| Editorial staff
| 28.04.2024
Kopp invited media managers from Austria's largest online network to the first Publisher Day to discuss the latest topics in the online media market together with experts from Axel Springer, BurdaForward and Equativ.
A few days ago, Cope Content Performance Group invited several media managers to its first Publisher Day to present information and discuss topics currently affecting the world of online media marketing. Experts from ad tech companies Axel Springer, BurdaForward and Equativ tried to answer the questions of what are the factors driving growth in the domestic digital advertising market and how publishers should and can overcome the main challenges in the next few years. Digitally reach and reach targeted advertising target group in the future. Cobb Executive Director Marion Stelzer-Zöchbauer led the day as moderator.
CO2The weight of digital advertising
According to a survey by IAB Europe, sustainability is one of the top three challenges for the digital advertising market this year considering the EU sustainability reporting requirement. The most important aspect is the effects of greenhouse gases. “You have to be aware: every page view, every ad impression has a CO2-weight,” says Markus Lauscher, head of advertising technology and strategy at Cope. Digital advertising materials are energy-intensive. 55 percent of advertising emissions are caused by programmatic advertising. “It generates 3.8 million tons of CO worldwide.2 Every year,” BurdaForward's Senior Strategic Project Manager Tech Operations Lilian Fuchs adds: “A car needs to be driven around the world around 430,000 times to generate this amount.”
Increase the effectiveness of promotional materials
In the field of marketing, sustainability is no longer an option; In the future, Scope 3 emissions should be more specifically included in the sustainability assessment. “The business is hard to start,” says Fuchs. For publishers, these indirect emissions include their IT and AdTech vendors. Eco-friendly web design (keyword loading behavior) and hosting, data economy, optimization of the technology stack, number of vendors or intermediaries – there are many approaches in the industry to reduce CO.2– Reduce emissions. “80 percent of bit requests have little value for monetization,” says Thomas Falkenhagen, Director of Supply Partnerships DACH at Equativ, one of Europe's largest AdStack providers: “An AdTech analysis is possible, even if the topic is complex.” But adopting technology alone is not enough. “We need to increase the effectiveness of promotional materials,” says Lilian Fuchs. It should also address questions such as where the advertising material is installed on the website, what it does for me and which advertising materials are used. All of these have an impact on CO2– Weight. “The individual banner doesn't use much. It counts for mass,” says Markus Lascher.
Creative and cost effective
While the digital advertising market in this country is looking forward to growth, the biggest share of the cake goes to the big US platforms. For example: Only 18.5 percent of Austrian digital advertising spend is in the country with domestic media and marketers. “As video continues to be a growth driver in the marketplace, it's more important than ever to have a monetizable and cost-effective video strategy,” said Pierre Greber, Cobb's Chief Client Officer. There's no way around mobile anyway. Mobile's share of the total CoP network now stands at 90 percent. Due to limited number of ad slots, monetization is challenging compared to desktop. “That's why marketers need to pay more attention to creative forms of advertising,” continues Pierre Greber. It could be a digital perimeter ad on Ligaportal.at or a large-scale MegaAd offered by Matthias Dungel, Head of Advertising Operations at Cope.
A horror-free ending
“30 years of digital advertising — we're still talking about cookies,” says Maresa Wolkenstein, Cobb's senior research and development manager. Third-party cookies are being used. They are the basis for personalizing digital advertising, analyzing usage behavior and measuring advertising effectiveness. Frequency capping, targeting and retargeting rely on third-party cookies. In 2020, tech giant Google announced that it would ban third-party cookies from its Chrome browser. But the exact decision was repeatedly postponed. However, Safari, Firefox and many other users already block third-party cookies, meaning that the addressability of online advertising is currently only 30 percent. “Even if Google probably puts the final nail in the coffin, it won't be bad,” says Lasse Nordsiek, managing director of DACH at Equativ, adding: “The cookie problem didn't arise overnight. Cookies have been dying for years. .”
Technical alternatives already exist in startup blocks, such as Google's proprietary sandbox or Universal Identifier. “Even if there are still some teething problems, you have to keep an eye on them,” says Sabine Schmidt, senior manager data for Media Impact at Axel Springer. Reaching advertising-related target groups is at least possible through contextual advertising, where advertising is shown for relevant content, as well as generating first-party data, i.e. collecting your own user data.
“Users can use every signal they leave behind,” says Sabine Schmidt. Big tech giants already have tons of data. “But publishers are really sitting on a treasure trove of data and need to position themselves strategically with respect to first-party data,” Schmidt says. “Perhaps available technologies can be used to compensate for the shortcomings compared to Google, Meta and Co.,” concludes Lasse Nordsiek: “In any case, a set of different solutions is needed.”
