that measurement, reach and performance will dominate a lot of conversations.

Don’t take your foot off the gas when it comes to testing cookieless solutions. The Chrome deprecation deadline will be here soon, and the industry needs test partners to ensure there are proven solutions in place to sustain performance before that time comes. Early tests suggest cookieless strategies are already performing better than cookie-based ones, so there’s nothing to be lost from starting now, and everything to be gained.

TWO: Mature your connected TV strategy
Connected TV (CTV) advertising has been an incredibly popular tactic over the last few years, and no doubt will continue to be so.

The declining sway of conventional advertising archetypes, such as traditional TV ads, that used to be the norm will largely be placed by the likes of CTV as streaming services continue to climb and dominate the industry. Cost, measurement, and reach will remain the focus for CTV campaigns. But with growing competition in the space and not much to differentiate offerings, it makes sense that marketers might look for partners providing value added services, like creative consultancy, analytics support and help with campaign planning through pre-flight intelligence and competitor mapping.

It’s clear that this is no longer a nascent channel to dip a toe into. You need to ensure you’re reading the viewership insights related to your specific audience and reaching them in a way that doesn’t treat each platform, screen, or media provider in silo. Creative solutions are also getting more interesting, with interactive and personalized formats taking a spotlight – giving marketers the opportunity to unleash their creativity in new ways on the most engaging channel.

THREE: Measurement and attribution
We found that six in ten marketers struggle to connect the traditional advertising KPIs to relevant business outcomes globally. We see UK marketers looking to figure out the reach of their digital ad campaigns using incremental measurement and 47% of Canadian marketers are looking to invest in the attention economy. No matter what path marketers take, supply path optimisation and cost transparency will remain big constraints, influencing spending and advertiser confidence.

The programmatic universe keeps expanding with new products and environments, meaning marketers must rethink how they can incorporate them into an efficient marketing strategy. There have never been this many ways to deliver a message to your audience but capitalising on this incrementality is not necessarily simple. Effective supply path optimisation evaluates the journey of a marketer’s pound across multiple platforms and bidding variables to yield more performant campaigns. The industry continues to grow making this trading practice even more important for effective brand and sales growth.

Looking to the future 

Overall, the future looks bright for programmatic. By 2025, nine out of ten ad dollars globally will be spent programmatically with mature markets like EMEA and the US seeing almost 95% programmatic adoption. That’s an extremely positive outlook
And, according to mid-senior level media planners across the globe, seven out of ten ad dollars across digital platforms are being spent programmatically. Mature markets like the US and EMEA lead the pack with about 85%- 90% of digital ad spending being done through programmatic channels, while emerging markets like SEA, MENA and ANZ are likely to grow significantly over the next few years.

With traditional programmatic channels like online display, video, and audio along with emerging channels like CTV and DOOH growing rapidly, combined with the impending cookieless future, marketers can’t afford to miss out on these opportunities.