Walmart Connect: Walmart’s Ambitious Advertising Plans For Its Programmatic Platform
Retail giant Walmart plans to build out its Walmart Connect advertising platform this year and is creating multiple new channels for advertisers to engage directly with its customers.
Walmart has improved its internal advertising prowess over the past several years, with retail media becoming increasingly important. On Walmart’s earnings call, the retailer discussed its global advertising business and how Walmart Connect, its United States arm, plans to innovate this year. In the fourth quarter ended Jan. 28, Walmart’s global advertising business reached $2.1 billion and active U.S. advertisers increased by 136%.
Interesting Read: 5 Ad Industry Trends That Are Likely To Unveil in 2022!
The meaning of meaningful connections
The digital media presence is a tempting opportunity for advertisers. Big retailers have also stepped up their advertising offerings. These efforts imply an additional revenue stream derived from first-party data, as well as confidence that the retailers’ customers have more attention to spare for additional advertising.
Reach: Walmart states that 90% of American households with them in-store or online. Also, claims that more than 150 million customers shops every week. In a company blog post, Walmart Connect SVP and General Manager Rich Lehrfeld describe the connections the company is making between its customers, suppliers, and sellers.
“Our mission at Walmart Connect is to help brands and sellers meaningfully connect with these customers on their shopping journey – wherever that occurs – to find the right product or discover a new one.”
Walmart lists that these meaningful connections occur in omnichannel ways- stores, websites, apps, or the internet. Of course, the retail giant’s own digital properties play an extensive role in the journey that includes search and native display ads as well as social media.
Social Media: The #GetTheWChallenge for the football fans on TikTok to inspire their shopping for the Big Game.
AR Experience: The retail giant tapped customer attention using AR technology where they discovered new products through Walmart’s Gift Finder during the holiday season. They also purchased ingredients through co-created shoppable Pinterest recipes.
Expand Touchpoints: Walmart Connect plans to expand the touchpoints for customers to view ads and the types of advertisements they see through CTV, video, and omnichannel experiences, such as self-checkout screens, in-store events, sampling, and TV Walls. Moreover, Walmart.com will launch premium advertising experiences by the end of the year, including video and onsite advertising.
Interesting Read: 6 Data Privacy Trends To Look Out For In 2022!
Unlocking growth for suppliers and sellers
Suppliers and sellers will be able to reach customers more efficiently with automation. Lehrfeld explained,
“We recently rolled out Display Self-Serve to our first phase of advertisers, giving them more speed, flexibility and control with their display campaigns.”
Walmart Platform Partner program will also be expanded to assist sellers in scaling, automating, and optimizing search campaigns. Furthermore, Walmart Demand Side Platform (DSP) will be presented to more advertisers and will enable them to purchase offsite inventory in one place.
Its blog post explains that improving targeting and search capabilities will give advertisers more impact and customers a better experience. It will also be able to offer a more comprehensive end-to-end offering by expanding its measurement capabilities across its portfolio. Lehrfeld concluded
“We’re laser-focused on evolving Walmart Connect’s solutions to help advertisers make every media moment a retail moment, by connecting with customers in a meaningful way at any point in their shopping journey.”.
Interesting Read: Bridging The Gap: Is YouTube Unifying Linear And CTV Ad Buying?
Magnite Acquires Carbon That Will Allow Publishers Unlock The Value of Audience
Magnite, the world’s largest independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform announced the acquisition of Carbon. Essentially, Carbon is a one-stop solution for supporting seller-defined audiences, which is one of the hottest trends right now, as inventory sellers have significant bargaining power in CTV. Publishers can create unique audience segments and improve addressability by accessing first-party data from streaming viewers. The acquisition was financed by an asset sale and financial terms were not disclosed.
Interesting Read: GroupM Launches Programmatic Marketplace, Result of Licensing Deals with Magnite and PubMatic
How Will Magnite Benefit From This Deal?
Magnite’s move makes logical because CTV currently accounts for one-third of the SSP’s revenue. The acquisition will benefit Magnite as it expands its audience and identity capabilities and integrates them across its omnichannel offerings.
Adam Soroca, Chief Product Officer at Magnite said,
“CTV sellers have valuable viewer data that makes them well-positioned to create unique first-party data and we expect their demands around addressability to become more pronounced. As it relates to the open web, the likely deprecation of the third-party cookie means publisher-centric identity solutions are foundational to the future of advertising.”
Audience creation is moving from the buy-side to the sell-side, which directly owns the relationship with consumers. Although this shift is new for many publishers, first-party data has been an essential component of CTV/OTT addressability for decades. Magnite supports industry-specific IDs, it adheres to the belief that a variety of identity signals is needed to make the inventory addressable to the greatest extent possible. Carbon enters the picture here.
It will provide sellers with everything they need to maximize their audiences across all channels. In addition, it will provide Magnite with an opportunity to demonstrate its value (aka ROI) as a video ad server and CTV network.
Interesting Read: Unlock The CTV Opportunity: What The Future Looks Like
And That’s What They Said
Advertisers will expect more control and transparency in exchange for the relatively high CPMs they’ll have to pay for CTV now that the honeymoon time for CTV is coming to an end. Publishers and SSPs are beginning to realize that power (and money) will go to those who can show their efforts reached a specific audience or generated business results.
Pete Danks, CEO & Founder at Carbon said,
“Helping publishers be more profitable by providing them with technology to unlock the opportunities within their data has always been core to our mission.”
“We’re excited to further this goal as Magnite and continue to work with publishers to lay the groundwork for a new audience-based advertising paradigm built on sell-side data.”
Interesting Read: Connected TV Ad Fraud: Is It Real And How To Avoid It?
MMPWW Establishes Exclusive Partnership With DynAdmic
Starting January 1, 2022, MMP WorldWide (MMPWW) has announced an exclusive partnership with DynAdmic, a precision reach platform, to create better efficiency and uniformity in video campaigns throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and North American markets; and drive “the ad tech industry towards excellence.”
DynAdmic selects digital video ad inventory from the world’s most popular websites based on smart targeting, brand safety, and fraud protection, as well as campaign success analytics.
DynAdmic’s patented technology employs audio recognition and AI semantic analysis to enable media agencies and direct advertisers to target qualified and relevant audiences based on their real-time preferences using contextual modeling.
Interesting News: MMPWW Enters In An Exclusive Tech Partnership With Aqilliz In MENA
CO-Founder of DynAdmic, Celine Gauthier-Darnis commented on this agreement –
We see the value in partnering with MMP to scale both our businesses and benefit brands in the Middle East. Through the use of our proprietary and futuristic technology, supported by our ambition to put brand safety and fraud eradication at the very heart of our offers, we expect to set a new benchmark in the region based on our successes in EU, US, LATAM and APAC.
MMPWW is renowned throughout EMEA and APAC for its innovative approach to ad tech, providing full-funnel targeting and precision marketing solutions to help clients reach and engage their consumers in real-time.
Nader Bitar, Managing Director of MMPWW said that in the wake of approaching a cookieless ecosystem, the company had been running a discourse about “return of contextual”. He added –
By partnering with DynAdmic and bringing their products to the region, we will be able to take video measurement to the next level, allowing our clients to understand the effectiveness of their campaigns in real-time with full transparency on the delivery.
Also Read: Clean Rooms Explained: How Marketers Can Prepare For Cookieless World
Clean Rooms Explained: How Marketers Can Prepare For Cookieless World
The advertising industry is undergoing a paradigm shift and their favorite buzzword is a clean room. Ad agencies, publishers, and technology providers have long relied on “centralized identification.” They know how to discover, reach, engage, and measure individuals by way of cookies, mobile IDs, and set-top field IDs.
With Google’s decision to end third-party cookie support in Chrome, the data will be lost on which brands once relied upon to gauge advertising returns. Consequently, in a world where user privacy regulations are being strengthened, marketers are heading into a brand new area of marketing analytics where connectivity and addressability are becoming more and more fragmented. Hence, it comes with no surprise that clean room is a hot topic for advertisers.
Interesting Read: Disney Launches Clean Room For Marketers’ First-Party Data Needs
What Does A Clean Room Do?
Data clean rooms are software programs that enable advertisers and brands to match user-level data without sharing any personally identifiable information(PII) or raw data. It was originally arranged by walled gardens such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon to provide advertisers with matched data about how their ads were performing on their platforms.

Image Credit: Search Engine Journal
How Can Advertisers Use The Clean Room?
There are currently two types of clean room: walled gardens, like Google and Amazon, which let brands see inside their own ecosystems. Second, software companies and data managers like Habu or InfoSum act as conduits between parties that wish to share data.
For example, brand partners with a publisher (Google, Amazon, or retailer with a media network). A clean room provides a closer look at campaign performance data like reach, shopper conduct, and engagement for logged-in or registered prospects to both parties. Further, they will relay their first-party data into the clean room and compare it to platform data to enable activation and measurement without revealing user-level details.
Marketers are partnering with expertise suppliers to create their own authentic and privacy-safe clean rooms. The digital sphere is becoming more and more like a federation of private rooms, each with its own distinctive capabilities and information. Also, “Id” is turning more decentralized than before.
Interesting Read: End Of Third-Party Cookies, What Is There For Marketers: Takeaway!
How Should Advertisers Address This?
First, they need to determine which clean room to take advantage of based on their advertising stack and media allocation. Let us understand with an example of Google Ads Data Hub.
Entrepreneurs utilizing Google’s tech stack ought to prioritize Adverts Knowledge Hub for attaining/frequency measurement, marketing campaign supervisor attribution, and DV360 for mapping first-party information. Furthermore, YouTube information is extra efficient when used with the rest of Google’s information, enabling cross-device publicity evaluation.
The next step for advertisers after making the choice is to develop their clean room techniques as follows:
a. Build an audience:
Advertisers will require to build new paths in every clean room for locating and rising audience. They would start with mapping first-party information to every clean room to find present and prospective shoppers. Then analyze and enhance the conduct and efficiency throughout new audiences. This will provide stability as audiences from cookie-based monitoring falls as well as insight into prospects.
b. Brand Engagement
In the absence of cookies, advertisers must shift to a mobile-centric engagement model that allows them to reach shoppers within their in-app experiences and logged-in accounts. Recapturing the information will help device-based remarketing and enable cross-device insights.
c. Measurement and optimization
Deprecating cookies means losing a unified view of the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns throughout the buyer journey. As a result, they have to use cross-device data within every room to find new indicators. Responding to the challenges, advertisers need to provide a framework for the clean room technique.
Furthermore, advertisers would require clean-room measurements and optimization techniques to understand other cell indicators that affect their marketing campaign achievement, frequency goals, and attribution models. Each clean room has its own multi-touch attribution measurement. Afterward, advertisers will want to normalize the load by combining the results across all clean rooms.
Interesting Read: Impact of Delay in Deprecation Of Cookies By Google On Adtech
What Does The Future Hold?
In the wake of third-party cookies being deprecated, marketers and publishers are racing to improve first-party data and the overall way they target, measure, and optimize it. Tracking and reporting no longer function in the background and need explicit user consent. As marketers confront the challenges associated with measurement and optimization, there is a clear need to outline a clean room technique. It may be difficult and time-consuming work, but the rewards are enormous. Rather than relying heavily on small samples to infer buyer journeys, it may make more sense to establish, target, and measure audiences by using de-identified information about writers and platforms. Data clean rooms offer a valuable way to collaborate and analyze data in a privacy-compliant way to better understand how customers interact with the brand.
A Look Ahead: Convergence Of Linear TV And Digital TV Advertising
Digital and Linear TV advertising – two culturally and technologically distinct ecosystems – are merging to increase the effectiveness of marketing to consumers.
The shift from traditional linear television to connected television (CTV) and video-on-demand options has made it difficult for advertisers to reach mass audiences. Intriguingly, some of the same techniques used for converting television viewers to digital audiences can be applied to converting addressable digital inventory into non-addressable inventory.
Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV
Machine Learning and Data Automation
Advertising technology(adtech) companies are one of the first to adopt big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. One of the reasons is that websites and apps generate enormous data that advertisers can utilize to achieve their quantifiable goals. To leverage this, automation is the key aspect in performance advertising. It is the most feasible economically logical step for marketers. Thus, small and big ad tech companies have embraced machine learning on a large scale successfully to attract customers and increase ROI.
On the other hand, TV advertising continues using conventional methods and relies on billboard data to understand the advertising reach. Even though the data is modeled but it is not as responsive as the techniques used in digital advertising.
As machine learning is not compatible with small and medium-sized data sets, advertisers are using moving to other innovative methods for TV ads. Data-Driven Linear Purchasing(DDL) is gaining momentum as it combines the precision of digital and the reach of TV. It leverages automation and data to target audiences on national linear TV. The method may not be at par with machine learning but optimizing DDL campaigns require accurate prediction and efficient complex procedures.
Interesting Read: AdTech Vs MarTech: Let’s Settle This Once For All!
Performance Measurement
The performance measurement is similar between the two media. In contrast to digital advertising, where convergent events are used to train sophisticated and supervised learning models, TV advertising is more difficult to measure. Nevertheless, Savvy TV buyers have various other ways to improve the buy like web and app analytics, group surveys, and more.
Despite TV advertising embracing the data value, digital advertising has been heavily criticized for using excessive amounts of data. As a result, government and industry privacy regulations have eliminated many of the drivers of machine learning techniques including the individual-level identifiers used during transactional events and advertising exposures.
The Road Ahead For Advertising
What is in store for advertisers after the privacy regulations?
Advertising technology (AdTech) companies can develop technology to learn from data samples, analyze that data based on context, and apply those findings to power buyers and sellers.
There is still enormous digital data despite changes in privacy policies. Advertisers should concentrate on targeting based on context and so machine learning is likely to be part of any solution. However, in television advertising, data scientists will have to prudently balance the statistical outputs of the models. Identifying and targeting audiences will remain a challenge for the advertising industry. In the meantime, data scientists who meld the best technologies from digital and television advertising can deploy powerful and accurate targeting in a more privacy-conscious world.
Interesting Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising!
MMPWW Enters In An Exclusive Tech Partnership With Aqilliz In MENA
Ad-tech solutions provider MMP World Wide (MMPWW) has entered into an exclusive technology partnership agreement with Aqilliz which will cover the Middle East, North Africa (MENA), and North American markets effective January 1, 2022. Aqilliz will authenticate audiences and establish data provenance within campaign environments.
Aqilliz – An Exclusive Technology Partner
The middleware technology provider specializes in providing seamless data collaboration and privacy compliance across the digital marketing ecosystem. Atom, Aqilliz’s proprietary, state-of-the-art data infrastructure, will enable federated learning, a machine-learning technique that allows distributed data sets to be queried and reconciled without the need to leave local storage. This ensures that all deterministic and probabilistic user identification happens within the context of local data protection laws.
Interesting Read: Huawei Ads announces six new additions to Certified Partners Program
How Will The Partnership Contribute?
MMPPWW, an ad tech leader across EMEA and APAC, delivers full-funnel targeting and precision marketing solutions to help brands reach and engage consumers. The company’s in-house expertise paired with strategic industry alliances increases its clients’ ability to effectively monetize digital advertising inventory, which results in better campaign performance and a dynamic and transparent way to communicate through vibrant content.
Automation enables the company to scale the delivery of communications to consumers. The company’s goal is to create the next generation of ad tech solutions through data mining and attribution modeling while also offering cookieless targeting.
Aqilliz’s hybrid blockchain environment will enable MMPWW and its brands to maintain an immutable ledger of transactions that records all activities of audience identification and matching by partnering with Aqilliz. This ensures the highest level of data provenance, which is in line with the requirements stipulated by data privacy laws.
Interesting Read: Trade Desk Partners With Choueiri Group For Better Programmatic Access In MENA
And That’s What They Said
Ayman Hayder, CEO of MMPWW said,
“Compliance isn’t something that is negotiable, and as more legislative reforms come into effect, it’s crucial that we equip our clients with the right tools and technology so they can be fully prepared.”
He further explained that the partnership will have a huge impact on how data is transacted in light of the recent Data Protection Law and the creation of the UAE Data Office.
“We consider this a golden opportunity to ensure privacy-first solutions become more commonplace, and we are very excited to work exclusively with Aqilliz to bring their technology to the MENA market”.
Gowthaman Ragothaman, CEO of Aqilliz is extremely thrilled about this first-of-its-kind partnership and said:
“Legacy technologies in the advertising and marketing technology ecosystem are built for centralized operations. The future of digital advertising is built on managing the value exchanges between brands, platforms, and the consumer, for which we need decentralized solutions in order to be secure and compliant. None of the existing solutions are able to capture and carry consent and provenance across the digital supply chain in order to be compliant.”
Interesting Read: JGroup and Blis To Partner For Exclusive Location-Based Advertising In MENA
AdTech Vs MarTech: Let’s Settle This Once For All!
In the marketing world, adtech and martech may appear similar especially to a novice. Despite their similarities, these two concepts differ quite a bit; a razor-thin line separating AdTech and MarTech. What is the adtech and martech difference? Does one outweigh the other? Let’s find out the nuances of both approaches and dispel the fog around them.
What Is Adtech?
Adtech is the umbrella term for advertising technology. It covers a range of tools and software that can be helpful for advertisers, publishers, and ad agencies to plan, strategize, and manage all digital advertising or monetization activities. Adtech aids companies reduce wasted ad spending as it can target specific audiences.
Studies reveal that total digital ad spending is expected to hit $129 billion by the end of 2021. In short, adtech companies can help businesses maximize the return from their advertising spending by targeting specific audiences.

Image Credit: Smarty Ads
Examples Of Platforms/Tools Of Adtech

Image Credit: Amazon Ads
The two major entities that play a crucial role in adtech are – Demand Side Platform (DSP) and the Supply Side Platform (SSP).
Demand-side Platform (DSP): An essential platform for advertisers to buy, search, display video or mobile ads. It enables advertisers to buy ad placements in real-time on the publisher websites made available by ad exchange and networks. Some of the DSP players are Simplifi, Smarty Ads, App Nexus, Trade Desk, and more.
Supply Side Platform (SSP): The platform allows publishers to sell display, mobile ad impressions to potential buyers in real-time. Some of the key SSP players are MoPub, OpenX, Google, App Nexus, and more.
Broader examples also include:
- Data management platforms
- Ad exchanges/network/servers
- Tag management systems
- Programmatic advertising tools
- SEM (Search Engine Manager)
Interesting Read: A One-stop Guide On All You Ever Need To Know About AdTech In 2020
What Is Martech?
Martech is also known as marketing technology mainly used for digital marketing. John Koetsier, VP of Insights for Singular explains, “Every piece of technology a marketer uses to reach a potential customer is martech.” (via Adage)
Martech refers to the platforms and technologies that you use to create your ad media content, collect and analyze data, and reach your target audience.
MarTech is most commonly known for its automation, which allows you to manage multiple channels simultaneously and save time. Furthermore, it also helps marketers obtain more customer information and resolve tasks efficiently, making digital marketing more cost-effective.
There are more than 8,000 MarTech solutions and it is just expected to grow.
Examples of Platforms/Tools Of Martech
Some of the most common examples of Martech include:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software-Salesforce, Hubspot, and more
- Social media management – Hootsuite and Buffer
- Search engine optimization (SEO) tools– Google Analytics, WooRank, Ahrefs, and more
- Content management platforms– WordPress, Squarespace, and more
- Digital analytics tools-MixPanel, KISSmetrics, and more
- Email marketing tools– MailChimp, Magento, and more
- Marketing automation programs
- Lead Magnets
When people discuss “Martech stack”, it means a collection of marketing technology solutions deployed by an organization to reach and convert potential customers.

Image Credit: Yellow Head Inc
Interesting Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising!
Adtech and Martech Difference
Promotional activities like marketing and advertising go hand in hand. However, advertising is largely sponsored content. Advertisers always pay for the placement of their ads on a channel, website, social network, or connected TV.
On the contrary, marketing starts with understanding your product/service’s unique selling proposition, buyer personas, and channel partners. The aim is to understand the audience, deliver the right message, and generate more leads for the sales team. The marketing mix includes a variety of marketing activities, one of which is advertising.
Speaking of adtech vs. martech, let us comprehend the core differences with the help of the illustrating table below.
Adtech And Martech Convergence
Adtech platforms yield huge anonymous customer data and are not as personalized as data obtained from martech platforms. It relies on third-party data which often affects consumer privacy and utilizes the data for targeted online ad campaigns. They are often not in line with consumer interests and behavior.
Hence, adtech and martech convergence is highly essential. And what is this convergence called?
Adtech + Martech = Madtech
A good quality digital strategy requires a comprehensive approach. Therefore, the silos between adtech and martech need to be broken down for seamless data flow and synchronization.
Katie Wheeler in CMSWire wrote,
“The convergence of AdTech and MarTech can redefine the path of your marketing spend across the platforms you invest in, the data you own, the media you choose and the content you develop.”
For instance, a brand can use adtech and martech specific tools for a holistic marketing strategy. It can use an adtech platform to track the users visiting the website for a retargeting campaign. Then utilize the information in combination with the data gathered from blog analytics, email campaigns, or social media platforms (martech) to understand customer needs, optimize landing pages and personalize messaging for a sophisticated campaign.
The union of adtech and martech is every marketer’s dream as it will enhance customer experience which ultimately yields maximum ROI on the campaign and brings value to the business.
Interesting Read: Programmatic Advertising Platforms in 2020: A Complete Guide
Wrapping Up
There is a visible difference in the process of adtech and martech. However, we cannot claim that one is better than the other. The coming age will witness a Madtech revolution that will synergize advertising and marketing. It may cause a paradigm shift among marketers. Advertisers and marketers can benefit by deploying both adtech and martech tools to optimize budgets, increase conversion and achieve the best results.
On that note, ending with a quote of Rob Tarkoff, EVP, Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience from AdExchanger Talks podcast,
“It’s now time for the front office to go the way of the back office, which means we have to automate more of the adtech and martech selling and servicing workflow.”
Interesting Read: Your Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Customer Data Platform
Marketers Gain Direct Access To NBC Universal’s Peacock Via Yahoo DSP
NBC Universal has teamed up with Yahoo’s demand-side platform to give advertisers direct access to Peacock’s streaming and live content inventory. It is a programmatically guaranteed inventory, thereby facilitating scatter-buying and upfront buying. Programmatic guaranteed means the inventory is reserved for that buyer at a negotiated price.
With a limited number of streaming services, audiences are willing to pay for and many subscription streams stalling advertising-funded platforms become a more appealing option. In general, advertisers are more willing to invest in TV campaigns with larger audiences as long as the complex CTV buying environment does not deter them. This deal will increase the reach of advertisers’ Connected TV (CTV) campaigns. Nearly 70% of the Peacock audience is incremental to other NBCU digital video services.
Marketers can have guaranteed access to Peacock’s complete premium content library including NBC Sports, NBCU Next-Day Prime, Sky News, the Universal Pictures film library, and Peacock Originals.
The DSP will enable advertisers to target users based on location, age/gender, Peacock in-house segments, or contextually pre-defined, dynamic, or seasonal packages. This is Peacock’s first programmatic launch, with Yahoo serving as a pilot partner. Previously, Yahoo delivered programmatic campaigns for leading CPG, automotive, and telecom brands.
Interesting Read: All You Need To Know About Connected TV Advertising!
Pricing and programming Are Important
According to a blog by Yahoo, it said the results are encouraging. A major telecom brand could reach highly engaged audiences with Peacock’s on-demand content.
“For this advertiser, a resounding 92% of viewers reached on Peacock were not reached on linear TV, showcasing the value of Peacock’s digital-first audience.”
It further explained that the client the importance of Peacock in their strategy.
“Using Yahoo’s Unified TV Report, the client was also able to understand how Peacock fit within its overall TV strategy, from incremental reach to cost per incremental household.”
Yahoo points out that audiences are attracted to AVOD services.

Image Credit: Yahoo
Flexibility in pricing and programming is increasingly important to consumers when choosing their streaming service.
“In fact, 83% of viewers say they’re willing to try an ad-supported version of services to save money.”
For Peacock to make the case for advertisers, they require a dependable DSP partner to up the ad revenue and ensure ads are finding the relevant audiences for advertisers.
Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV
Quick Guide: Top Programmatic Trends To Keep An Eye On In 2021
Digitalization has advanced rapidly due to COVID19 and 2021 has seen a major increase. This has helped Programmatic trends gain popularity due to their efficiencies and capabilities. But keeping up with the pace of change isn’t always easy.
Last week, I was talking to a friend about streaming services thanks to the home-stay.
And she suggested many names of streaming platforms like Apple TV+, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.
And I was amazed!
New streaming services, social media platforms, and technology seem to emerge every day. And then there has been a hike in the most important piece of the advertising puzzle – “programmatic”. Programmatic advertising is rapidly growing as eMarketer’s forecast, suggests more than 88.2% of the U.S display ads will be purchased via programmatic by 2022.
Programmatic Trends 2021 That Have Our Eyes and Ears
We have listed the programmatic trends 2021 that will factor heavily into your ad spending strategy and targeting. They will be shaping the adtech industry in the coming times. There is tremendous growth within connected TV (CTV), podcasts, DOOH, and other emerging channels. Programmatic advertising is full of opportunities.
Programmatic Trend #1: Data and Cookie Deprecation
Privacy was one of the most notable programmatic trends in 2020 and still, it is. The focus is on consent-driven first-party data and cookies are set to bid farewell in 2022. Marketers, publishers & adtech stakeholders can now take the advantage of the time to become increasingly self-reliant in setting up their own CDPs, DMPs, and unique audience identifiers.

Image Credit: IAB Australia
Interesting Read: Impact of Delay in Deprecation Of Cookies By Google On Adtech
Which exact models are expected to arrive?
-Data management platforms will re-engineer their algorithms to collect consented, personally identifiable data, and move them to programmatic platforms without defining anonymous segments.
-Another model proposed by Google is Federated Learning of Cohorts(FLoC). Cohort solutions process local data using machine learning algorithms that run on the device. Anonymous groups of people based on behavior and interests are targeted.
-Shared User ID Solutions is another model where publishers collect 1st party cookies, forward them through API to providers. With user consent, the ID provider creates an anonymous ID to be shared with brands and adtech companies. Publishers will store it in their first-party cookies.
Interested Read: End Of Third-Party Cookies, What Is There For Marketers: Takeaway!
Programmatic Trend #2: The Unmistakable Power Of OTT, Connected TV(CTV), And Mobile
Streaming services and Internet-enabled TV have opened up new opportunities for publishers, advertisers, and AdTech companies. Connected TV, OTT, and mobile-friendly ad formats are also a rapidly growing programmatic trend of 2022. Who knew that “Netflix and chill” would become so mainstream whereas 1 in 3 Americans cut the cord and banish the cable to a dump.
A Comscore report suggests that over-the-top (OTT) streaming services added 20 million households in the past 4 years. But here is the real kicker – CTV reports that OTT ads have an average completion rate of 98% as viewers have to watch the ads till the end.
Connected TV(CTV) usage increases and continues to be a big piece of overall marketing spend in the U.S. CTV ads are persuasive, engaging, well-targeted, and have a high completion rate. eMarketer study estimates that CTV ad spending will reach at least $14 billion by 2023. It is typical in advertising, where high competition drives the price of advertising down. However, the outcome is yet to be seen.

Image Credit: ClearCode
The advertisers’ favorite big screen is now also dominated by mobile small screens. From watching Netflix to browsing YouTube videos on smartphones or tablets, it is an absolute favorite choice of consumers. No wonder, mobile accounted for 68% of the digital advertising spend as it is the most easily accessible device to browse the web or watch videos anytime.
Programmatic Trend #3: The Most Compelling Audio Format – Podcast
The podcast is the radio of Millennials and Gen-Z. They have become a popular choice among digital consumers and an important part of omnichannel digital advertising strategies. The below statistics are staggering:
- Total U.S. podcast listeners are expected to increase by 20 million over the next two years, surpassing 160 million in 2023
- The average number of weekly podcast listeners in 2020 was 68 million people
- U.S programmatic podcast ad spending will double and reach $106.5 million by 2022
There is a real opportunity here, especially since only 4% of total U.S. podcast ad spending was programmatic. Podcast ads can either be host read ads or dynamically inserted ads. The former is seamless and non-invasive.

Image Credit: Writers Block Dive
Another data goldmine is a voice assistant in programmatic advertising. The use of voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and others can help marketers spot trends using programmatic advertising.
Programmatic Trend #4: DOOH Advertising
Digital Out-of-Home(DOOH) is prominent in programmatic advertising and will be one of the must-haves in programmatic trends 2022. The two primary reasons are: it allows marketers to utilize creative content as well as User Generated Content through their brand’s social media. Secondly, DOOH can support omnichannel marketing using location data to target ads, and direct prospects to the brand’s nearest sales point.
In 2021, DOOH will likely start its slow yet steady recovery. When COVID-19 hit full force, travel was severely impacted but it seems people got tired of lockdown policies and are less prone to stay at home. A study forecasts that the global market for Digital OOH will reach US$35.1 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 9.3%.
The number of supply-side platforms that integrate with DOOH is relatively low. As the segment, direct forms of media buying remain more prevalent than traditional online advertising, which continues to shift toward programmatic. However, the SSP market for DOOH is picking up steam, so companies with DSPs and access to custom supply partners can benefit from early programmatic DOOH adoption.
Interesting Read: All You Need To Know About The Rise Of DOOH Advertising
Programmatic Trend #5: AI And Machine Learning Is Golden
One of the top programmatic trends of 2021 is automation. 41% of marketers say that AI and machine learning have the greatest contribution to their revenue growth and performance.

Image Credit: Elearning Infographics
COVID-19 and the data revolution have greatly accelerated the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in programmatic advertising, and this trend is likely to continue in 2022. AI and machine learning will place programmatic ads based on criteria and relevance. Besides reducing inventory wastage, it also creates a win-win system for both publishers and advertisers. In the new trend, cohorts will be used to gain insight into how new users act on the internet and when the right time is to target them. As a result, advertisers will be able to improve their targeting and bidding as well as increase their ROI.
Interested Read: 5 Programmatic Advertising Case Studies That Yielded Exponential Results
Programmatic Trend #6: 5G Boost For Programmatic
5G internet will significantly bolster programmatic advertising. With 100 times more bandwidth than 4G, it will make processing power-intensive programmatic a mainstream form of advertising. The display ads will load faster and advertisers can reach more channels at a higher speed. Additionally, 5G will drive the growth of in-app and in-game advertising, as well as ads in wearables and smart home devices.
It will complement other technologies and mediums, such as augmented reality ads, virtual reality without the heavy headsets, and innovative new digital outdoor advertising. It is predicted that 5 G-based adtech to expand to 1.4 billion users by 2024. This means programmatic advertising will cater huge audience to run sharper and interactive ads without lags around mediums.
Programmatic Trend #7: Hyper Relevance It Is!
Hyper Relevance over Hyper-Personalization is the new programmatic trend. Relevance must be the determining factor when targeting a customer instead of targeting and adjusting revenue based on needs. This can be achieved through programmatic targeting. Advertisers and publishers can serve ads more effectively through this method without collecting invasive data that users must fill out.
Geofencing on mobile is a classic example of hyper-relevant advertising combined with a smart choice of device targeting. It focuses on highly localized areas to provide relevant ads even if personal information is not available. Geofencing gives more importance to location as it plays a crucial factor in purchase decision-making.
Interesting Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising!
Summing Up
Programmatic is expanding to new media formats, like CTV, DOOH, and Digital Audio. Meanwhile, the adtech industry is also facing privacy and data collection issues. Hence, new regulations and transformation to a cookie-less world are a requisite.
The programmatic trends mentioned can be a part of your advertising strategy irrespective of its complexities. Programmatic advertising will gain more prominence in the future and this is the right time to jump the bandwagon to reap the benefits of the innovative technologies.
Adtech Acquisition: Double Verify To Acquire Open Slate For $150 Million
Double Verify (DV), the digital media measurement, data, and analytics platform, has announced to acquire OpenSlate, a pre-campaign contextual targeting platform. It enables brands to align advertising with suitable or contextually relevant content across social video and CTV. The $150 million deal is in cash and stock transaction that is expected to close this quarter. Open Slate provides solutions that help to understand the nature and quality of ad-supported content on video-driven platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. It operates across 37 international markets and supports large global brands and agencies.
Mark Zagorski, DoubleVerify CEO stated that the company’s mission is to make digital advertising stronger, safer, and more secure to give brands clarity and confidence in their digital investments,
“Our strategy in support of this mission is to verify everywhere – across channels, formats, platforms and geographies. The combination with OpenSlate fully supports this approach. OpenSlate’s pre-campaign solutions perfectly complement DV’s post-campaign measurement capabilities across CTV and social environments. Integrating the two provides advertisers with unparalleled end-to-end brand safety, suitability and contextual optimization. No other company will be able to deliver a fully-owned, integrated solution across the leading social and CTV walled gardens.”
Interesting Read: Tremor International Partners With Double Verify For Authentic Brand Suitability
How Will The Acquisition Benefit Social video and CTV Advertisers?
Social video and CTV advertisers will benefit from OpenSlate’s pre-activation brand suitability and contextual solutions, as well as DV’s established post-bid media quality measurement solutions.
In a highly digital ad world, ever-evolving cookie regulations, a decline in measurement solutions, and concerns about brand suitability have created a challenge for advertisers in their quest to better target and measure their ad spend. The alliance of Double Verify and Open Slate will offer a comprehensive toolset to address these challenges. This will contribute to the continued expansion of social video ads and CTV advertising that is projected to grow to $56B and $16B by 2023, respectively.
Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV
Further, this acquisition will increase DV’s value to advertisers in social video and CTV as well as strengthen the unmatched product leadership and innovation. Advertisers can leverage the unified targeting and quality measurement suite and coherently optimize campaigns, maximize performance and drive ROI.
Mike Henry, OpenSlate CEO said they are thrilled to join forces with Double Verify.
“Integrating with DV will be a natural evolution for our technology and will accelerate our ability to provide advertisers with comprehensive brand safety, suitability, and contextual solutions across social video and CTV.”
Interesting Read: All You Need To Know About Connected TV Advertising!