PubMatic looked at the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) opt-in rates after Apple introduced it. The company noticed that rates have stabilized for the most part, but there are several app categories where the market continues to rapidly change.

iOS 14.5+ gets the majority of ad requests, at about 84%. Pre-14.5 gets about 16%, according to the data. Not surprisingly, users who opt in are more valuable to advertisers -- about 2.7 times more.

The latest OS users will opt in for more personalized ad experiences. The percentage of ad requests with IDFA varies based on the operating system. While opt-in rates have stabilized at roughly one-third of iOS 14.5+ devices, about 30%, remain below opt-in rates of pre-14.5 iOS devices, about 55%.

The eCPM rate by IDFA presence on iOS for 14.5+ is nearly three times that the rate when the IDFA is not present.

PubMatic’s yield and data analytics team analyzed approximately 1 trillion advertiser bids daily, using the company’s analytics capabilities. This data adds ad requests, impressions, revenue and eCPM data from reports to provide a higher level of analysis for key trends. Analysis is based on PubMatic-sourced data, except as noted

Partner IDs further boost revenues. When users opted-in and an ad partner ID is present, revenue rose by more than 50%. LiveRamp was used in a sample.

App categories with the highest IDFA presence in iOS 14.5+ include Food and Dining at 43%, Woman’s Interest at 43%, Automotive at 38%, Shopping at 36%, and Sports at 36%.

App categories with the lowest IDFA presence in iOS 14.5+ include Education at 20%, News at 20%, Home & Garden at 19%, Music at 18%, and Real Estate at 18%.

Skai also published data last week that found social advertisers are adjusting to IDFA. In 2021, Skai noticed sequential spending declines from April to May to June as the release of iOS 14.5 introduced changes to privacy controls and availability of data for both targeting and measurement.

With so many solutions and workarounds in place for disruptions in 2022, monthly spending in paid social media has been much more stable, paving the way for an acceleration of growth. 

“We see more direct evidence of how social media advertising has adapted and rebounded versus the second quarter last year, when the introduction of IDFA led to decreasing social budgets,” stated Chris Costello, senior director of marketing research at Skai. “This year, solutions to the loss of targeting and measurement signals have helped stabilize those spending levels, which has yielded stronger growth for social media spending than many expected.” 

Social continues to struggle without the identifier. Meta, for example, still deals with competitive pressures that have threatened its growth. The company said during its last earnings call that it missed earnings numbers and lost advertising revenue, in part, due to Apple's IDFA privacy change.

Brands have used traditional retail media ads to reach shoppers for as long as stores have existed. These lower-funnel campaigns are typically found in-store or offline in the form of coupon mailers and static signage. Marketing close to the point of sale is a convenient way to remind shoppers to buy products while they’re already at the store. 

Like other forms of advertising, retail media has evolved significantly. As shoppers made more purchases online, retail advertisers shifted marketing spend to channels like digital ads, social media promos, and mobile coupon codes. E-commerce sites and major brands are serving ads directly to shoppers on their own websites and brands pay these organizations to list their products prominently on the site and entice buyers to purchase them. 

But before you go all in online, consider this: nearly 90% of grocery retail spending still happens in physical stores. Marketing teams should consider taking a more holistic approach to their retail media strategy and combining online and in-store campaigns to accomplish goals beyond just sales lift.

Here’s what marketers need to know about the future of retail media and some ways they can start expanding their in-store reach now. 

There’s confusion about who owns retail media and how it should be measured. It often gets placed within shopper marketing due to its tie to specific retailers. This, in turn, means the default metric is sales lift or return on ad spend. However, today’s retail media has capabilities beyond traditional in-store marketing and should be viewed in terms of its impact at multiple stages of a campaign. As retail media measurement techniques continue to improve, we can expect to see this channel increasingly leveraged by multiple teams (brand and shopper)—and ideally overseen by the CMO. 

Embracing the future of retail media: think small

If you think retail media is just for huge retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, think again: About half the market is represented by smaller retailers that can provide brands with ample opportunity to reach their shoppers. In fact, most consumers trust small businesses over big-box retailers when it comes to quality and satisfaction. 

Smaller retailers can stay competitive in the retail media space by embracing and implementing modern ad strategies. Here are a few key things you can do to capitalize on this growing opportunity.

1. Look beyond online advertising

Online advertising is an important component of modern digital marketing, but it accounts for just 10% of grocery retail spend. Modern technology gives brands an opportunity to affect the 90% of dollars that are spent in physical retail.

For instance, digital screens in store aisles, checkout counters, and parking lots of grocery stores offer opportunities for ad campaigns that encourage additional purchases or increase brand awareness by providing a frequent touchpoint in a high-traffic area. One common mistake brands make is directly comparing digital in-store advertising with its online counterpart. In order to be successful, brands should look at the unique benefits of brick-and-mortar including, ad viewability, brand safety, and dwell time.

2. Consider the entire customer journey

Consider the larger context in which shoppers engage with their in-store ads, which means thinking about what they are doing before and after their shopping trip.

For example, a bank may want to advertise in a grocery store or mall because people literally have their wallets out and are thinking about how they could gain points from using certain credit cards. The bank, considering the customer journey, knows that people will be more likely to think about their purchasing habits and spending money while using their credit cards at a grocery store.

3. Seek opportunities that deliver real value to your brand

Major online retailers are pushing brands to invest in retail media as part of their ad campaigns. However, this push can’t just be a “tax” on brands, especially since most brands are not getting favorable returns on their ad spend with retail media networks.

As media networks develop and evolve, we’ll see even more creative ways to incorporate retail media into the shopper experience while helping brands achieve their marketing objectives. These networks will need to deliver real value and provide shoppers with a better overall experience to make the investment worth it for brands. Online is important, but it’s a tiny fraction of the market. 

Charter Communications followed Comcast Corp. the day before with a second quarter of closely watched declines in residential broadband customers -- down 42,000 to land at 28.3 million.

Charter pointed to the one-time discontinuation of a special program as the reason. Taking that out, broadband customers saw modest growth of 17,000.

Analysts continue to eye the broadband results of these companies for signs of weakness. Stock-market investors chose to shrug at these results for Charter, and mid-day Friday trading of its stock was up 1.6% to $456.78.

Charter's video business continues to sink as expected -- losing 240,000 customers compared to a 63,000 loss in the year-ago period. The company points to a “pass through” programming expense for customers in April.

Total residential video customers now stand at 14.9 million.

Boosted by higher political advertising spend for the current big midterm election year, advertising sales revenue in the period was up 12% to $460 million. As with other TV platforms, Charter witnessed lower results in the automotive ad category.

Broadband revenue was up 6.5% to $5.6 billion, while video revenue grew 2.4% to $4.5 billion.

Charter continues to see sharply higher growth in mobile customers -- up nearly 40% to $726 million.

Total revenues for Charter added 6.2% to $13.6 billion. Net income was 47% higher to $1.7 billion and adjusted cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA)-- growing 9.7% to $5.5 billion.

Apple’s change last year to its privacy policy made it more difficult for marketers to send targeted ads to iPhone users, who were given more control over the data they share with apps and websites. The opt-in rate has stabilized since then, though there are differences among different kinds of …

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Media quality measurement company Integral Ad Science (IAS) announced a new partnership on Thursday with in-game advertiser Anzu that aims to give brand and agency ad buyers increased transparency for display and video advertising formats in mobile gaming.

Through this collaboration, IAS will now be able to use its Signal platform to provide advertisers with Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement and reports on viewability.

“Gaming continues to emerge as a medium with broad appeal and growing reach,” stated IAS Chief Product Officer Tom Sharma. “This integration sets the platform for quality standards within ad-supported gaming and allows advertisers to better understand and control the quality of their media on Anzu.”

Due to the wide array of gaming devices, developers, and platforms, it has been difficult to use a single tech suite for verification coverage for in-game environments. In other words, advertisers haven’t been able to trust specific measurements.

This is the issue IAS and Anzu are trying to fix, while continuing to enhance in-game brand safety, suitability, IVT, and viewability measurement in the digital advertising ecosystem.

The mobile gaming industry is projected to reach $136 billion worldwide by the end of this year.

“This new partnership means advertisers can now get enhanced visibility into the effectiveness of their campaigns,” said Anzu co-founder and CEO Itamar Benedy.

“We are excited to see Anzu and IAS partner to expand insights and streamline measurement operations for marketers as they evaluate their in-game media effectiveness,” said Joe Cady, EVP advanced advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. “This important measurement advancement will help accelerate advertisers’ ability to scale their in-game media investments.”

Email marketers lack confidence. Only 18% rate themselves as best-in-class, while 69% say they’re somewhat successful and 13% say they are failing at it, according to Email Marketing Strategies, Tactics & Trends, a study by Ascend2.

But they have every reason to improve: 84% agree that email will be critical to the success of their overall marketing strategy in the coming year, and 35% strongly concur. 

In line with that, they plan to leverage these trends:

• Mobile-friendly design — 53% 
• Personalization (beyond the name) — 53% 
• Email marketing automation — 50%
• Interactive content — 39% 
• Privacy/security features — 33%
• Accessible design — 26%
• Revamping of metrics/KPIs/Attribution to track performance — 25% 
• Use of AI — 16% 

Despite those ambitious plans, email marketers face these challenges:

• Increasing engagement — 63% 
• Measuring performance/ROI — 44% 
• Creating overall strategy — 38% 
• Integrating email data with other data — 29%
• Improving deliverability — 22% 
• Improving accessibility — 17% 
• Complying with regulatory requirements — 10% 

In addition, only 17% say their current stack allows them to measure the impact of email on their overall marketing performance. And 51% indicate they have partial capability. But 23% have very little, and 9% none at all. 

Here are the KPIs that will most effectively measure performance in the year ahead:

• Return-on-investment (ROI) — 38% 
• Conversion rate — 36% 
• Click-through rate (CTR) — 35%
• Click-to-open rate (CTOR) — 34%
• Deliverability rate — 25% 
• Open rate — 24%
• List growth rate — 19% 
• Unsubscribe rate — 14% 
• Bounce rate — 9%

What will they test? 

• Message (e.g. greeting, body, closing) — 40%
• Subject line — 36% 
• Content (short/long, plain text/html, etc.) — 31% 
• Personalization (beyond the name) — 30% 
• Timing and frequency — 30% 
• Calls-to-action (CTAs) — 30% 
• Layout & images — 27% 
• Landing pages — 24% 
• Interactive content — 20% 

In the end, it may call come down to AI. Here are the most useful ways to use this tool:

Email retargeting — 36%

Craft personalized newsletters — 36%

Understand customer lifecycle — 31%

Improve deliverability — 31%

Clean email list — 28% 

Automate email copy — 26%

Optimize the sending time — 20%

Create subject lines — 20%

Make recommendations — 17%

Ascend2 surveyed 404 marketers during the week of July 17 - 25, 2022. Of those, 30% work in B2B companies, 45% in B2C and 25% in B2B and B2C equally. In addition, 14% are in firms with more than 500 employees, 20% in outfits with 50 to 500 and 66% in those with fewer than 50.