From policy changes to the cookie’s demise, the advertising industry is already transforming just a few weeks into 2024.
While the industry ramps up its privacy focus and strategies for signal loss, enterprises are delivering impressive innovation with data; brands are finding creative ways to use AI and verticals beyond retail are harnessing the power of media networks to expand and monetize their first-party data.
The next 12 months are certain to fuel significant industry evolution. In the following sections, LiveRamp experts predict what 2024 may have in store, from how AI will affect marketers to media measurement and what will define the industry’s most innovative companies.
AI will transform marketers’ needed skillsets and KPIs
LiveRamp’s Chief Product Officer, Kimberly Bloomston, sees an expanded place for technology in marketers’ toolkits this year.
“Artificial intelligence — namely large language models and generative AI — will become commonplace within ad tech, reducing the need for process-focused roles and instead rely on technology and AI to accelerate efficiencies in ad operations, copywriting, visual design and more,” Bloomston said.
“As a result, organizational structures and roles will require an increased skillset with technical acumen and data expertise, including data operations, data analysts and data scientists,” she continued. “Teams that haven’t invested in data scientists will either create those roles, hire outside consultants or seek the best tools to make this easier. At the same time, critical thinking, design concepts and influencing will become highly desirable skills to complement what AI can offer.”
Marketers will abandon third-party signals for durable, authenticated identities
According to Travis Clinger, Chief Connectivity and Ecosystem Officer at LiveRamp, marketing teams will shift away from third-party signals altogether.
“The deprecation of 1% of third-party cookies in Chrome is a significant milestone toward bidding farewell to cookies overall,” he said. “With the full deprecation of third-party cookies just months away, brands, publishers and their partners will get serious about solidifying plans for a cookieless internet.
“By the end of the year, all savvy marketers will see the benefits of the few remaining third-party signals are far outweighed by the immediate gains of post-signal identity,” continued Clinger. “They’ll be sustainably building beyond third-party signals to address other challenges.”
Vihan Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer at LiveRamp, sees 2024 as the year more advertisers demand standardization and transparency from partners and the industry.
“Signal loss is prompting advertisers to rewrite workflows they’ve used for decades,” he said. “This massive shift will have enterprises look to cloud data warehouses as the single place to build first-party identity graphs and audience and measurement workflows. As media propositions spread into more industry verticals, standardization across audience definitions and outcome-based measurement will also become a necessity. Commerce media ad spend will only increase in 2024, prompting advertisers and agencies to demand more transparency from partners to optimize media spend across a fragmented landscape.”
The next trend for 2024,