2022 is quickly becoming the year of global changes, and these go way beyond the recent online tech market turmoil and the expected launch of Google’s optimized pricing.

While many analysts have been discussing the possible impact of Google Ad Manager’s soon-to-roll-out optimized pricing by default on the programmatic advertising landscape, it’s also crucial that publishers keep track of the so-to-speak “bigger picture”.

(Less than?) a Year until the Deprecation of Third-Party Cookies 

“How is your first-party strategy developing? Don’t have one yet? Then you might be in trouble.”

These short phrases can easily sum up publishers’ mood rushing to prepare for the upcoming deprecation of third-party cookies by the end of 2023, which can make a great share of their traffic unaddressable.

With consented customer data being currently perceived as somewhat the new currency in digital advertising, publishers are facing an urgent need of a clear understanding of how their first-party data can and will be activated to help achieve their Demand partners’ goals. 

In this respect, the introduction of privacy-focused initiatives, like PARAKEET or Google’s Topics API, for instance, doesn’t really change much in terms of the role of publishers’ first-party data, more granular by default. However, their participation (or lack of it) in the latter initiative, for instance, should be a consideration for the 2023 monetization strategy.

The Fight Against Online Video Ad Fraud Continues

According to Juniper Research, 68,000,000,000 USD of the global digital ad spend were lost to fraud only in 2021.

And while the industry remains mostly focused on CTV advertising schemes that have spiked almost 70% last year (per DV), the recent case with Gannett Co. proves that continuous verification is vital at all levels, and all parts of the programmatic supply chain.

More importantly, this doesn’t only imply collaboration with reputable fraud-protection vendors, but the more proactive implementation and use of video ad tech standards by all parties on the Supply and Demand side (buyers.json // sellers.json, latest iterations of (app)ads.txt, etc.), too.

5G-Rollout is On. 5G Advanced is Almost Here

Even though the digital advertising industry has been buzzing about the rollout of 5G for several years now, it hasn’t been until 2022 when the process actually accelerated.

In many ways fueled by the launch of new, gradually cheaper 5G-enabled devices, the media focus has also turned to the relatively new term, known as 5G Advanced, and the benefits the upcoming 5G iterations (v.18+) can unlock. 

These, in particular, will definitely expand XR advertising opportunities, due to the more seamless, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC), help improve location positioning and, and make UHD video live streams on mobile devices (using Versatile Video Coding, for instance) somewhat the new normal.

From publishers’ perspective, the ongoing deployment of 5G and the soon-to-launch 5G Advanced means the new online video advertising era is already here, and it should definitely take its place in their 2023 monetization strategy.