- Technology has upended the advertising business.
- Changes in ad tracking and evolving consumer habits are forcing advertisers to change longstanding ways of zapping ads at people.
- Here's a breakdown of Insider's coverage of how these changes are impacting ad buyers and sellers.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The advertising industry is going through big changes as technology changes upend consumer habits and where and how marketers reach them.
Apple and Google's phasing out third-party cookies threatens to upend longstanding ad targeting practices. The acceleration of streaming TV has fueled the chase for TV ad dollars.
The shift to online shopping has attracted new players for digital advertising.
Insider has been tracking these trends at some of the biggest advertising buyers and sellers, including WPP, Omnicom, Google, and Amazon, and rounded up our coverage.
The crackdown on ad tracking is changing advertising
Targeting changes are forcing advertisers to come up with new ways to reach consumers. Google and Apple have sent shockwaves through the ad industry when they announced changes that would put an end to longstanding ad targeting practices in the face of pro-privacy regulation.
Those moves have led marketers, their agencies, and adtech companies like LiveRamp and The Trade Desk scrambling to find workarounds.
Read more:
- Google's move away from targeted advertising threatens to upend marketers' scramble to save digital ads
- Apple's recent privacy changes are already wreaking havoc on Facebook advertisers, and ad buyers are scrambling to manage the disruptions
- Ad giant Dentsu is going through a massive culling of its agencies – here's what we know about the winners and losers
- The ad industry is looking for a way to save targeted ads, but publishers worry it'll cheapen their reader relationships and cost them revenue
Marketing meets tech
Vincent Kessler/Reuters
CMOs are finding new ways to target consumers, building homegrown tools, using targeted ads, or snapping up ad tech and martech companies.
Brands like Anheuser-Busch, Mars, P&G and L'Oréal have ramped up efforts to gather data on consumers as platforms clamp down on ad targeting and e-commerce accelerates.
Read more:
- Anheuser-Busch InBev has amassed data on 2.5 billion consumers and is using it to get around new ad targeting challenges, growing sales as much as 80%
- Candy maker Mars built a tool that tracks people's emotional reactions to ads, and says it's lifting sales by as much as 18%
- Big brands like Nike and Neiman Marcus are snapping up tech companies to learn more about their customers as old ways of ad targeting go away
- 21 advertising execs who are finding new ways to target people in a privacy-centric world
- Online fashion marketplace Farfetch is doubling down on 'addressable' TV ads as competition intensifies with Amazon for luxury shoppers
Adtech is hot again
Even as advertisers slashed their spending in the economic downturn, the rise of streaming TV and online shopping has benefitted adtech companies that help connect ad buyers and sellers and solve advertising and marketing problems.
Investors are pouring money into firms like like TVision DoubleVerify that are solving problems in digital advertising. Other firms are going public as Wall Street fell back in love with adtech due to broad macroeconomic changes.
Read more:
- 9 hot European digital-marketing companies that experts say are prime acquisition targets in 2021
- The Trade Desk is taking on Google for digital ad dollars, and the battle is about to get more complicated
- 9 adtech companies that advertisers are flocking to for new ways to zap ads at people and measure whether they work
- The 18 hottest adtech companies of 2020
- 8 of the most promising tech startups in public relations, according to investors
- 20 experts who are working on big solutions for advertisers as ad targeting as we know it goes away
- 27 software firms that companies like Amazon and Unilever use to supercharge their public relations efforts
New players are disrupting the ad industry
Instacart
The established holding companies are scrambling to adapt to the digital shift, while new kinds of specialty ad companies threaten to take their place.
And a new set of companies including delivery services, retailers, and platforms like Instacart, Walmart, and TikTok are gunning for a piece of the ad business.
Investors, startups, and vendors are also trying to cash in on the opportunity.
Read more:
- 12 advertising upstarts that are challenging ad giants like WPP and Omnicom
- 13 power players at S4 Capital helping Sir Martin Sorrell build a digital challenger to ad giant WPP
- Ad agencies that are top acquisition targets as private equity money pours in
- TV ratings giant Nielsen has lost the media industry's backing. These 6 companies could replace it.
- Advertising is Amazon's fastest-growing business and brought in $21 billion in 2020. Here are the 21 top insiders leading the charge.
- Alan Moss is spearheading Amazon's push to steal ad dollars from Facebook and Google. Insiders lay out his playbook for getting a slice of the $70 billion TV ad market.
- 43 big hires that show how companies like Instacart and Home Depot are in an intense war for advertising dollars
- Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart are vying for advertising dollars – here's exactly how much they charge for ads
- Experts name 12 companies that are likely acquisition targets as online shopping takes off
- 18 firms that are helping solve marketers' giant problems selling and advertising on Amazon
- Experts lay out how Instacart, Walmart, and other retail ad sellers can take on Amazon in digital advertising