2023 Predictions: Key paid media trends for next year

2023 is just around the corner, which means your paid media planning for next year will be well underway. Oban’s Head of Paid Media, Jules Bodoulé Sosso, shares five key trends that will shape the year ahead.

#1: Video is only getting bigger

• YouTube Shorts – i.e. vertical videos less than 60 seconds in length, or Google’s answer to TikTok – will continue to be a significant focus for Google. We predict greater visibility for these short video clips on SERPs as well as other Google properties.
• E-commerce through video content will be an area of accelerated innovation as YouTube and TikTok battle for advertising budgets. Both platforms offered new shopping ad features in 2022 and plan to release more in 2023.
• Mainstream virtual shopping is probably only a few months away.

#2: Phantom clicks will continue to cause confusion

• Confusion and legal uncertainty around Google Analytics in Europe, the sunsetting of Universal Analytics, Chrome’s third party cookie ban pushed back by a year (again) – it’s safe to say we’re in for a ride in 2023!
• As businesses catch up on cookies and user tracking regulations, dev teams and data scientists will spend long hours explaining “where did the data go?” to organisational stakeholders.
• Businesses around the world will need to become more aware of the constraints surrounding data analytics, be more trusting of sample-based performance analytics, and increasingly rely upon their first party data for innovations to drive digital growth.
• More positively, demand for more advanced CRM tactics will drive innovation around these technologies.

#3: The challenging backdrop makes agency collaboration essential

• Gaps in data, increased offsite engagement, and the proliferation of offsite contact with audiences can all lead to the same danger: brands miscommunicating with their customers.
• In this increasingly complex and fragmented paid media landscape, all agencies – media, performance, and creative – will need to work more closely than ever to deliver impact. This means genuine integration, not just lip service.
• With so much content ‘noise’, coupled with global uncertainty and a not-so-healthy economic outlook, brands are likely to gamble on brand awareness campaigns hoping to come out the other side with the upper hand.

#4: Paid media automation will continue

• It’s likely that more solutions such as Google Ads’ Performance Maxcampaigns or TikTok’s Smart Performance Campaign will be released, with the long-term aspirations of ad giants to fully automate media buying becoming increasingly clear.
• However, this won’t happen overnight as, for instance, this year’s privacy and analytics turmoil will continue to challenge advertiser confidence.
• The e-commerce sector is likely to see the greatest innovation due to its super-transparent ROI-led reporting model.

#5: We will see more data privacy legislation around the world

• Data privacy – not just at corporate or platform level but increasingly at legislative level too – will continue to be a key trend.
• The EU’s new Data Privacy Act (DSA) forbids profiling users with sensitive data – for example, information such as bank details, medical records, ethnicity or religious identity etc. Children’s data cannot be used for profiling or targeted advertising.
• Individual countries will continue to make their own data protection decisions- following on from countries such as Austria and Denmark challenging Google’s use of user data
• Post-Brexit, the UK may ditch GDPR and generate its own British equivalent.
• Five US states – California, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, and Connecticut – are gearing up for increased data privacy laws.

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