You’re late for a meeting, and you desperately need a coffee. Do you meticulously type “best-rated independent coffee shop near me open now” into a search bar? Or do you simply ask your phone, “Hey, where can I get a great coffee, like, right now?” and trust the friendly voice to guide you?

Welcome to the age of instant answers. We’ve outsourced our impatience to AI assistants like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. We want information served up on a silver platter — quick, clear, and without the tedious effort of actually searching. This shift in human behavior isn’t just changing how we find a good latte; it’s sending shockwaves through the world of paid advertising. As AI-powered answers become the norm, the familiar ground of keyword bidding is starting to feel a lot less stable. For us Paid Search Managers, this isn’t a distant threat; it’s the new reality knocking at our office door. But is it an apocalypse or an opportunity? Let’s find out.

Part 1: The good old days of keyword herding and its limits

Remember when our lives revolved around Excel sheets filled with thousands of keywords? We were digital librarians, meticulously curating lists of broad, phrase, and exact match terms. We obsessed over every “KTV Karaoke in Soho” and “best nude matte lipstick“, believing that with enough granularity, we could capture every possible user query. It was a game of precision, control, and endless A/B testing of ad copy. 

But let’s be honest, it was a flawed system. 

This manual approach had its limits:

• The long-tail blind spot: We could never keep up with the sheer volume of unique, conversational search queries. As Google has noted for years, 15% of queries every day are new searches they’ve never seen before. This manual, keyword-first approach meant we were constantly missing a growing segment of user intent.
• The intent guessing game: A keyword is just a clue, not the full story. We were constantly trying to infer the user’s true intent, and often getting it wrong.
• The burnout: The sheer effort of managing these sprawling campaigns was immense. It was a reactive, often exhausting, process of plugging leaks in a dam that was constantly springing new ones.

We were playing checkers while our users started playing 3D chess with their search behavior.

Part 2: The AI tsunami and the challenges it brings

Enter the AI revolution. Platforms are no longer just matching words; they’re interpreting intent. With assistants like Copilot in Microsoft Advertising and Gemini powering Google’s ad stack, the game has fundamentally changed.

In Google’s ecosystem, this shift is most visible in two key areas: Performance Max and the recent upgrades to standard Search campaigns with AI Max for Search. This isn’t a new campaign type, but an optimisation layer that infuses traditional Search with PMax-style AI. The engine behind this, Gemini, can now understand long, complex queries and match ads based on inferred intent, not just keyword syntax, to improve two main things:

1. Search term matching: It moves beyond keyword syntax to match your ads to queries based on the inferred intent of the user.
2. Asset optimisation: It dynamically customises your ad copy and can even expand your final URL to a more relevant landing page on your site.

This presents several challenges:

• Shrinking visibility & plummeting CTRs: The most immediate impact is the rise of the “zero-click” search. AI overviews answer user questions directly on the SERP, meaning there’s less reason to click. Studies show this can reduce click-through rates by 8 to 12 percentage points, a staggering 20–40% relative drop. Ads are simply being seen and clicked less.
• The great ad placement shuffle: Ads are being pushed around. As Google’s AI Overviews prioritise direct answers, ads are often relegated below the fold, especially for longer, more descriptive queries. The top spot isn’t what it used to be.
• The CPC paradox: While CTRs may fall, the clicks we do get are often from users with higher intent who didn’t get their full answer from the AI. This leads to better-qualified traffic, but also more intense competition and higher cost-per-click for those valuable top spots.
• From keywords to “intent layers”: As Google Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin explained, keywords are now just one of many signals. The system’s ability to understand a user’s goal makes our granular keyword lists less and less effective. The AI is now the one making the connection between a query and an ad.
• The black box problem: With AI making more decisions about ad serving and asset combination — especially in PMax, which runs across all of Google’s channels — there’s a growing sense of opacity. We provide the ingredients (assets, landing pages, audience signals), but the AI is the chef, and it doesn’t always share its recipe.

The ground has shifted from “gaming the system” with keywords to genuinely “being the best answer” for a user’s underlying need. The impact isn’t uniform. The auto industry sees volatility as AI tries to answer complex, feature-based queries. Meanwhile, sectors like legal and finance face a direct threat as AI becomes capable of answering complex informational questions, potentially disintermediating them entirely.

Part 3: Ride the wave with key strategies to embrace AI in PPC

Fearing AI is like being angry at the tide. It’s coming, whether we like it or not. The good news is, we can learn to surf. Here are the key strategies to not just survive, but thrive in the age of AI-powered paid search.

Strategy 1: Feed the machine (the AI-Max approach)

The first strategy is to embrace the tools the platforms give you. The advantage of AI-Max is its ability to expand your reach and find new pockets of relevant customers you might have missed, all while (ideally) maintaining your CPA or ROAS goals. It takes the manual labor out of chasing the long tail.

However, its primary limitation is that it’s only as good as the ingredients you provide. If your creative assets are weak or your landing pages are not well-optimised, the AI has little to work with. It automates the matching, but it doesn’t solve the foundational challenge of creating highly relevant, granular ad variations at scale. For businesses with vast inventories or complex service offerings, this can still be a major hurdle.

Here are the key steps to succeed:

• Leverage Broad Match & Smart Bidding: This is non-negotiable. Use Google’s automation to your advantage. Trust that modern Broad Match, paired with a ROAS or tCPA bidding strategy, is far more intelligent at identifying relevant traffic than manually curated keyword lists.
• Focus on high-intent keywords: Lean into queries where AI is less likely to provide a complete, satisfying answer. These are often commercial-intent keywords that signal a user is ready to buy, book, or sign up, rather than just researching.
• Build richer ads: In a more crowded, visually dynamic space, your ads must work harder. Use rich ad extensions — sitelinks, images, callouts, structured snippets — to provide more information at a glance and maximise your SERP real estate.

AI is only as smart as the data it’s given. Your new job is to be a master purveyor of high-quality “ingredients.” For Lead Gen, focus on assets and conversion data (with Enhanced Conversion for Leads); Without this, the AI might just optimise for cheap form fills. For Retail, a flawless product feed is your best asset! Use lifestyle imagery and focus on ROAS to tell the AI to find customers who not only buy, but who spend more.

Strategy 2: Own the Machine (The AdMachina Solution)

What if, instead of just feeding the machine, you could command an entire factory? This is where technology like AdMachina, a proprietary AI solution from Making Science, comes into play.

As explained in the article “AdMachina, the AI that creates and optimises Google Ads campaigns“, AdMachina is not just an optimisation layer; it’s a campaign generation engine. It connects directly to a business’s data sources — be it a product feed, an internal API, or a CRM — and uses that data to automatically create, manage, and optimise thousands of hyper-granular ad groups and ads.

How it works and its advantages:

• Hyper-granularity at scale: AdMachina builds campaigns with a one-to-one structure: one keyword, one ad, one landing page. This achieves maximum Quality Score and relevance, a feat that is impossible to do manually for thousands of products or services.
• Real-time synchronisation: If a product’s price or stock changes, AdMachina automatically updates the ad copy or pauses the ad group. This eliminates wasted ad spend on out-of-stock items and ensures ad compliance.
• Control and transparency: Unlike the “black box” nature of some AI tools, AdMachina provides full transparency. The campaigns it builds are visible and fully under your control within your Google Ads account. You see exactly what’s being created.

While any business can benefit from automation, the perfect profile for AdMachina is an advertiser with complexity and scale. For such businesses, AdMachina turns a massive operational challenge into a powerful competitive advantage:

• Large e-commerce & retail: Businesses with thousands of SKUs, where manual campaign creation is impossible.
• Travel & Real Estate: Companies with constantly changing inventory (flights, hotels, properties).
• Classifieds & marketplaces: Platforms that need to generate ads for thousands of individual user-generated listings.

The limitation? AdMachina requires a structured data source to work its magic. It’s not a fit for a small local business with five services. But for businesses whose data is their lifeblood, it turns a massive operational challenge into a powerful competitive advantage.

Conclusion

The end of keywords is not the end of paid search. It’s a transformation. It marks the end of the PPC mechanic and the rise of the PPC strategist. Our role is evolving from repetitive manual tasks to a more strategic, holistic function focused on understanding the customer journey, creating high-value content, and feeding the AI the best possible data.

AI is not here to take our jobs; it’s here to take our boring tasks. By embracing this change, we can free ourselves from the tyranny of the keyword list and focus on what truly matters: delivering value to our audience and driving better results for our businesses. So, take a deep breath. The future of search is not something to be feared — it’s something to be built.

Frequently Asked (and feared) Questions

• Will I lose all control over my campaigns?

You’ll lose granular control but gain strategic influence. Instead of micromanaging keywords, you’ll be guiding the AI by providing the best possible assets, landing pages, and business data. Your control shifts from the “how” to the “what” and “why.”

• How do I compete if my ads are pushed below AI Overviews?

The goal is to be cited within the AI Overview. This happens when your content is deemed authoritative and directly answers the user’s question. Furthermore, Google has confirmed that ads are a core part of this new experience and will continue to appear in various slots within and around AI Overviews.

• Is Broad Match still a budget-killer?

Not like it used to be. Modern Broad Match, combined with smart bidding and powered by models like Gemini, is far more sophisticated. It’s less about syntactic matches and more about understanding the user’s ultimate goal, leading to more relevant, albeit sometimes unexpected, query matches.

• How can I ensure AI optimises for lead quality, not just quantity?

Data is your best friend. As Google’s official guidance states, the more high-quality conversion data you share, the better. By implementing full-funnel conversion tracking, assigning values to different types of conversions (a “demo request” is more valuable than a “newsletter signup“), and feeding this data back into the ad platforms, you teach the AI what a high-quality lead looks like.

• If AI Max and Performance Max overlap, which one wins?

The ad with the highest Ad Rank wins. Google’s system will select the ad — whether from a Search or PMax campaign — that it predicts will be most relevant and performant for that specific auction. You can use brand settings to keep your branded search traffic separate if needed.

For years, the narrative in digital marketing was simple: Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) had “blinded” Google and Meta. When the “Ask App Not to Track” prompt became the global standard, the industry assumed that the era of precision targeting on iPhones was dead.

Fast forward to February 2026, and the landscape has shifted in a way few predicted. Ironically, by forcing Google to abandon “lazy” tracking (cookies) and lean into “advanced” tracking (AI), Apple has inadvertently helped Google build a targeting engine that is more resilient, more predictive, and—most importantly—more profitable than ever before.

Here is how Google turned Apple’s privacy walls into a competitive advantage.

1. The Gemini-Siri Integration: The Ultimate Intent Signal

The biggest plot twist of the decade occurred when Apple integrated Google’s Gemini 3 into the core of Siri. While Apple maintains its “Private Cloud Compute” to mask individual identities, the sheer volume of Intent Data flowing through this partnership is unprecedented.

When a user asks Siri to “find the best running shoes for flat feet,” Gemini processes that request. Even without knowing “John Smith” by name, Google’s AI models can now map the nuanced intent of the iOS user base in real-time. This allows Google to optimise its Search and Shopping ads with a level of context that old-school tracking pixels could never dream of.

2. The “On-Device” Attribution Loophole

Google has successfully implemented On-Device Conversion Measurement for iOS. This technology is a masterclass in “Privacy-Preserving Computation.”

How it works: Instead of sending a user’s data to Google’s servers to see if they bought a product, the data stays on the iPhone.

The Result: The device itself matches the ad click to the purchase and sends a simple “success” signal back to Google.

The Benefit: Google gets the Attribution Data it needs to prove ROI to advertisers, while technically adhering to Apple’s rules because no “personal data” ever leaves the device

3. The Failure of Privacy Sandbox and the Rise of “Modeled Data”

By 2025, Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” proved that the industry wasn’t ready to let go of cookies entirely. While Apple blocked third-party cookies in Safari, Google spent that time perfecting AI Modeling.

Today, Google doesn’t need to “see” every Apple iOS user to target them. Its AI uses Predictive Modeling—taking the behavior of the “visible” users (those who opt-in) and projecting those patterns onto the “invisible” users. In 2026, these models have become so accurate that Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) bidding on iOS is now nearly indistinguishable from Android in terms of performance.

4. YouTube: The “Logged-In” Fortress

While Apple can restrict what happens between different apps, it has much less power over what happens inside a logged-in ecosystem.

Most iPhone users stay permanently logged into the YouTube app. This creates a “First-Party Data” goldmine. Because YouTube is a “destination” app, Google can track every search, view, and engagement within that walled garden. Advertisers are now shifting their iOS budgets away from the open web (Safari) and into YouTube Shorts and In-Stream ads, where Google’s targeting remains surgically precise.

The Bottom Line for Advertisers

The “Privacy Wars” didn’t kill targeting; they just made it more expensive and technical. Google’s survival instinct led them to build an AI-first infrastructure that actually thrives in a cookie-less, opt-in world.

If you’ve been holding back your iOS ad spend because of “tracking issues,” 2026 is the year to return. The data is back—it just looks a little different than it used to.

The Online Marketing Rockstars (OMR) festival in Hamburg is a key event for the digital marketing industry, drawing a vast and diverse crowd. After two days immersed in this dynamic environment, Nick Waters, Global CEO of Northern Europe at Making Science, reflected on the current state and future trajectory of digital marketing.

1. The Sheer Scale of Digital Marketing

OMR’s sheer scale is a spectacle in itself. It gathers everyone from industry giants to niche innovators and highlights the immense size and vitality of the digital marketing arena.

2. Navigating the Complex Vendor Landscape

The OMR exhibition floor can feel like a walk through the intricate LUMA Partners landscape. A plethora of vendors offer seemingly similar solutions: real-time insights for better decision-making, omnichannel attribution, data visualization, privacy solutions, and automated content creation. This raises a critical question for brands: How much real differentiation exists, and how can they identify the solutions that truly deliver unique value?

3. The Indispensable Role of Human Expertise

These observations underscore a crucial point: In an increasingly automated world, expert advisors are more important than ever. At Making Science, we believe that smart humans, with their strategic thinking, creative insight, and nuanced understanding, are the true differentiators in helping brands navigate this complexity and achieve their business goals.

4. The AI Tsunami is Here

Artificial intelligence is no longer a future trend; it’s a present reality, poised to disrupt the entire marketing services ecosystem. An “AI tsunami” is on the horizon, and businesses that are unprepared or underprepared risk being swept aside by its transformative power.

5. The Evolving Definition of Commerce

OMR showcased a strong emphasis on “commerce” related offerings, yet the discussion around “retail media” seemed relatively muted. This prompts questions about whether the concept of “retail media” is being repackaged, redefined, or integrated into a broader commerce narrative.

6. The Untapped Potential of Streaming TV

Streaming TV’s commercial presence in Europe still lags behind its adoption in the US, suggesting a significant growth opportunity. As viewing habits continue to shift, this channel is poised to become an increasingly important component of the marketing mix.

7. Agency Presence and the Question of ROI

The limited presence of traditional agencies at OMR is a notable observation. The high cost of participation likely leads to a critical evaluation of return on investment, forcing agencies to prioritize their event strategies.

8. The Inevitable Amplification of the AI Conversation

Looking ahead, Waters predicts that the focus on AI will only intensify. The “AI noise” will be even louder at upcoming events like Cannes and reach a crescendo at OMR 2026, demanding that the industry move beyond hype to practical application.

Conclusion: Embracing Change and Prioritizing Expertise

OMR 2025 served as a powerful reminder of the dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of digital marketing. As Nick Waters’ reflections highlight, the industry faces both immense opportunities and significant challenges. At Making Science, we believe that success in this environment requires a combination of embracing technological innovation, particularly in AI, and prioritizing human expertise. By staying ahead of the curve and providing our clients with strategic guidance, we empower them to navigate complexity, capitalize on emerging trends, and achieve sustainable growth.

Spaniards spend an average of nearly two hours a day on social media*. But what exactly are we doing during that time?

For older generations like Gen X and Baby Boomers, social media is primarily a way to stay connected with friends and family. Meanwhile, Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to use these platforms to keep up with current events, engage with content like memes and videos, and create their own posts. While each generation has its own preferences, behaviors, and concerns, they all share one common trend: we are spending more and more time online.

For brands, understanding the audience is critical to ensure that marketing efforts reach the right people. In today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving digital landscape, simply reaching an audience is no longer enough—brands need to make an impact.

How can brands achieve this?

It’s not just about knowing who the audience is, but about understanding how to connect with them: what they enjoy, where they spend time online, what concerns them, and the communication styles they use.

To gain this insight, brands have access to powerful tools that help them analyze everything from a user’s age and profession to their daily habits and activities. Additionally, social listening platforms allow brands to track real-time user interactions and responses across social networks and digital channels.

But how can brands make the most of this information?

The answer lies in engaging with users where they are and tapping into conversations that resonate with their interests. This is a golden opportunity for brands to become more relevant by joining discussions that matter to their audience.

A key strategy is to adapt to the unique communication styles of each platform while maintaining the brand’s voice. For example, memes have become a staple of online culture, and tapping into their viral potential is an effective way to increase brand visibility—though it requires quick action, as trends rise and fall rapidly. Social listening tools can identify trending content, allowing brands to adjust their messaging and boost engagement by fostering a more active and personalized online community.

Speed is another essential factor. Reacting quickly to social media trends and events can amplify a brand’s impact. A prime example is “La Velada del Año,” the most-watched digital event on Twitch, which peaked at over 4 million viewers and proved that this platform isn’t just for niche audiences. With nearly half a million social media mentions, many brands, like Vicio, capitalized on the event by listening closely to what their audience wanted, breaking records for new followers and engagement.

In short, social listening not only helps brands understand user needs and preferences but also provides valuable insights for developing marketing strategies. It reveals how competitors are engaging with their audiences, uncovers user perceptions and demands, and highlights opportunities to join relevant conversations.

So, are you making the most of social media to build meaningful relationships with your target audience?

*Source: GWI Spain (16-64 years)

As we step into 2024, the digital realm continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, shaping the way we connect, consume information, and make decisions. In this blog post, we will dive into five key digital trends that are set to dominate the landscape in 2024, namely Customer Data Platforms (CDP), Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Advertising, TikTok Search, Connected TV (CTV), and Privacy-Centric Marketing.

Customer Data Platforms (CDP)

In the era of data-driven decision-making, Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are becoming the cornerstone of successful marketing strategies. CDPs enable businesses to consolidate customer data from various touchpoints, creating a unified and comprehensive profile. This holistic view of customer behaviour and preferences allows for more personalised and targeted marketing efforts. In 2024, we anticipate a surge in the adoption of CDPs as businesses recognise the importance of understanding their customers on a deeper level.

AI in Advertising

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already revolutionised the advertising landscape, and in 2024, it’s set to become even more integral. AI-powered advertising enables businesses to deliver highly targeted and personalised content to their audiences. From predictive analytics to programmatic advertising, AI optimises ad placements, ensuring that brands reach the right audience at the right time. As technology advances, we can expect more sophisticated AI algorithms to enhance ad relevance and engagement.

Search on TikTok

While TikTok has taken the social media world by storm, 2024 will see a significant shift towards search functionality within the platform. With the introduction of advanced search features, users can discover content more efficiently, opening up new opportunities for brands to be discovered. This evolution in TikTok’s search capabilities will make it an even more powerful platform for marketers looking to connect with their target audience through creative and engaging content.

Connected TV (CTV)

Connected TV (CTV) is redefining how consumers access and interact with content. The rise of streaming services and smart TVs has paved the way for personalised, on-demand viewing experiences. In 2024, CTV is poised to become a dominant force in the advertising space. Marketers can leverage CTV to reach audiences on a larger scale, delivering tailored content directly to viewers’ living rooms. The shift towards CTV highlights the importance of adapting advertising strategies to meet consumers where they spend their screen time.

Privacy-Centric Marketing

With growing concerns about data privacy, consumers are increasingly seeking transparency and control over their personal information. Privacy-centric marketing is not just a trend; it’s a fundamental shift in how businesses approach customer data. In 2024, we expect companies to prioritise privacy in their marketing strategies, building trust with consumers by adopting ethical data practices. This shift will influence everything from targeted advertising to data storage and handling as businesses strive to demonstrate their commitment to protecting user privacy.

As we embrace the digital trends of 2024, it’s evident that the landscape is evolving towards more personalised, transparent, and user-centric experiences. From harnessing the power of CDPs to navigating the realms of AI in advertising, TikTok search, CTV, and privacy-centric marketing, businesses that stay ahead of the curve will find themselves well-positioned in the competitive digital landscape. By understanding and adapting to these trends, marketers can create meaningful connections with their audiences while staying at the forefront of innovation.

We live in the screen generation. Whether mobile phones, tablets, laptops or Smart TVs, society is dominated by their use. We live in a purely visual world where images are the primary input. Video consumption is increasing year after year, and users have changed the way they consume video: in this context, video marketing, and more specifically YouTube, takes centre stage. 

Video marketing is a tool based on videos on different platforms to achieve digital marketing objectives.

What opportunities do YouTube video-centric strategies offer brands?

YouTube is a massive platform with great potential and reach. Moreover, YouTube campaigns are more cost-effective than any other platform. YouTube, and online video, in general, play an essential role in consumers’ purchasing decisions throughout the conversion funnel.

What does the data tell us?

More than 90% of YouTube users discover new products on YouTube.

More than 50% of shoppers say online videos help them decide on a particular product or brand.

More than 70% of YouTube campaigns result in increased offline sales.

How can we use YouTube to achieve our marketing goals?

The first thing you need to do to be practical using YouTube is to define your marketing objectives. Marketing objectives correspond to three consumer journey stages (the so-called funnel): awareness, consideration and action. So the question you have to ask yourself is, which of these three objectives do I want to improve: do I want to increase awareness, increase consideration or generate leads or sales?

Once this is clear, you have to adapt your strategy to achieve these objectives through the solutions offered by the platform. In the case of YouTube, it will be necessary to take into account the following:

• Measurement: This will help us to understand the type of customer we have and, above all, to define the main KPIs.
• Creativity: Good creativity contributes more than 50% of the campaign and influences more than 60% of the increase in sales.
• Messaging: It is necessary to create messages in line with the target audience, influencing more than 30% of the campaign results. Therefore, conveying the right message to the right user is crucial to achieving better results.

The marketing objective will also depend on the format we use to direct the audience through the marketing funnel. Therefore:

• Awareness: if we want to focus on understanding, i.e. a more upper funnel strategy, we will use higher coverage formats such as CPM (cost per thousand) campaigns, i.e. campaigns based on the number of impressions.
• Consideration: if we target the mid and upper funnel, we will use streaming formats such as TrueView or Discovery, with a CPV (cost per view) type of bid, towards an audience with more purchase intent. 
• Action: Finally, to achieve user action, we will need a format that helps to reach the final conversion, such as the purchase of a product. Here we will use another format, such as TrueView for action, to maximise conversions.

The pandemic has changed our lives, our needs and behaviours, which is reflected in the consumption of digital content, especially on streaming platforms, audio or video games, the centre of our entertainment, and many times, our social relationships. Given the current panorama and the new entertainment platforms, advertising must adapt and evolve within new formats that allow brands to reach their target audience. 

And what type of advertising adapts, is based on the data of our audiences and has the most versatile and creative formats? Programmatic advertising. Making Science, technology, and digital marketing consultancy brings together the trends in programmatic advertising that will undoubtedly play a leading role in brand strategies in 2022. 

Discover how programmatic advertising in its various formats is a more efficient type of advertising that will allow better targeting and greater personalisation!

Programmatic audio

Buying advertising space on internet radio platforms, podcasts, or streaming music is something that many brands have been doing for some time, but given the increase in consumption of this type of online/streaming content in 2020 and beyond, we expect programmatic audio to grow exponentially.

Programmatic audio opens up a world of possibilities in which reaching the right audiences or segments is becoming easier and easier. Allowing very accurate demographic segmentation, acting as a partner to traditional radio ads and developing in an environment conducive to listening as the platforms mentioned above, programmatic audio becomes an essential asset for any brand.

Programmatic TV

Programmatic TV has the advantages of audience-based targeting, TV ad buying automation and artificial intelligence, inventory optimisation and data-driven analytics.

The main media adapted to the programmatic TV offer are Connect TV, TVs connected by native integration to the internet (smart tv) or via external devices (Chromecast, PS4, Xbox), HbbTV, an industry-standard initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the transmission, via TVs or Set-Top-Box, of TV content across devices other than TV (desktop, mobile and tablet) and Catch up TV, a form of “video on demand” that allows viewers to watch linear TV programmes over a period of time.

Digital Out of Home (DOOH) 

DOOH refers to OOH advertising but in its digital version, which allows campaign tracking, personalisation, geofencing, retargeting, measurement, among other things.DOOH are the digital billboards that we all see every day in our cities. Using programmatic advertising on these, we can show each person who passes in front of these billboards and has their mobile device with them (which will automatically connect with the billboard through NFC technology) an advert according to their tastes and interests. With DOOH, brands can achieve visibility and be integrated into drive-to-store campaign strategies when used with programmatic advertising, measuring whether users who have seen our outdoor ads have visited the physical shop.

Streaming platforms

Streaming platforms have become a perfect place for the execution of programmatic advertising, especially since the early days of the pandemic, where the concept of “streaming” has become synonymous with consumer entertainment at a time when isolation was being installed in our lives indefinitely. 

With consumers increasingly using these platforms, brands have an opportunity to impact their audiences by offering content tailored to each user’s tastes, and the streaming platforms themselves know this. That is why some of them, such as Disney+, already have their programmatic advertising platform (DRAX – Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange) with which they want to automate advertising sales through programmatic platforms, as television advertising becomes more personalised, allowing brands to reach different households around the world with different ads based on consumer data.

Chatbots

Currently, chatbots are a resource used by several brands both on their websites and other channels, and they allow us to attend to our users by solving some simple questions quickly and effectively. And what does programmatic have to do with this? A lot. This new format allows us to communicate with our customers programmatically outside the web. Impacting our target, at the right time, with the message we want. Through this format, we can guide the user to specific content, resolve their doubts and even carry out a survey about the products in the campaign.

New formats and solutions to face the new privacy world

In the new world of online user privacy, we must adapt our actions and strategies to respect the privacy of those who visit us. This is why, in order for our programmatic campaigns to be successful, the environment must be adapted to the new needs of privacy. Therefore, we must introduce different solutions and tools that allow us to continue with our digital activity, such as the new Google Analytics, Google Consent Mode, Data Quality or Ads Data Hub.

On the other hand, several technology partners are promoting strategies that use their own user ID, such as Amazon DSP, undoubtedly one of the trends that brands will explore the most in the coming months. We highlight Amazon’s first-party audiences, which are now becoming a strategic advantage when working on Amazon campaigns in relation to the disappearance of 3rd party cookies.

In the words of Sandra Olivas, Adtech Area Manager at Making Science, “in a post-pandemic scenario in which the protection of user privacy in digital is increasingly stronger, new strategies and trends in programmatic will play a key role for brands and will help to impact their audiences in a new and effective way, respecting the current and future digital ecosystem”.

Today’s consumer is bombarded with advertising messages from both traditional and digital media channels. User journeys have become more complex, there are more touchpoints in the space between the user browsing to the user completing the purchase. 

Omnichannel strategies have made it more difficult for marketing managers to track entire purchase journeys.  Multi touch-points can cause a loss of data, leaving marketers unable to identify that a user simply interacting is indeed the same user who completed the purchase. Without tracking user activity, companies cannot evaluate the impact the different channels and campaigns have on users’ purchase decisions and therefore, cannot see where the actual value is generated.  

The main two challenges faced when building an attribution model are implementing a unique user identifier across the different platforms and integrating all data coming from digital platforms and the CRM, where the offline conversions are.

Companies that obtain conversions through call centres or shop stores need to track their offline conversions. Solely tracking online conversions deters marketers from mapping out users’ full journey, inhibiting the optimisation of their marketing strategy and straining their ROI. Custom attribution models will combine your data, give you the proper insights, and attribute the proper credits to different campaigns and channels.

The attribution model is not the same for all companies and depends on your marketing activity and business objectives. For companies using mainly Search activity, a last-click attribution model would be recommended, for a company using Search, social and display activity, a more complex attribution model would be required to integrate all the impressions and the attribution sourced from each platform.

Attribution models are powerful tools that assist marketers in making data-driven decisions, provide additional investment opportunities and contribute to a KPI-based form of optimizing their marketing budget.

It’s the end of the road for third-party cookies. The final death knell will ring when Google stops supporting third-party cookies on its Chrome browser in 2022. Given that over 85% of online browsing is carried out on these browsers – and that cookies are the foundational blocks of tracking, targeting and measurement in digital marketing – significant change is to surely come.

The breadth and depth of the implications will be felt across the industry. But how will the impact be felt specifically by E-commerce marketers?

The current state of E-commerce marketing

In the last decade, E-commerce has boomed. Low barriers to entry in operations and marketing has given rise to a never-ending collection of smaller brands looking to capitalise on the abilities of the likes of Facebook and Google to find valuable audiences. Larger brands, eager to broaden their reach and play a larger part in the customer journey, have also refocused efforts to maximise their E-commerce presence.

Highly targeted and personalised advertising has delivered enormous efficiency in customer acquisition cost (CAC). But E-commerce marketers have been given more than a glimpse of what is to come if they cannot figure out how to adapt to the imminent demise of the cookie.

Earlier this year, Apple enhanced privacy rules for advertisers with iOS 14.5. The result has been smaller addressable audiences, increased media costs and greater CAC. Without a solution for web browsing, the time of efficient customer acquisition is over. 

So now is when E-commerce marketers need to act. But what should be done?

Cookies are out, first-party data is in

It will clearly be harder for E-commerce marketers to identify people as they navigate their digital buying journeys. But it won’t be impossible. Rather than relying on third-party cookies, marketers should look to develop a first-party data strategy. 

Give your audience a significant reason to opt-in to your marketing and start to build on-going ‘relationships’ with them. Work to improve your user experience on your owned and earned assets, test your messaging when asking for consent on your website or app. 

For one client, we have been able to increase ‘consent conversion rate’ by 20% through testing different approaches.

You will likely need to build a sophisticated data tech stack. Your brand likely already has a decent CRM function, but this needs to become filled with more than just customer sales data. Incorporate all sources of first party data into it and understand the full breadth of outputs that a CRM tool can offer. 

Customer Data Platforms

Using a Customer Data Platform (CDP), you can augment your powerful first party data to create a holistic view of your customer. In the past, 2nd and 3rd party data played a huge role in this. These types of data have been hit very hard by recent privacy changes, and their efficacy is clearly diminished. But there is still value in bringing these datasets into a CDP to complement your valuable 1st party data. 

CDPs help businesses get a 360 view of their customers. It brings together all sources of data and uses that information for better targeting, optimisation and reporting of your marketing communications. They are reactive – updating customer profiles continuously as people alter their behaviour and engage in different ways. This allows for comprehensive segmenting of your customers, enabling you to personalise your marketing communications to increase relevance:

• Product recommendations based on previous purchase behaviour and web browsing history
• Customer intelligence for support teams
• Increasing retention by spotting common challenges per segment
• Acquiring new customers based on a holistic understanding of your buyers.

Diversify your sales channels

By looking beyond just your owned sales channels you can grow sales in a way that bypasses the need for cookies entirely – although this often comes at the expense of insight. Steps are being made in marketers’ ability to tie together offline purchases with online marketing activity. 

Additionally, most of the main social media channels are building in features that let their audience buy products from brands on their platforms. The benefits here are:

• A simple user experience
• Joined up journey from comms to purchase that makes cross-site tracking irrelevant and improves the ability of the platforms’ algorithms to learn and improve. 

But E-commerce businesses are exposed to the risks of losing control of the UX (such as less ability to upsell), as well as losing transparency of behavioural data.

Technical challenges lies ahead

However you look at it, the days of ‘easy E-commerce’ are numbered. Marketers at such businesses need to plan an approach for how to use data and technology so they still create aligned, personalised customer experiences.

Staying on top of new tools, technologies and tactics in the digital world can be overwhelming. Many platforms are constantly changing to cater to their ever-growing audiences. Luckily many of these changes and updates are beneficial to marketers. To distinguish which updates and tools will benefit your campaigns, you need to start by analysing and understanding your brand’s objectives. Updating your campaign to include different platforms can be advantageous as it refreshes your campaigns onto newer audiences. Using features that are not compatible with your campaign will not help you reach your objectives, is a waste of time & is not financially beneficial. This article features the latest updates on the biggest paid media platforms and evaluates how these updates can benefit your marketing campaign.

New ad space

Within the mix of user content now lies another space for brands to bid for. Instagram and Twitter have both recently introduced an ad space within their latest features. Instagram is allowing brands to place ads in between reels and IGTV videos. The format of the ads depends on what type of content they follow; reels are 15 seconds long, and videos uploaded onto IGTV can be up to 60 mins, but the ads can only be 15 seconds. Twitter has also followed in the same direction by adding ads spaces in between fleets. Fleets are a very new feature to Twitter as the platform has never incorporated a story like-feature before. If your target audience uses these platforms, investing in paid ads campaigns on Instagram and Twitter can help push your brand into the hands of your desired audience. But these platforms are overly saturated with advertisers bidding for ad space, so marketers must ensure that they produce highly engaging content with a clear CTA to best benefit their campaign and drive those conversions.

In-app shopping

In-app shopping is an excellent way for social media users to be connected with their favourite brands and quickly encounter new ones. Many platforms are now introducing and bettering their in-app shopping experience. Facebook has announced that they will integrate shops across the social network and introduce shops to WhatsApp and the marketplace. 74% of Facebook users said they use FB to discover new brands & products online. Brands can now add their shop to the marketplace and have an additional sales channel. Instagram is another Facebook product that is updating its Commerce platform. Spring, an eCommerce platform designed to help brands create and sell products directly to their customers, is set to partner with Instagram by the end of 2021. By using a direct to consumer sales method, Spring connects retailers with potential customers. This update will develop Instagrams in app-shopping features and improve the eCommerce experience for users and brands. Pinterest is also stepping up its eCommerce game with its latest update intended to make the purchasing process easier for users and brands. Their eCommerce efforts have increased in the past year, and the platform’s latest feature is a “shopping list” tab. The list is set to be an organised place where users can find all the items they are interested in buying. Pinterest has also introduced a Verified Merchant Program, and verified sellers will have a blue tick on their profile and a shop tab on the brand’s profile. An interesting new feature coming up is a two-week shopping highlight called the ‘Goods by Pinterest’, which will give users access to limited edition products by British sellers. All these new features will be beneficial for marketers whose targeted audience are Pinterest users.

Creative & Editing – Youtube video editing / TikTok creative suite

More platforms are adding features that help brands and marketers advertise their products/ services. But with so many different platforms, distinguishing how to plan and create specific plans for each platform can be challenging. To solve this problem, platforms are now providing marketers with an in-app creative platform that assists brands in launching paid ad campaigns. Creative & editing suites have become very popular on social media platforms that offer automated ad services. TikTok, Pinterest and Instagram and some of the latest platforms to release a creative service within their platform. Once brands open or convert to a business account, they can access automated ad services beneficial to marketers who use the specific platform. If you have automated ads on TikTok, then using TikToks creative suite will enable your ads to be created in the same format as the ads on TikTok. The technology within these platforms optimises and ensures that your ad performs at its best.

TikTok offers a business creative hub, a section with relevant trends and tips to set itself apart from other platforms. The business content page has blogs and videos showcasing the best practices of advertising and brand awareness. This feature is also similar to TikToks ‘Top ads’ library, Which displays marketers on the platform with examples of successful ads. Setting guidelines and presenting best practices, platforms like TikTok can assist marketers in advertising and branding methods. To ensure that they are hitting the mark of attracting their desired audience within that specific platform.

Audio Content

As the marketing world moves online to suit the needs of the current climate, podcasts and audio related services have become extremely popular. Lockdown saw the rise of the podcasts and the app Clubhouse. As many stayed at home, the public found different forms of staying entertained and communicating with others. Platforms are adding features that replay audio-based content. Facebook is one of the latest platforms to release a Live Audio room, expanding the platforms podcast features. Users in the US and on Apple devices will soon listen to popular podcasts, public figures and a dozen FB Groups. FB’s Audio room is very similar to their competitor’s Clubhouse, which has multiple rooms hosted by users, brands and even celebrities. Audio content enables brands to reach their audience differently from other social platforms. Brands use these audio-based platforms for advertising themselves and their products, but they can create brand awareness by speaking on subjects that correlate with their brand and be helpful to the listeners. Spotify, SoundCloud and other audio-based apps are one of the only platforms that have audio ads. Even though Social platforms mainly use images and videos for their paid media, audio content can be highly beneficial in raising brand awareness and providing a unique experience for their user, especially if your target audience is listening to music or podcasts on these particular platforms.

Ultimately, choosing which new tools or updates will benefit your campaign is determined by your brand and what you expect to achieve with your campaigns. Don’t be afraid to choose more than one social platform to use, but first, you must understand your audience and what content will best serve them & drive your campaign towards success.