Three considerations for marketers heading into 2023

We survived 2022, and all that bought with it. Heading into 2023, we see new challenges on the horizon, from identity and measurement, challenges to permanently changed consumer behaviour, here are a few key challenges to watch out for this year.

Workplace flexibility drives media fragmentation

Unless you are living under a rock, you’ll know that the 5 days a week in the office are dead. The standard working week is now fragmented into a variety of options between working from home, to 4-day work weeks or working remotely from anywhere in the country – or the world for that matter. Whilst this flexibility has had a fantastic impact on our personal lives, as marketers we now need to think about the effect this flexibility has on media consumption. The flexibility of the workplace will continue to fragment media consumption. Catch up on your favourite TV show via connected TV at lunch whilst working from home. Time for a walk and a podcast in the morning instead of a daily commute? Only go into your CBD office 3 days a week now? All of these working patterns affect how we reach potential consumers, and a reliance on one channel will only see marketers left in the dark. A true omnichannel approach has never been more important to consider all media avenues in the fragmented media consumption world.

Focusing on measurements that matter

Attention metrics launched by Prof. Karen Nelson-Field gained traction in 2022 as a way for advertisers to measure their advertising dollars beyond reach or share of voice, and provide attention benchmarks for all channels based on active vs passive attention. Nelson-Field went as far as to warn those still planning to a share of voice or CPM metric buy (how the majority of media is bought), that they would be left behind. On the flip side, the attention metric in the digital world is rife with being exploited if traded on – to get the lowest ‘’cost per attention’’ still focuses on the lowest cost rather than the most effective attention warns Field.

In addition to measuring and understanding attention metrics, 2022 was the year of measurement across multiple channels. Within podcasting, previously a data-scarce environment, ACAST introduced first-party data targeting capabilities across its podcast network, bringing it in line with other channels to measure outcomes.

Historically, digital out-of-home has been just as hard to measure as static OOH but 2022 sawed great advancements in targeting and tracking across DOOH from foot traffic measurement, sales lifts and device ID pass back for re-targeting through other channels. The introduction and rise of programmatic OOH have further enabled advertisers greater flexibility in activating media.

Expect continued media & data scrutiny from the Australian government

The ACCC has been investigating the state of digital media in Australia since 2020 and continues to do so as part of its 5-year investigation. Therefore, in 2023 expect more on this topic and changes ahead; the media industry is waiting for its next update in March 2023 from the ACCC. Whilst no practical platform changes have been made as a result of the inquiry yet, the findings are damming if you are Facebook or Google so far.

To throw further challenges around tracking & measurement into the ring, the federal government is considering reviewing what it considers personal information as part of its privacy law overhaul.

‘Australia’s Attorney General proposes that location data, hashed emails, online identifiers, behavioural, cultural and economic characteristics defined as ‘personal information’, therefore effectively ending the customer match process we advertisers utilise so much in Facebook & Google at present.

In a change that would have profound implications for the $13 billion digital advertising industry, if the Federal Government did decide to change what it counts as “personal information”, then this would have a significant effect on the current identity-based solutions being developed right now. Could 2023 see further disruption that Google has already bought about with cookie deprecation?

Reach out to your ADMATICian for more information on what you can prepare going into 2023.