What you need to know about data in marketing

Oops, they did it again: Google has — for the third time — delayed the death of the cookie in Chrome, further complicating the advertising industry's efforts to move beyond a bedrock technology of digital advertising.

The most recent timeline held that the tech giant would phase out the tracking technology for all users in the second half of 2024, following a test deprecating cookies for 1% of users that began in January. However, Google said in a blog posted April 23 that it now hopes to proceed with deprecation in early 2025.

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem,” the company said in the blog.

The latest delay follows push back from the IAB Tech Lab, a key standard-setting trade body, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), U.K. regulatory bodies, over concerns about the viability and potentially anti-competitive nature of Google's Privacy Sandbox proposals. The CMA has asked to review results from industry tests by the end of June, per the blog, making the previous deadline untenable.

Despite the stay of execution, many ad industry figures stressed that marketers shouldn't use the delay as a reason to slow or cancel their post-cookie plans. Even if Google is eventually able to get regulatory and trade body approval of deprecation, the technology might be rendered irrelevant as the company faces larger antitrust action, the growing possibility of a nationwide data privacy law and its own shifting priorities.

“Whether the cookie disappears from Chrome in 2024 or 2025 doesn’t matter: we’re at a decisive turning point in the protection of consumer privacy,” said Wilfried Schobeiri, chief technology officer at ad-tech company Ogury, in emailed comments.

“This journey began way before Google made the decision to switch off cookies, and advertisers can no longer look the other way,” the executive continued. “This latest delay should be seen as an opportunity to invest in tested and proven solutions that will allow for scale without dependency on this timeline or future industry decisions.”

Marketers have moved on

After repeated changes to both timeline and process, the latest delay to Google's deprecation plans did not surprise many industry figures. Yet despite expecting a delay or the possibility that the plan might never come to bear, many professionals have already or are planning to adopt cookieless solutions in the future.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of advertising professionals believed that cookie deprecation would be pushed back to Q1 2025, per a March survey of 100 advertisers, publishers, ad tech and data partners conducted by identity solution provider ID5. Still, 72% of industry professionals had already adopted an alternative, with 20% planning to, according to ID5's State of Digital Identity Report.

“Third-party cookies are obsolete and inefficient, dragging this process is prolonging the inevitable and leading to more confusion, fragmentation, and frustration,” said Mathieu Roche, CEO and co-founder at ID5, in emailed comments.

Roche claims that cookie deprecation is not synonymous with Google’s Privacy Sandbox, due to the preponderance of other identifiers and privacy solutions that have cropped up over the last few years. While ID5 operates its own cookieless identifier, the probabilistic ID5 ID, his thoughts were echoed by other executives.

“While the industry has been buzzing about the pros and cons around Google Privacy Sandbox, I keep asking myself — ‘Isn’t the cookie just soggy at this point?’ Ad tech firms like Liveramp, TTD and Magnite have already started to plant their flag in the ground with identity-free solutions,” said Lance Wolder, head of strategy and marketing at digital ad company PadSquad, in emailed comments.

Marketing built around first-party data and connected TV advertising — which don’t require cookies — have also gained in prevalence since Google first announced plans to deprecate cookies.

As marketers continue to test and adopt cookieless solutions, the lesson of Google's repeated delays is the need to avoid a “game of cat and mouse with regulators and big tech providers,” according to Ryan Stewart, head of publisher acquisition, North America, at programmatic platform MGID.

“The buy-side could learn from the proactivity displayed by publishers and media owners, who are actively collecting and collating first-party data to build effective data activation and monetization strategies,” Stewart said in emailed comments. “It’s a long road ahead, but at least they’re taking strides towards a sturdy post-cookie ecosystem.”

Google's rocky road

By delaying deprecation, Google will have more time to find consensus between its proposals, the ad industry and regulators around the globe. The CMA noted how the Privacy Sandbox could create obstacles for smaller digital advertising players, and, in a draft report, the ICO noted that the framework could be exploited to undermine user privacy. The IAB Tech Lab, in a report heavily disputed by Google, noted how the Privacy Sandbox could upend the current programmatic ecosystem and claimed the “industry isn’t ready yet” for the change. In light of the delay, the trade body continues to advocate for a “portfolio approach” to addressability.

“This delay should not be an excuse for the digital advertising industry to be complacent. We must continue to innovate privacy-preserving addressability and measurement solutions while working with Chrome to improve upon the critical shortcomings of the Privacy Sandbox,” said IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur in emailed comments.

Ironing out all of those issues in the months before 2025 — something Google has not been able to achieve in the last four-plus years — seems unlikely. Compounding the issue, Google is set to stand trial in September over accusations by the U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of states that it has monopolized the digital ad market and undermined competition.

Plus, the issue of cookies and digital ad tracking in general could be entirely upended as Congress makes progress on comprehensive data privacy legislation in the form of the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA). The new legislation has seen bipartisan support and could standardize what has become a patchwork approach to data privacy as states increasingly pass their own laws.

And as it faces regulatory action and industry push back on several fronts, Google is working to restructure its business around growth sectors like AI and cloud services as advertising growth slows. Parent company Alphabet announced its earnings report on April 25, giving investors, the tech industry and ad world an inside look at the the evolving ad giant.

“As the decision to delay becomes official, my only caution to our industry is that we don’t keep pushing identity down the road — much of the cookie depreciation has already occurred,” said PadSquad's Wolder. “Marketers who own their data and take a thoughtful approach to reaching and messaging with their customers and prospects are primed to win the biggest share of wallets.”

With 95% of surveyed marketing industry professionals expecting continued privacy legislation and signal loss in the future, the need for a privacy-first approach is becoming more urgent, according to the new “State of Data 2024: How the Digital Ad Industry Is Adapting to the Privacy-by-Design Ecosystem” report from the IAB.

The evolving privacy landscape is driving organizational changes, with 82% of those surveyed saying the makeup of their organizations has been impacted by signal loss. Approximately three-quarters expect their ability to collect consumer data will continue to degrade.

Another key finding is that 90% of ad buyers are shifting personalization tactics as a result of increased privacy legislation and signal loss, with ad budgets increasingly allocated to channels that can leverage first-party data, such as CTV, retail media and social media. 

As states regulate the space more tightly and Google continues its again-delayed phase-out of third-party cookies, the data landscape faces increasing uncertainty, with 2024 potentially a turning point for privacy-first marketing strategies. Among those surveyed for the IAB report, 64% expect the number of states passing privacy laws to increase in 2024 and 66% expect a reduction in their ability to deliver personalized messaging in states with privacy laws. Marketers navigating this new landscape must decide where and how to invest going forward.

“The meaningful investments being made are proof positive of the industry’s commitment to a privacy-first orientation,” said David Cohen, CEO at IAB, in a statement. “Executives are taking notice and funding the right initiatives for the next stage of industry growth.”

The report is based on a survey of over 500 marketing personnel conducted by IAB and BWG Strategy between November 2023 and February 2024.

Data quality is a key focus of the report, with 72% of those surveyed expecting their ability to access browser history and real-time signals to be reduced, while 61% expect it will become harder to collect third-party data points.

The uncertainty around third-party data has increased reliance on first-party data, with 71% of brands, agencies and publishers expected to increase their first party datasets, nearly twice the rate of just two years ago. The types of first-party data being collected by companies include contact info (84%), device (81%), transactions (73%), content consumption (70%) and location (69%).

One challenge marketers are likely to face as they focus more on first-party data is a lack of interoperability between key first-party data channels like CTV, retail media and social media, making it harder to assess effectiveness.

Respondents indicated they expect measurement to be a casualty of the changing privacy landscape. Over half (57%) of those surveyed believe it will be harder to capture reach and frequency while 73% believe their ability to attribute campaigns, track performance and measure ROI will be reduced.

In 2024, 54% of those surveyed will increase their ad spend on CTV due to privacy legislation and signal loss. Other channels being eyed by marketers are influencer marketing, with 52% expecting to increase spend, paid search (51%), social media (50%) and retail media (47%).

The focus on privacy could benefit big companies, which are better able to invest in new data processes compared to small and medium-sized publishers. Large companies are investing in identity anonymization training at a rate of 79% compared to 64% for small companies, per the report. Additionally, 62% of large companies have invested in privacy preserving technologies, compared to just 44% of small companies. Such tools can cost over $2 million a year, a price many small firms cannot afford.

Sponsored content

By ARM Treasure Data

Leveraging the power of machine learning and the increasing availability of data, companies increasingly use predictive analytics to identify customers’ intent, design experiences tailored to individual preferences, inform product development decisions, and improve business operations.

Predictive Analytics Use Cases

Marketers must constantly find new ways to engage customers so it’s no wonder that predictive analytics are most commonly used to predict customer behavior. However, other functions such as supply chain, operations, product, and service can also leverage predictive techniques to improve business results. Here are six use cases where data insights can quickly make a difference.

1. Identify Customers Likely to Churn
   Predictive retention models can identify which customers are most likely to churn — companies can reach out to them with education on products or tailored promotions. Predictive models can also identify common behaviors of loyal customers. With that knowledge, companies can attempt to steer likely churners to adopt those desirable behaviors. 

2. Recommendations for Cross-sell and Upsell
   When selling a variety of products, predictive modeling can help improve the “recommended for you” engine by analyzing historical data and applying customer profiles to target optimal conversion. For example, someone who has purchased hiking boots might be shown other outdoor gears. 

3. Prediction of Features for Product Development
   Predictive analytics can help determine which features to include in upcoming releases. A recommendation engine can be used to score features with various attributes. Information such as what competitors are doing can also be incorporated. 

4. Inventory Forecasting and Pricing Strategy
   Businesses can use predictive analytics to get insights from combinations of data, such as inventory across a large number of SKUs, categories, and locations overlaid with geographic sales data. This can identify buying patterns to inform pricing, promotional strategy, and optimal inventory levels. 

5. Calculation of Risk
   Predictive analytics is also useful for the banking and insurance industries: to calculate risk. Predictive scoring models can evaluate prospect lists and provide an indication of the relative risk of a potential customer. The predictive model could examine hundreds of risk indicators, narrowing characteristics down to small details, and predict expected losses.

6. Predictive Maintenance and Quality Fulfillment with IoT Monitoring
   If you are responsible for customer support or hardware maintenance and repair — perhaps monitoring through IoT devices — knowing which components are most likely to fail would allow you to be proactive rather than reactive, thus avoiding unscheduled downtime. Replacement or maintenance of parts can be planned based on real-time data rather than schedules. 

Benefits of Predictive Analytics

Predictive scoring gives marketing teams the ability to allocate budgets wisely — focusing on getting the right message to the right people at the right time — and improve campaigns ROI. An analytics system makes it easier to identify customers with shared traits and finding look-alike customers from your install base. Once the customer segments have been identified, marketers can create custom messages and campaigns targeted to those segments, creating special offers designed just for them and activating on the channels they prefer.

Making Predictive Analytics Accessible

Arm Treasure Data’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) is purpose-built for marketers — developed with both data availability and accessibility in mind, designed to bring marketing and data teams together. The technology behind the Treasure Data CDP is a scalable, enterprise-grade big data platform. It combines pipelines of clean, unified customer data with a robust and reliable open source machine learning library.

This puts powerful machine learning tools into more hands, allowing more people to gain greater understanding of their customers, and building business practices around the customer.

Pop-Tarts Bites, the snack-sized version of the popular toaster pastry, is striking a finer balance between emotionally led and functional messaging with help from data-driven solutions. The brand, launched in 2018, enlisted the help of partner VidMob for an effort that ran on Meta’s Instagram and Facebook and sought to uncover what types of ads resonated best with three different consumer groups — existing buyers, lapsed ones and new customers — at various stages of the marketing funnel. 

Like many legacy CPG marketers, Pop-Tarts Bites is attempting to refine its approach to performance marketing to draw a clearer line between online ads and buying behavior, as brand-building is less of an issue for established names in the category. At the same time, the brand is trying to unlock its next big audience in Gen Z, eyeing technology as a way to deliver the needed level of personalization to engage the young cohort. 

“We have many brands in our portfolio that have great awareness and unaided awareness,” said Nicole Vinson, vice president of global digital, media and omni-shopper experience at Kellanova, the snacking company that was formed when the Kellogg Company formally split into two businesses in October 2023.

“You’ve got to start to think about … balancing the short and long term of your investments and how you’re driving that conversion because it’s not all just about awareness and it’s not all about purchase,” added Vinson. “There is a middle [ground] in there.”

Staying hygienic

Pop-Tarts Bites’ collaboration with VidMob was less of a comprehensive overhaul of the brand’s strategy than an attempt at conducting a bit of marketing hygiene, assuring its best practices aligned with ever-changing platform mandates to create what Vinson described as an “iterative feedback loop.” Insights gleaned from the VidMob pilot could then be scaled and potentially adopted by other offerings in the Kellanova portfolio. Kellanova’s snack portfolio includes Cheez-It, Eggo, Rice Krispies Treats and Pringles. 

“Every program, every campaign, every piece of creative, ideally, would start to go through a similar process,” said Vinson. “It’s not that we’re trying to get to a paint-by-numbers … It’s to really understand what pieces of creative are working the hardest to drive that business outcome.”

The tweaks to Pop-Tarts Bites’ ads, which appeared in Instagram Feeds and Stories and Facebook In-Feed placements between April and June 2023, were relatively subtle but made a difference results-wise. One ad was tested with an emotional theme, promoting Pop-Tarts Bites as a morning snack with a “grab your bites” call to action (CTA). The same image with a more functional message centered on flavor and texture, including an emphasis on the pastry product’s “soft-baked” quality and a sharper “Get snackin’ today!” CTA, delivered superior ad recall, engagement rates and in-view impressions. The company declined to share more specific results.

“Once you identify an insight, it’s about then validating that and putting it back into the ecosystem again,” said Vinson. “It definitely met the expectations and it helped to give us more data to support the hypotheses that we had. The whole idea behind data-driven marketing is that you're using the data to remove the subjectivity.”

Eye on AI

Pop-Tarts Bites’ experiment with VidMob aligns with Kellanova’s ongoing bets around data, machine learning and artificial intelligence, areas that have boomed in the wake of ChatGPT and as marketers face down the deprecation of third-party cookies. AI and ML helped the companies better isolate and assess specific elements of the Pop-Tart Bites’ advertisements, including the CTAs, to provide “optimal treatments,” according to Vinson. 

“All of this is about [getting] to more personalized types of messaging so that we can better connect with our consumers so that they can feel unique, they’re individual — we’re not talking to them as if they’re one homogenous group,” said Vinson. “This is where personalization comes into play. It’s not that we’re trying to get to one-to-one [marketing].” 

Kellanova is also attempting to build a stronger bridge with Gen Z consumers, a notoriously picky group. That demographic represented some of the new customers that Pop-Tarts Bites was vying to gain a deeper understanding of through the VidMob pilot and refinements to its messaging. 

“Gen Z is another audience group that we can’t ignore. We can’t talk to every group the same,” said Vinson. “You can drive mass reach but then you also need to blend that with personalization and really understanding your different audience cohorts.”

It finally has begun: On Jan. 4, Google disabled third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome, or approximately 30 million users. The move represents the first tangible step in the search giant’s plan to phase out the tracking technology for all users in the second half of 2024 — a change that will eliminate a long-standing digital advertising tool.

With the announcement in January 2020 that it would eventually kill the third-party cookie, Google set into motion a race for the advertising industry to build, test and adopt alternative targeting and tracking methods, whether using its Privacy Sandbox proposals or those crafted by other players.

But while a panoply of alternative IDs, identity graphs and data clean room solutions have cropped up in recent years, the missing piece in solving the post-cookie problem could be an application of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the buzzy technology that has captivated the worlds of advertising, technology and general culture for more than a year.

"To remedy the rift of third-party cookie depreciation, it’s crucial for marketers to lean into AI to supercharge strategies utilizing zero- and first-party consumer data," said Anjali Yakkundi, vice president of product marketing at Movable Ink, in emailed comments.

"AI can analyze consumers’ digital behavior like browsing history, purchasing patterns and engagement to provide deeper audience understanding while creating tailored experiences,” the executive added. “Moreover, brands can expand AI and ML within predictive models that garner insights into consumers’ likely next steps, allowing for proactive and strategic development of outputs that meet the consumer where they are before they even know they’re going to be there."

The power of AI

Much of advertising’s focus on generative AI to date has centered on the ability to create text and image assets that can be produced quickly and help marketers meet longtime goals around personalization-at-scale. But the ability of AI to sift through and analyze data with incredible speed and accuracy could help marketers make up for the signal loss created by cookie deprecation.

“2024 is going to be the true rise and scaling of additional intent signals,” said Lynda Clarizio, a media industry veteran and co-founder of early stage venture capital firm The 98. “For a long time, we’ve had web-tracking intent and social intent. Now we’re going to have the rise of transaction intent and contextual intent.”

Generative AI needs three things to work, according to experts: proprietary first-party data, the infrastructure to process that data and data scientists to develop the data to train new models. As applied to advertising, those requirements will put tech players like Google and Amazon in the “driver’s seat,” Clarizio said. 

“We’re really ‘Back to the Future,’” Clarizio explained, connecting the rise of digital walled gardens to the previous walled gardens in TV advertising.

“Now we’re going back in the other direction, and some of that has been because of deprecation of cookies and the inability to use data signals in a broader way,” Clarizio added. “You’re really restricted to first-party data, which makes sense from a privacy perspective but reinforces the strength of some of these larger players.”

However, other players are beginning to leverage generative AI, using the tech for search re-ranking in a fast, effective way and to deliver a more robust, personal experience to users. Other use cases of the technology are still being developed.

“AI will become more prevalent as agencies and talent find practical applications to reduce costs and speed up processes,” said Rob Davis, CMO and president of independent agency Novus, in emailed comments. “This will expand beyond media optimization and data compilation — for example, applying generative AI to simulated focus groups for cost-effective insight generation.”

The race for data and identifiers continues

The death of the cookie will be a major test of efforts to acquire marketing first-party data, as well as zero- and second-party data, in a privacy-safe way. A continued push for data could encourage brands, agencies and publishers to establish more data co-ops that allow entities to share data that can then be used to fuel generative AI efforts.

“I’ve been looking for a long time for the rise of data co-ops that really take first-party data from different web properties and combine that together to rival something that Google does,” Clarizio said. “Maybe you’ll see more of that in 2024 because generative AI will enhance the ability to create that. It’s like identity graphs on steroids.”

Along with solving for marketing first-party data, the industry in 2024 will also have to contend with a still-fragmented landscape of alternative ID providers, including The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0, LiveRamp’s RampID and dozens more, that are jockeying for market share and offering different use cases.

“If you’re a buyer, it’s just mass confusion,” said Eli Heath, head of identity at Lotame, which offers the Panorama ID. “Part of this has resulted in paralysis, because it’s like, ‘What do I use? Is there going to be a winner-takes-all?’”

Marketers should not expect one ID to rule them all. Instead, they will likely have to coordinate behavior-based addressability and contextual strategy in a variety of ways, Heath said.

“It’s really going to be a basket approach, not only within the cookieless identifier spaces, but also in the general strategies and tactics that you deploy within programmatic,” the executive added. “I really think it's going to be all over the place.”

Pushing back on Google

Along with ad-tech and agency-based solutions for data and identifiers, marketers in 2024 will still have to grapple with the elephant in the room, Google. If the company’s latest timeline holds, there is still much work to be done before the second half of 2024, and still more questions than answers around verification, measurement and attribution, according to Paul Bell, president of ad-tech firm 33Across. 

“Once the buy-side sees results that can be measured by marketers and/or a trusted third party (i.e. not just Google), Google and the market can confidently move beyond 1%,” Bell said in emailed comments. “To make this transition smooth, Google needs to ensure partners that they can tie their marketing dollars back to a trusted conversion metric. Based on the amount of advertising dollars and the number of partners they need to put at ease, this timeline feels aggressive.”

To assuage concerns about a cookieless future, Google has continued to develop its Privacy Sandbox proposals. Throughout the process, many groups have pushed back on Google’s claims about the effectiveness of its new offerings. Early tests still demonstrate “real challenges,” per the IAB Tech Lab. 

In kind, Google has pushed back against a range of objections to Privacy Sandbox around sufficiency and complexity via a blog post that suggests the company is committed to its timeline and plan.

“We believe the current Privacy Sandbox APIs — generally available in Chrome since September — are ready to carry the ecosystem into a more private future. And we’re committed to pushing privacy-preserving technologies forward for years to come, both in terms of privacy and utility,” wrote Victor Wong, senior director of product management for the Privacy Sandbox.

Still, advertisers should not put all their eggs in the Privacy Sandbox and look to Google — still a dominant player in the market — to be a “savior of the advertising world,” said Mathieu Roche, CEO and co-founder of ID5, in emailed comments. 

“It’s important to remember throughout all of this that there are a number of alternatives including universal IDs, Identity Graphs and Data Clean Rooms that have proven to be effective in cookie-free browsers like Safari and Firefox,” Roche said. “Advertisers only have a few months left to ensure they can effectively engage with their audiences and measure results in the long term.”

The best-prepared marketers will not wait any longer to get their cookieless plans in motion. Plus, the second half of 2024 deadline is still vague and could happen sooner rather than later: Lotame’s Heath predicts that more of the landscape could be cookieless at some point in Q3 to not disrupt the critical Q4 ad-buying period.

Advertisers wake up

A recent survey conducted for the PrimeAudience ad network found that 88% of U.S. marketers feel confident about cookie deprecation, with more than half already testing the cookieless future. Still, almost a third don't know how to use Google’s Protected Audience API (formerly known as FLEDGE), even though 68% plan to use the Privacy Sandbox proposal in 2024. Beyond Google, more than half (53%) of marketers are looking to AI as part of their solutions.

“While it is promising to see U.S. marketers feel confident about their preparation for the cookieless world, there is a desire to continue to put effective solutions in place,” said Mateusz Rumiński, PrimeAudience vice president of product, in a statement. “We believe that new advertising technologies in combination with generative AI and optimal use of first-party data can lead to a thriving advertising ecosystem.”

In line with PrimeAudience’s survey, some observers have seen large parts of the ad industry finally wake up to the reality of what the death of the cookie means to advertising, a shift that will only continue as the clock ticks down.

“There is a wave of action that’s beginning to happen, and I think reality is going to start slapping the industry in the face,” said Matt Hertig, CEO of analytics company ChannelMix. “This is probably one of the most monumental shifts in how we understand marketing’s impact in the past 15 years… and that’s the real excitement that AI can inject back into the marketing analytics space.”

Spending on marketing and advertising in the U.S. will grow 10.7% in 2024 to reach $570 billion, according to the 18th annual forecast from consultancy Winterberry Group. The growth rate is more than double what was seen in 2023, a period weighed down by macro pressures. Investments in political advertising, connected TV (CTV) and connected commerce, an umbrella term that includes retail media, will boost the industry in 2024. 

Winterberry Group is aligned with other forecasters in believing 2024 will be a more vibrant year for ad spending than 2023 while noting that robust top-line growth does not tell the full story. Case in point: the upcoming election cycle, which will provide a boon for media owners, including in the beleaguered offline arena, but give consumer brands pause as they look to avoid getting tangled up in divisive rhetoric and focus instead on more targeted efforts. 

The upshot is that creativity will be impacted in the months ahead, echoing a staid 2023, while local advertising prices could rise in a cluttered environment for inboxes and airtime. The consultancy expects political ad spending to reach $17 billion in 2024, accounting for roughly 30% of total growth during the year. Tailwinds from political campaigns also mask that underlying growth trends are stabilizing after a wild few pandemic years.   

Many key channels are undergoing transformation that will bring ups and downs for brands and publishers alike. The live sports space, one of the last “moats” around linear TV, is jumping to the streaming arena, as evidenced by Amazon’s deal with regional operator Diamond Sports Group. CTV spending is expected to grow over 30% YoY in 2024 to hit $33.1 billion as advertisers chase emerging opportunities and a proliferation of ad-supported options. 

Networks will respond to these shifts by taking a more disciplined approach to dealmaking, bundling linear and digital buys together and providing better audience-targeting tools, according to Winterberry Group. Blurring lines between linear and digital will still deliver measurement headaches, with more than half (53%) of surveyed TV advertisers citing a lack of common metrics across channels as a top challenge. Pains stemming from data silos were a prevalent theme in Winterberry Group’s findings. 

Amid the death of the cookie, marketers will run experiments with alternatives like first-party identity solutions, per the report, resulting in a boom for the data-driven marketing segment. Obsessions with generative artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will be another theme even as consumer appetites are an open question.

Attempts to tackle cookie deprecation will buoy data-driven marketing but could divide marketers’ attention from fraud, waste and transparency problems. One rising juggernaut is connected commerce, a bucket that encompasses retail media networks. A larger profile for the channel comes with increased complexity around measurement and media buying, a pain point that could be solved by investments in areas like ML and AI, per Winterberry Group.  

“Investment in data-driven channels will flourish in 2024, with spending on data, data services and data infrastructure predicted to top $36 billion — representing a 13.9% increase from last year,” said Bruce Biegel, Winterberry Group’s senior managing partner, in a statement attached to the report. “We believe the market is poised to reclaim much of the growth momentum that’s been lacking for much of the last year.” 

The chase to realize marketing use cases for shiny generative AI tech could also outstrip consumer interest and clash with governance concerns around personal data handling. Just half (51%) of surveyed consumers have tried out software like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E, suggesting media hype is ahead of adoption, with Winterberry Group eyeing 2026 as a more likely window for proper acceleration for the category.

Adland professionals are focused on a pair of media-buying showcases — the digital-focused NewFronts and the TV-focused upfronts — that present an opportunity to take stock of an evolving advertising landscape. Amid privacy challenges, threats to popular platforms and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), digital ad spend is still expected to grow about 10% in both 2024 and 2025, led by continued growth in retail media and connected TV (CTV), according to a recent report by Advertiser Perceptions.

As advertisers shift their spend to those two channels, legacy media conglomerates and retailers with media networks of their own continue yearslong efforts to connect content and commerce. These new deals look to capitalize on tech-centered developments in both spaces, fusing the scale and brand-building power of CTV with the data-driven, outcomes-oriented capabilities of retail media.

“Media and ad tech companies need to form relationships with retail media platforms or risk missing out on one of the few large and quickly growing segments of the digital advertising market,” said Eric Haggstrom, director of business intelligence and head of forecasting for Advertiser Perceptions, in a statement around the report.

Ahead of the upfronts, Disney and NBCUniversal announced such deals, while Amazon — a leading retail media player with growing video ambitions — has primed the pump for its first upfront event.

Consumer data in the crosshairs

Partnerships between media companies and retailers have steadily increased in the last few years amid the proliferation of media networks and in advance of the signal loss expected from Google's again-delayed plan to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. First-party data is core to both the retail media proposition and the ad platforms developed by major media players that seek to unite content across channels.

NBCUniversal — a leader in developing the future of targeting, measurement and streaming — continued its efforts to turn TV into a commerce-enabled performance marketing channel with the announcement of a new collaboration with Instacart. Expected to launch in Q2 in streaming before moving to linear, the expanded collaboration allows CPG advertisers to reach in-market consumers and measure campaigns with the use of ad exposure and purchase data.

“Advertisers are increasingly prioritizing strategic audiences, and with this partnership, CPG brands will be able to connect the next generation of grocery shoppers in a highly engaging environment,” said Alison Levin, president of NBCUniversal's advertising and partnerships, in a statement.

NBCUniversal was the first official streaming partner of Instacart, which has continued to build out its ad platform with moves like powering Google Shopping ads and partnering with third-party verification providers — efforts that helped Instacart receive its first advertising accreditation from the Media Rating Council. The latest deal helps CPG brands connect with high-intent consumers and prove campaign efficacy with closed-loop measurement, said Tim Castelli, vice president of global advertising sales at Instacart.

“Consumers can see a CPG’s ad on streaming and get that product delivered to them via Instacart in as fast as an hour,” Castelli said in a statement. “It’s a win-win for both consumers and brands.”

In kind, Disney Advertising announced a collaboration with Walmart Connect that gives advertisers enhanced audience targeting and closed-loop measurement capabilities for brand campaigns across the company's CTV inventory on Disney+ and Hulu, per details shared with Marketing Dive.

A proof-of-concept program will launch in Q2 with select advertisers across categories including CPG, consumer electronics, telecommunications, auto, apparel and beauty before scaling to all eligible advertisers. The partnership allows Walmart Connect advertisers to apply the retailer's first-party shopper data for targeting and measurement using Disney's Audience Graph in programmatic, helping marketers better understand purchase intent and outcomes.

“Disney is committed to bringing innovative solutions to advertisers that tap into unique and actionable first-party data to drive insights, and prove effectiveness through the most transformative technology,” said Jamie Power, senior vice president of addressable sales at Disney, in a statement. “Walmart has incredible data insights for planning and measuring, that when combined with the most impactful streaming environments — is a winning combination for advertisers.”

Walmart Connect, which saw revenue up 22% in Q4 2023, has previously boasted about the performances of partnerships with video platforms Roku, TikTok and TalkShopLive and has started making overtures to non-endemic brands in the automotive, entertainment, financial services, quick-service restaurant and travel industries. As part of the deal, Disney will join Walmart Connect’s Partner Lab, which NBCUniversal joined in 2023.

Partnerships like the expanded NBCUniversal-Instacart pact and new Disney-Walmart Connect deal are likely to proliferate due to data signal loss caused by industry and regulatory changes, according to Nicole Perrin, senior vice president of business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions.

“Media sellers are under at least as much pressure from advertisers as ever before to help them reach the right audiences and prove that their ads have an effect,” Perrin said in emailed comments. “Organizations that have their own first-party data about consumers that can be used to target and measure ads will look for ways to team up with media sellers that are privacy-safe for consumers as well as being protective of the organization's owned data assets.”

Amazon looms large

Walmart could be an even bigger player at the convergence of retail media and CTV if its planned acquisition of smart TV maker Vizio clears regulatory hurdles — but it won't be alone. Amazon's advertising business continues to grow, driven largely by product ads around its e-commerce marketplace, with ads introduced on its Prime Video platform in January showing encouraging early results, per an earnings call.

Amazon's continued focus on Prime Video, along with livestreaming service Twitch and ad-supported streamer Freevee, comes as the company readies its upfronts debut on May 14 after years of presenting at the NewFronts. In advance of the presentation, the company announced three new streaming TV ad formats that boost interactivity and shoppability on Prime Video.

The new formats, available during the upcoming broadcast year, include shoppable carousel ads that can be browsed during ad breaks, interactive pause ads that feature "Add to Cart" and "Learn More" overlays, and interactive brand trivia ads that present an opportunity for brand storytelling and several types of customer interactions. The introduction of living room remote capabilities expands the availability of ad formats that "go far beyond QR codes," per details shared with Marketing Dive.

“We are developing innovative experiences to help brands better engage with customers, as we work to transform streaming advertising through our differentiated combination of reach, first-party signals, and ad tech,” said Alan Moss, vice president of global ads sales for Amazon Ads, in a statement. “Ads in Prime Video provide an unparalleled experience for advertisers to deliver on any full-funnel marketing objective – whether it’s awareness, consideration, or conversion.”

The new formats allow advertisers to reach Prime Video's average monthly ad-supported reach of more than 200 million global customers. Interactivity is quickly becoming table stakes in the CTV space, with Amazon's interactive ads driving 10-times more product page views and conversions than non-interactive formats, according to company research. The new capabilities, and whatever else Amazon has in store for the upfronts, could set the stage for incremental ad spend down the road. 

“In the long run, we believe Amazon will be able to draw incremental streaming budgets from SMBs that sell on their platform, but we expect minimal contribution in 2024,” Advertiser Perceptions' Haggstrom said in its recent forecast. “These assumptions could be quickly disproven in the coming months but expect heavy competition for streaming ad budgets that will grow at a moderate rate in 2024.”

As third-party cookies fall out of favor, advertisers have been seeking alternative methods of ad targeting. Such efforts have resulted in the emergence of retail media networks that rely on troves of shopper data, along with other solutions oriented around first-party data. However, while larger brands can leverage these emerging tools to their advantage, the same isn’t always true for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Nearly 90% of SMBs are worried about losing access to third-party data, according to a study by UpCity.

Breaking out the numbers further, 89% of businesses with 100 or more employees and 82% of businesses with fewer than 100 employees hold such concerns. With Google beginning to phase out cookies and increased legislative scrutiny surrounding consumer data acquisition in general, the sense of pressure is amplifying quickly and will be a key discussion point in going forward.

The survey of 300 SMB marketing analytics professionals was conducted using Pollfish in October 2023. Survey respondents were screened according to their role in overseeing analytics and data management. 

Small business, big data

There are many reasons why SMBs have turned to data collection and analysis, according to UpCity. Seventy percent of survey respondents reported using data for more targeted campaigns and 59% reported using data to improve market forecasting. Over half of participants (57%) use data for more defined market segmentation while 36% do so for improved attribution modeling and 34% for better A/B testing. 

Return-on-investment (ROI) was ranked at the top of the most important types of data for SMBs, with 47% of survey respondents indicating this is the case. In second place was customer lifetime value at 36%, followed by customer acquisition cost at 34%. Conversion rate was of importance to 31% of respondents, website traffic volume to 29% and engagement metrics to 28%, according to the report. 

While data brings benefits, it also brings heavy costs. Thirteen percent of SMBs report investing $901 or more in first-party data per month, compared to just 10% of SMBs who invested that amount in third-party data. 

First-party data is more likely to yield a higher return when compared to third-party data. Sixty percent of SMBs see an ROI of $30 or more per dollar spent with first-party data, compared to 50% getting a similar return for third-party data. Third-party data was also more likely to deliver an ROI per dollar spent of $0 or less, with 10% of respondents seeing this with third-party data compared to just 2% for first-party data.

Collection starts now

While first-party data has a clear advantage over third-party data, its use and collection can be costly. Smaller companies may have a harder time accessing consumers as the shift to first-party data continues. However, SMBs cannot wait to invest in first-party data, according to the UpCity report. 

Digital marketing agencies may prove a lifeline for SMB marketers in the coming years. Ninety-two percent of respondents who utilize third-party data report looking to digital marketing agencies for support, with 56% already doing so and 36% planning on doing so in the next year. 

Data sharing also provides a valuable opportunity for SMB marketers. While on their own SMBs cannot match the data power of massive corporations, data sharing can help amplify their abilities. Forty-seven percent of SMBs already share their data with other SMBs and an additional 34% plan on doing so. 

Software and consultants remain another option for data help, with 61% of SMBs already investing in software and another 32% planning on doing so in the next year. Over half (47%) of respondents have already hired a freelance marketing agency or consultant and 42% plan on doing so in the next year.