There’s a specific alchemy to advertising. Its success depends on visibility and relevance, but in the wrong doses, these qualities can become off-putting. Advertisers are often walking a tightrope between opposites: personalization and privacy, creativity and automation, and – the favorite refrain of budget meetings –  doing more with less. 

This push-and-pull reflects the growing pains of an evolving industry; the old playbook no longer applies. So, let’s talk about the new playbook. 

Off the bat, there’s privacy-conscious personalization. Businesses' ability to synthesize their zero- and first-party data, and securely share it with third-party tools (as seen with server-side APIs), will set them apart. It will help solve one of the ongoing challenges of advertising (identity resolution), while also building better lookalike audiences to attract new, engaged customers. 

Then, there’s the rapid advancement of AI. Conversational chatbots, automatically generated creative content, and fine-tuned predictive analytics are all poised to be key AdTech players. 

For businesses, this will bring opportunities for growth along with a mix of old and new challenges. We reached out to leaders in our partner network to better understand what’s ahead; the emerging technologies, consumer trends, and strategies that will define this new era of AdTech. 

Are third-party cookies still relevant? 

The deprecation of third-party cookies has loomed over the AdTech industry for years, threatening to unravel strategies that had once been considered the backbone of digital advertising. Then Google decided to extend their shelf-life. It should have been a collective sigh of relief, but during all this back-and-forth third-party cookies became – in many ways – irrelevant. Aside from the privacy regulations businesses need to adhere to, consumers have more control over opting out of cookie tracking, or using ad blockers and VPNs.