Dive Brief:

• Mobile advertisers expect to spend more in content environments with overt context signals, as 70% say context has become more important, per a survey of 252 advertisers that business intelligence firm Advertiser Perceptions emailed to Marketing Dive.
• More than half of advertisers plan to increase spending on gaming (53%) and kids' programming (51%). In the six months prior to the December 2020 survey, 36% of advertisers invested in gaming and just 15% spent on kids' programming. Lifestyle and entertainment will continue to see investment, with spending hikes planned by 43% and 48% of advertisers, respectively.
• The context of ads is gaining importance amid a changing data privacy landscape that will make personalization and targeting more difficult. The ability of walled gardens to adapt to these changes will ensure paid social remains a key strategy, while advertisers expect to ramp up spending on podcasts, e-commerce and video, per the survey.

Dive Insight:

With Apple's changes to the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) finally in effect — and the death of the third-party cookie imminent — mobile advertisers are prepared to reach consumers by focusing on the context of their ads, rather than one-to-one targeting and personalization. Focusing on context will lead advertisers to spend where consumers are spending their time.

"Of course personalized targeting is important, but what's most important is where the consumers are and what they're doing," Sarah Bolton, executive vice president of business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions, said in a statement. "They have to be where the audience is going, and due to the COVID impact, areas like gaming, kids and entertainment content have seen massive audience growth over the past year."

The changes around privacy are also affecting the use of location-based data for targeting. By the end of 2020, with changes looming and consumers mostly staying at home, 37% of advertisers had decreased or discontinued location-based data solutions, with 57% saying approximate data is a "good enough" substitute for GPS data, per Advertiser Perceptions' survey.

While the top priorities for mobile advertisers remain the same — paid social, display and search — several burgeoning areas are expected to attract more ad dollars, including 57% of advertisers planning to invest more in podcasts, 50% will spend more on e-commerce and 49% will ramp up their video budgets. As walled gardens, major social media platforms have the resources to adapt to privacy and regulatory changes, per Advertiser Perceptions, but still must reassure advertisers that they offer brand safety, privacy compliance and protection against fraud.

For the survey, Advertiser Perceptions interviewed 252 advertisers (40% marketer and 60% agency) from its AdPros community in December 2020.