The art of buying digital display advertising is not as advanced as hype would have it, judging by Digital Display Advertising From the Enterprise Perspective, a new study from OMI, conducted by Ascend2. 

For one thing, the click-through rate is ranked as the leading success measurement.

This is surprising because the sample consists of enterprise organizations—those with 500 employees or more. Firms that size should be relying on metrics more directly tied to ROI, right?

But the respondents admit that measuring ROI is their top challenge.  

Media buyers are being done a serious disservice if their executives fail to back them with more sophisticated measurement strategies than that: You can only fake it on click-throughs for so long. And it cannot not be good news for publishers who seek to provide hyper-personalized capabilities. 

Then there is the alarming finding that almost a fifth of companies feel threatened by ad fraud and invalid traffic resulting from non-human bots. While not the biggest problem, it has the potential to get far worse if companies lack the tools to fight it.   

Of the executives polled, 23% are very concerned about fraud and the resulting waste of advertising spend, and 61% are somewhat troubled by it. The study notes that 23% of the $88 billion spent on programmatic advertising is wasted. 

Finally, 28% claim their agency partners and marketing vendors could be more transparent about critical campaign elements. A mere 18% feel their partners are fully transparent, and 49% that they are satisfactory. 

Of course, most express confidence in their ability to buy digital display advertising—at least to some extent. While only 33% say digital display is extremely effective in driving conversions and sales, 61% feel it is somewhat effective, and few call it ineffective. 

Yet only 24% extensively leverage programmatic advertising campaigns, and 52% do so to some extent. 

For the benefit of publishers, the individuals surveyed list their buying challenges as follows:

• Measuring accurate ROI and performance metrics—42%
• Finding the right target audience for the ads—41% 
• Budget constraints for effective campaigns—30%
• Ad placement and contextual visibility—29%
• Ad viewability and visibility—29%
• Ad blocks impacting ad reach—27%
• Balancing creative elements with performance goals—26%
• Optimizing for mobile and cross-device compatibility—24%
• Ad fraud and invalid traffic—18%
• Here is how they measure it: 
• Click-through rate (CTR)—55%
• Engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments)—54% 
• Conversion rate—54% 
• Return on ad spend (ROAS)—44% 
• View-through conversions—28%
• Other/unsure—7%

What kinds of ads are they buying? The leading digital display formats are: 

• Banner ads—70% 
• Video ads—69%
• Pop-up ads—45% 
• Native ads—32% 
• Interstitial ads—20%
• Other—9% 

Ascend2 surveyed 170 enterprise marketers in August 2023. Of these, 16% were in B2B, 55% in B2C and 29% in B2B and B2C equally. 

One of the most important lessons from challenging economic times in the past is determining the perfect media mix to keep strategies afloat.

Recovery is a difficult process and risk can explode in directions that many marketers cannot begin to imagine, even with progressive technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Marketers are turning more toward performance mobile app marketing. A study released Tuesday found 64.7% of marketers increased mobile advertising marketing budgets in 2023 to weather a difficult economy, compared with the previous year.

Moloco, a global performance-based demand-side platform supporting companies such as GoPuff and DraftKings, collaborated with Ipsos, an independent research firm, to determine trend patterns related to mobile app marketing. Some 1,675 marketers across nine countries participated. The study, called the Mobile App Performance Marketing Report, was fielded between April 3 and May 1, 2023.

Marketers told Moloco and Ipsos that mobile-ad marketing budgets rose by approximately 25.7% in 2023 compared with the prior year. Performance marketing in 2023 took 45.7% of the mobile advertising budget, while brand marketing took 41.4%, according to the data. And 63.2% of marketers at surveyed companies said they would increase the performance marketing portion of their overall mobile ads budget in 2023.

This growth is noticeable for performance marketing -- especially in countries like Indonesia, the U.S., the U.K. -- and industries beyond gaming, including ecommerce, IT solutions, business, education, and finance, indicating widespread adoption, according to the data.

The switch to performance in poor economic times isn’t new, but data from this study shows a strong shift “from brand to performance marketing,” said Molly Passanisi, vice president at Moloco. “In times of economic uncertainty, it’s not unusual to see more of a focus on profitability.”

Some 58.2% of marketers cited performance marketing as a more effective media for driving revenue growth than traditional brand marketing, and 55.5% view performance marketing as the key to profitability during times of economic uncertainty.

Machine learning (ML) is the key success factor for global marketers, with 37% of them selecting “advanced ML and artificial intelligence (AI) as the most important from a list of 10 possible technologies.

Other important factors include global reach at 23.1%, and high-quality user acquisition at 18.1%. The role of machine learning is credited with providing real-time, accurate data for decision-making and goal monitoring.

Companies that have raised their performance marketing budget anticipate a subsequent increase in revenue growth and profitability. Driven by the goals of increasing revenue and satisfaction from past campaigns, the ability to measure performance significantly influences higher budget allocation to performance marketing.

Marketers cited several reasons for the increase in performance marketing budgets in 2023 vs. 2022. Some 58.2% expect performance marketing will drive more revenue growth compared with brand marketing, while 56.4% cited being satisfied with the results of performance marketing campaigns last year.

About 55.5% of marketers said they want to invest in increasing profit during macroeconomic headwinds, and 50.9% said performance marketing campaigns are easy to measure return on ad spend. Some 27.3% also expect performance marketing to drive more profitability.

The data also shows that Performance marketing is shifting the landscape in connected television (CTV). With this broader shift toward performance and outcomes-based marketing, advertisers are increasingly shifting their attention toward incremental channels such as CTV.

This year, U.S. CTV ad spend is projected to total $25.09 billion, compared with linear TV with $61.31 billion, according to Insider Intelligenence. With the added data granularity and the ability to target, measure, and report on a one-to-one basis in CTV, the natural outcome is measurable performance and measurable outcomes on the big screen.

This channel, formerly reserved for “top-of-funnel” marketing spend, has proven an opportunity for performance. As the supply of CTV continues to expand, streamers will need to differentiate their offering to advertisers.

During the past half-decade, marketers have poured billions of dollars into CTV with limited outcomes in justifying ROAS, so when it comes to CTV, advertisers will increasingly demand strong and measurable returns on advertising spend, according to the report.

Nearly a quarter (22%) of all global digital ad spend, and 30% of mobile advertising spend, will be lost to ad fraud this year, according to the latest study from Juniper Research.

Juniper estimates 2023’s ad fraud damage at $84.2 billion out of global spend of $382 billion, and projects that it will more than double (+105%) by 2028, to reach $172.3 billion of that year’s projected $747 billion in global spend.

“Data provided by popular ad platforms such as Facebook and Google “give an optimistic view of campaign efficiency, failing to distinguish between how many clicks or views originated from legitimate users compared to click farms or fraudulent bots,” says Elisah Sudlow-Poole, senior research analyst at Juniper, which owns an anti-fraud service called Fraud Blocker.

North America will account for the largest portion of fraud over the next five years (42%), followed by the Far East and China (20%).

Looking at channels within the total, fraud will account for nearly 30% of mobile spend, 20% of online display spend, 20% of online search spend, 17% of in-app advertising spend and 15% of online video spend. 

In-app digital ad spend will generate the most fraud in 2023 and account for 52% of global fraud by 2028. That reflects its status as the fastest growth channel, projected to increase 135%, from $203.8 billion in 2023 to $479.4 billion by 2028. Advertisers are increasingly using display ads and search ads to trigger app downloads, so higher proportions of subsequent advertisements are being displayed in-app.

Among the three online advertising types studied, search will generate the most fraud over the next five years. Online fraud is most likely to occur within browsers that have a smaller market share, such as Firefox and Edge, or device-specific browsers like Samsung Internet.

Online video advertising generates the smallest proportion of online ad traffic, and its cost has risen — now $0.61 per clickthrough, versus $0.42 for online display and $1.46 for online search — but its higher clickthrough rates are attracting more fraudsters, as well as advertisers.

And while Google denies the recent reports that it has violated its own ad placement and anti-fraud policies, Juniper Research notes that as the largest video streaming platform in the world, the alleged actions could cost advertisers up to $4 billion in spend on YouTube alone in 2023.

Juniper also studied social media. The report points out that, because only a handful of social platforms have a large user base, fraudsters can easily generate targeted fraudulent campaigns that can harm advertisers’ return on advertising spend over a relatively small number of channels.

Despite movement away from bots to the use of human workers in fraud detection, click farms continue to inflate social currency and can be used in attribution fraud.

However, Juniper estimates that use of fraud mitigation platforms could recover $23 billion of the lost spend in 2023 and $47 billion by 2028.

“To counteract this, fraud mitigation platforms operating in this country must ensure that their products are able to detect anomalies such as hyper-engagement and short time to install, in order to detect potential instances of click spamming and click injection schemes,” Juniper asserts. “To ensure that the influx of advertising traffic is being sufficiently monitored, fraud mitigation platforms must automate their processes through the use of AI and machine learning. AI software will be able to automatically detect ad fraud through heuristics and pattern recognition, thus ensuring sufficient ROAS for advertisers.”

For the report, downloadable free on the Fraud Blocker site, Juniper analyzed datasets from 78,000 unique sources, including comprehensive data from six digital ad channels, and reviewed data from 45 countries in eight key regions.

As part of its new contributor program, Reddit is pledging to award its users actual money for the “karma” and “gold” internet points they have accumulated. The platform also announced that it will be replacing its previous Reddit Gold system with new ways of celebrating fellow redditors.

“Fake internet points are finally worth something! Now redditors can earn real money for their contributions to the Reddit community, based on the karma and gold they've been given,” the company wrote on Monday in a blog post.

Eligible creators will now be able to convert their gold and karma (how many upvotes creators receive on a post) into money that is paid out once per month.

The program is currently available to users in the United States. They must be over 18 years old, able to verify their identity via Persona and Stripe and have had their account for over 30 days. Only safe-for-work posts can be monetized.

“Top contributors make top dollar,” the company wrote. “The more karma and gold contributors earn, the more money they can receive.

To cash in, redditors need to earn at least 10 gold within a 30 day period or else their balance rolls over. Redditors with anywhere between 100 and 4,999 karma will receive $.09 per 1 gold. Once a creator earns over 5,000 karma they are able to earn $1 per gold.

Reddit has also decided to officially change its system for awarding creators gold.

“Many don't appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who's counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient,” the company wrote in July. “It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted.”

“Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit,” the company added.

Now, two months later, that day has finally come. Reddit has done away with its additional awards, like silver, platinum, ternium, argentium etc. including awards created specifically for individual subreddits.

Under the new system, users can buy gold by long-pressing an upvote button (on mobile) or hovering over it on desktop. The company is also introducing six options to award gold. For $1.99, users can buy one gold. The price increases incrementally up to $49 for 25 gold.

The new gold system began rolling out Monday and will be available on Reddit's native mobile apps in select communities. The feature will become available on the web “later this year.”

Speech, voice, and vision features that OpenAI announced Monday in its ChatGPT move the technology to a conversational interface that advertising agencies and companies can build into their own platforms.

The voice capability -- which supports the same interactions as artificial assistant (AI) applications like Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Voice Assistant -- is powered by a text-to-speech model capable of generating human-like audio from text with a few seconds of sample speech.

This means users can talk to the chatbot and engage with a back-and-forth conversation. OpenAI collaborated with professional voice actors to create each of the voices, and used Whisper, its open-source speech-recognition system, to transcribe spoken words into text.

Experts have raised concerns about AI-generated synthetic voices to enable convincing deepfakes and cyber threats, and OpenAI acknowledged those concerns today. Voice inputs from actors were used.

The announcement did not provide information about how OpenAI would use consumer voice inputs or how the company would secure that data.

Spotify is using the technology behind the voice feature for the platform's podcasters to translate content in different languages, OpenAI said.

The vision-based models support image recognition. From an image, OpenAI’s technology can help users do a variety of things. It can work in a similar way to an instructional video -- for example, showing how to adjust a bicycle seat.

OpenAI powers the image understanding by multimodal GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. These models apply language reasoning skills to a range of images, such as photographs, screenshots, and documents containing both text and images.

What happens when voice and images are combined? Users can snap a picture of something and have a live conversation with the chatbot. Ask what to make for dinner and then ask for a step-by-step recipe.

Voice and images in ChatGPT will roll out to Plus and Enterprise users during the next two weeks. Voice is coming on iOS and Android, and images will be available on all platforms.

But having vision also means the technology can now see what the user sees. OpenAI has been working with Be My Eyes, a free mobile app for the blind and people with limited vision to understand the uses and the limitations of the technology.

Spotify is testing an AI tool that translates podcasts into different languages — in the podcaster’s voice. 

The new offering, Voice Translation, utilizes OpenAI’s new voice generation technology to match the original speaker’s style, Spotify says. 

Sporify is working with podcasters Dax Shepard, Monica Padman, Lex Fridman, Bill Simmons, and Steven Bartlett to generate AI-powered voice translations in such languages as Spanish, French, and German.

“By matching the creator’s own voice, Voice Translation gives listeners around the world the power to discover and be inspired by new podcasters in a more authentic way than ever before,” says Ziad Sultan, VP of personalization. 

Spotify plans to include Dax Shepard’s "eff won with DRS," "The Rewatchables" from the Ringer and Trevor Noah’s new podcast that will launch later this year, it says.

Translation appears to be a growing capability. For instance, Google has added a native translation integration within the Gmail mobile app: To translate messages on mobile, users simply have to select “Translate” and choose the preferred language.

“We believe that a thoughtful approach to AI can help build deeper connections between listeners and creators, a key component of Spotify’s mission to unlock the potential of human creativity,” Sultan adds.

Consumers do not care about your channels. They want what they want, when they want. And that preference could change an hour from now.

In this always on, channel-agnostic consumer reality, marketing and creative options are almost limitless. So, why do brands and retailers continue to think investing only in performance media will meet customers where they are?

As privacy rules have changed and digital marketing has grown and matured, combined with completely different customer behavior than pre-COVID, it’s past time for a change in how we present our brands to customers. Here are eight options for advertisers to reach their alwayson customers:

What’s old is new again.

1. Data-driven direct mail. Today’s version of direct mail is a far cry from the circulars of years past. With a data-heavy approach and easily tracked results, direct mail has become a logical extension to many media plans. We have routinely found that targeted and measured direct mail can elevate the impact of broader digital campaigns.
2. Digital out-of-home is on the rise. Out-of-home advertising has seen a resurgence since 2020. Technology advancements make it almost as targeted and measurable as other digital media tactics. Brands can leverage advanced measurement solutions like footfall studies, personalization based on location, and retargeting outdoor-exposed consumers.

Social is far more than Meta.

3. TikTok, of course. Through remarkable user growth and smart product development (including Video Shopping Ads), TikTok has become a must-consider for every media plan. While the barrier to entry is low financially, it does have a perceived high creative barrier to entry. This has kept many traditional performance marketers on the sidelines, which means it is still quite affordable and undersaturated.
4. Pinterest: the little engine that could. Pinterest continues to improve and innovate in a meaningful way. Sitting on a mountain of consumer insights, and audience analysis, Pinterest presents a great opportunity to drive brand awareness and product consideration.
5. Twitter (now X): Just kidding.
6. Snapchat keeps innovating. It is one of the most successful platforms for creative brand awareness, consideration, reach, and engagement. For example, a leading retailer’s custom AR-filtered storefront for virtual try-on resulted in significant lifts in awareness, consideration, and purchase intent.

Up-and-coming opportunities.

7. Mobile is at a crossroads. SMS messaging will soon resemble email: annoying numbers of messages with decreasing value. But mobile offers an opportunity for brand engagements in the palm of a consumer’s hand. It’s personal. Treat it as true clienteling, with unique offers of value, and you could be seen as a valued brand with excellent service.
8. AR and VR aren’t going away. Yes, there is a significant barrier to entry. No, it’s not very trackable (yet). That said, in one form or another, AR/VR are not going anywhere. We are already seeing consumers embrace AR in beauty and wellness for try on, color matching and recommendation capabilities.

The days of performance media as the only way to reach new customers have passed, and there is endless opportunity in the year ahead to evolve with customers. Test early and often to ensure that when they are ready to interact, shop, and buy, your brand and products are universally present.

Microsoft has a new advertising partner for its Chat Ads API that will serve Sponsored Links in the Snap My AI chatbot. The companies separately announced the news on Monday.

Snap said in May that it would begin testing Sponsored Links in My AI. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps to pair the Sponsored Link suggestions with user conversation.

If a user asked My AI where to have dinner, the chatbot could reply with a link sponsored by a local restaurant or food delivery app. It also could recommend where to buy a specific product from a local retailer based on location that the user inquired about.

This partnership offers advertisers a "more targeted approach" to connect with Snapchat's 750 million monthly active users. 

My AI is among the largest consumer chatbots available today. More than 150 million people have sent about 10 billion messages within it, according to Snap internal data from June 2023.

Today, Snapchat reaches over 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in more than 20 countries, and the My AI chatbot is a new offering in the app. The company also said these ads will not serve to users under the age of 18.

During initial tests of Sponsored Links, advertisers saw an increase of more than 15% in mobile impressions from this category while maintaining or improving cost per acquisition (CPA), the companies said.

Candy Crush Saga is celebrating victory and the joy of play in its latest spots. They blend fantasy and reality, with soundtracks composed by King's in-house team.

BBH did the creative for the match-three puzzle game, which blends reality with over-the-top visuals, to provide moments of escapism for players. Interactive mobile company King appointed BBH to the creative account for Candy Crush Saga in March. This is the agency's first work for the brand.

Here are the spots: Whoosh, Spin and Float; Joseph Mann directed all three ads through Blinkink. Trained acrobats were used for aerial sequences, while FX experts handled the more hypnotic qualities of the work.

The third spot, "Float," will break in November.

Adam Newby, creative director at BBH, said: “We wanted to dramatize the moments when people play Candy Crush Saga and show how the magic of the game transforms their world.”

The idea and initial script was developed by No Problem, Candy Crush’s former agency, with BBH London leading on final script development, creative execution and production. The campaign runs on DRTV for a 12-month period.

As of 2022, Candy Crush is reported to generate almost $607 million in revenue in the U.S., per Statista, ranking 10th in the market. Late in 2016, Activision Blizzard acquired King, its parent company, for $5.9 billion.

Candy Crush is reported to have more than 250 million loyal fans.