Modeled Value-Based Bidding addresses these challenges for marketers:

• Third-party cookie deprecation and tightening privacy regulations pose significant headwinds for brands looking to connect with consumers.
• With first-party data sources and data volumes growing at breakneck speeds, many marketers are overwhelmed by managing data manually.
• Companies that have large data sets can’t manage manual bid strategies with one person or even a team.
• More and more advertisers are looking to understand how AI and machine learning can fit into their digital advertising and data strategies to help drive efficiencies.

With insights included from our Global EVP Tyler Pietz, the report stresses an important takeaway: brand, marketing, finance and data managers have a lot to gain from working closely together and building cross-functional integration systems. To that regard, we believe that while companies may invest in different tools for each department, the way each one manages data should be a more general decision that takes into account the broader business context. Seeing the full picture is pivotal to success, and we can only do that with complete, well-organized, integrated data systems.

Keep the enterprise goals in sight.

As Pietz says in the report, “The CMO’s role is to take business insights and bring them to market so value can be realized.” That means turning the data strategy into something actionable. CMOs are responsible for identifying the tactics that will help the business achieve its goals—and things like profitability, revenue drivers and risk management are important factors to weigh as they carry out strategies to attract leads, move into new markets and beyond.

To get there, however, CMOs need access to a comprehensive view of the brand’s consumer data—and the more departments and data points it encompasses, the better. But here’s where it gets tricky. Forrester’s findings show that 37% of B2C marketing decision-makers say driving decision-making with customer insights is one of their organization’s biggest marketing execution challenges. Rather than a skills issue, we believe this is due to structural problems that leave marketing leaders drowning in disorganized data, as well as a disconnect between departments.

Before collecting more data, learn to control it.

With changing privacy laws and platform restrictions, CMOs are hungry for new first-party data collection methods and alternative data sources. This is great, as first-party data is at the heart of any digital maturity and transformation journey. However, it’s important to remember that building a strong enterprise data strategy is not about acquiring as much data as possible; rather, it’s about extracting the most value from it. 

To do so, we need to start by establishing solid data foundations that ensure the information we have is accessible, timely, trustworthy and fit for purpose. While hiring new services like analytics tools and buying platforms is easy, the real challenge is to bridge together all of those data sources and systems in ways that allow us to see the full picture.

In other words, accumulating data is a misuse of our resources unless we can access its benefits—and as companies continue to explore new spaces where they can connect with consumers, the need for solid data foundations will become more pressing. Yes, a lack of control can lead to redundancies and misinformed decisions, but data hoarding presents even bigger risks in terms of user privacy. As the report illustrates, the consequences of a potential breach can be catastrophic if we don’t establish rigorous governance practices.

To deliver a great customer experience, create cross-functional data systems.

In addition to establishing solid data foundations, leveraging your data to its full potential also demands getting rid of departmental silos. While teams often consider only the data that is available to them, it’s possible to unlock additional expertise if we bank on stronger integration capabilities across channels, data sources and technologies.

Marketing teams, for example, may look at lead generation and engagement, while product teams focus on retention and acquisition. However, you need all metrics to get a clear view of the customer, and so you’ll achieve better results if they aren’t tracked separately.

As Forrester says in their report, determining a customer’s next-best experience requires “an orchestra of IT, data science, risk and compliance, marketing, sales and service, and CX.” To get high-quality customer insights, CMOs must look beyond their marketing-specific perspectives and collaborate with their counterparts across departments. Complaints and inventory may not be part of marketing’s responsibilities, but they surely impact the customer experience. Ads for out-of-stock products are a major turn-off for consumers, and nobody likes a brand that continues to do out-of-touch marketing while ignoring the countless complaints in their inboxes and social media comments.

The bottom line is, everyone can benefit from being aligned on what type of data will help the business thrive and how to track it, but CMOs play one of the most important roles in squeezing the juice out of it. While marketing leaders can’t design a fully-fledged data strategy on their own, they are the ones who take these consumer insights and turn them into marketing programs that bring the desired results for the business. Instead of focusing on collecting huge volumes of data, work on unifying these sets in an organized, secure environment, and you’ll find yourself instinctively making data-driven decisions.

Virtualization defines the transformation of digital.

As the world opened back up, an era of digital transformation gave way to the transformation of digital. By this, we mean virtualization: a set of new audience behaviors, cultural norms and technology paradigms resulting from 30 years of digital transformation, hyper-accelerated over the past five years. Virtualization, covered in our report earlier this year, marks a revolution in consumer behavior as people demand more from the digital platforms they engage with, which implicates the ways they look at digital experience, community, ownership and identity. For example, the design of ComplexLand, a virtualization of the hype-fueled annual event ComplexCon, was built around the insight that today’s fashion trendsetters are becoming just as invested in their digital identities as their corporeal ones.

The Social Innovation Lab, who explores up-and-coming trends in social, delved deeper into what motivates some of these behavioral changes in The Search for Meaning. By exploring how technology shapes the ways consumers find and make meaning in their lives, the Social Innovation Lab uncovers how brands can adapt to the new era in digital.

Experiments in the metaverse drive real success.

One of the biggest manifestations of the virtualization trend has been the rise of the metaverse, which many brands have experimented with this year to find their footing. Duolingo celebrated the birthday of its lovable (and persistent) mascot by hosting a game jam in Roblox and building larger-than-life public artwork in Decentraland. Logitech for Creators reinvented the awards show format by building the first music awards show in the metaverse, the Song Breaker Awards.

The fashion industry in particular has found a lot of success in the space. Liam Osbourne, Global Client Partner at the FLUX.Monks, our dedicated fashion and luxury team, shared with Vogue some insight on how the metaverse is an opportunity to become more inclusive. For brands exploring that question and more, the FLUX.Monks have authored a quick bulletin on why the metaverse matters.

As the metaverse continues to take shape, now is an excellent time for brands to continue experimenting in the space, which was a large part of a discussion shared between SVP Web3, Metaverse & Innovation Strategy Catherine D. Henry; Chief Innovation Officer Henry Cowling; and Mike Proulx, VP and Research Director at Forrester as part of our Meet Me in the Metaverse series. Eager to get started experimenting in the metaverse yourself? Our map of the metaverse can help you find the right home for your brand within this quickly evolving space.

Web3 and other emerging tech begin to mature.

In addition to the metaverse, other emerging technologies have fueled transformative digital experiences—most notably Web3. We showed up at NFT.NYC, the biggest Web3 conference on this side of the screen, with an immersive installation for Cool Cats that blurred the boundary between virtual and the real. Meanwhile, Gucci opened the virtual door to an immersive gallery space used to host an auction of NFT artwork.   

More than just a new tech infrastructure, Web3 marks a foundational shift in brand-consumer relationships, a topic covered in a bulletin we released in collaboration with Salesforce this year titled Web 3: The Future of Customer Engagement. For those wondering how to begin making moves in Web3, check out insights from our In a Monk’s Opinion series, which lays out everything you need to know about NFTs and the blockchain. One tip from the Labs.Monks: be sure to make your NFT projects sustainable.

Speaking of the Labs.Monks, our R&D team has continually released missives on the bleeding edge of tech throughout a year of innovation. Their most recent report on generative AI explores the potential of AI tools like Dall-E and Mid Journey that have captured creatives’ imagination (and people’s social feeds). One example of what the tech can achieve: unlocking efficiencies in animation and other production needs.

Creativity and media go hand in hand.

Throughout the digital era, it’s been tempting to focus attention on vanity metrics. But as CMOs invest more dollars into media (and face increasing budget scrutiny with a possible recession), they will benefit from transforming their approach to a more holistic strategy that blends media and creative to optimize their spend. Speaking to Digiday, Media.Monks Global Head of Media Melissa Wisehart unveiled how our integrated media pillar is designed to help brands make this leap.

Uni's relaunch campaign demonstrates this more holistic approach through the development of both the creative and media placement by one partner. With three creative variations and four measurement initiatives, we ensured the creative rolled out across today’s most relevant channels according to their purpose within the brand ecosystem.

When it comes to creative optimization, wellness brand Hatch found great success—and shared some of their secrets in an episode of In a Monk’s Opinion featuring Hatch’s VP Growth Marketing Holly Elliott. Many brands that rely on digital platforms for their marketing face a series of challenges: rising acquisition costs; a limited ability to manage their performance, attribution and audience targeting; and the risk of losing brand authenticity. Hatch assuaged these concerns by striking a balance between creative and performance. In the episode, Holly and our creative performance experts offer insight into how historical performance data can fuel further creative iterations.

Brands prepare for the oncoming privacy era.

While media optimization and performance may be top of mind now, budget conscious CMOs are also eyeing another obstacle on the horizon: overcoming their reliance on third-party cookies as attitudes in privacy shift and as Google aims to sunset third-party cookies with the Chrome browser. And speaking of cookies, VP of Data Services and Technology Doug Hall recently shared ways marketers can rethink cookie consent and management using the Privacy Sandbox platform.

Add to the mix that Google is sunsetting GA360 to make way for its new GA4 platform, meaning brands have plenty of adjustments to manage in the near future. Thankfully, GA360’s sunset was postponed to July 2024, meaning they have more time to perfect their migration strategy. Our data experts put their heads together to create a short guide on how to maximize your move to GA4 before the deadline.

We’ve also got some inspiration based on how other brands have future-proofed their data strategies with great success. We began our partnership with Molson Coors in 2021 with the goal to bring more of its digital media in-house. By taking an ambitious, holistic approach focused on modernization, we’ve since helped the brand future-proof with a robust, in-house digital media team: a data transformation that ranges from data acquisition, data activation and enrichment, and optimization.

And in the commerce space, leadership from Canadian retailer Reitmans shared the role cloud computing played in building a single source of truth throughout its entire organization, joining online consumer behavior with data from over 400 brick-and-mortar locations. Check out the episode of IMO to learn how a strong data foundation helped the brand adapt at speed.

Speaking of data foundations, emerging technologies like Web3 offer new ways of connecting with consumers and strengthening relationships. In an episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse, Ashley Muscumeci, our Director, Go-to-Market, sat down with Jordan Cuddy, Chief Client Officer at Jam3, and Avanthika Ramesh, Senior Product Manager, NFT Cloud at Salesforce, to explore how building a resilient data foundation will help brands get a head-start into the Web3 future. One key insight: despite being a new space, the same rules apply when it comes to user consent. “Even if you are bridging Web3 and Web2 data to bring all these identifiers about a consumer together, it’s really important that the user opts in and provides consent to merge these identities,” says Ramesh.

Commerce goes social and creators go virtual.

In recent years, creators have expanded their digital footprint into new spaces—like gaming and social audio—and have even adopted new content ventures to translate audience engagement into revenue for brands. So, what does the intersection of content, commerce and entertainment look like today? The Social Innovation Lab launched a report earlier this year, The Year of Digital Creators, to explore the state of the creator economy in depth, available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

One example of how creators have transformed the consumer journey is through the rise of live commerce, the subject of a recently released Social Bite from the Social Innovation Lab. Live commerce blends communities and real-time connection to offer entertaining, interactive and personalized experiences for audiences, and the short deck offers a glimpse into the live commerce journey and how brands can activate audiences every step of the way.

What’s next in the realm of digital creators? Expect more and more virtual influencers in the form of CGI-rendered fictional characters or avatar alter-egos of real people. With the rise of the metaverse and more accessible motion capture technology, virtual influencers are primed to become a more common presence in brands’ influencer marketing strategies—and if you’re curious about the role one could play in your own marketing, check out another Social Bite about how virtual influencers are coming alive.

Here's to a new year of innovating!

With so much innovation in the last year spanning experiences, content creation and optimization through data, there’s a lot to celebrate as we cap off 2022. Looking ahead into the new year, these trends will continue to shape brands’ strategies as they seek to engage with hyper connected audiences in the new digital era.

Where will you begin? Reach out to start your 2023 journey with confidence.

In this episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse, host Ashley Musumeci, Director, Go-To-Market at Media.Monks, sits down with Jordan Cuddy, Chief Client Officer at Jam3, and Avanthika Ramesh, Senior Product Manager, NFT Cloud at Salesforce, to explore how building a resilient data foundation will help brands get a head-start into the Web3 future. Watch and listen below.

In this episode

2:13: Customer engagement changes in Web3

5:48: Ensuring long term value and utility of your Web3 activations

11:24: Choosing the right platforms

16:27: How to build people’s trust in brands

21:33: Activating responsibly

24:23: Change management needs

Solving the Web3 identity crisis.

Web3 offers new customer touchpoints, and with them come new kinds of personal data like anonymized wallets or communication in new channels. But elements of privacy and consent that were required in Web2 engagements still carry over into Web3, says Ramesh, introducing an identity crisis for brands to solve. “Even if you are bridging Web3 and Web2 data to bring all these identifiers about a consumer together, it’s really important that the user opts in and provides consent to merge these identities,” she says. This challenge has led to the release of new, Web3-connected CRMs from businesses like Salesforce who aim to solve the need for a full, 360-degree view of the customer.

For brands who want to engage meaningfully with consumers in the space, Cuddy encourages starting with a purpose. Jam3 helped Adidas take its first, sneaker-worn step into the metaverse to build hype for its new collection of Ozweego shoes. “What our strategy team found was that there was a shift from ‘Where can I go in the metaverse’ to ‘Who can I be in the metaverse.’” The team realized that options for self-expression in the metaverse were often limiting. Ozworld Alter Ego, a generative platform that creates a unique avatar based on personality and style, made perfect sense for a brand focused on self-expression through fashion.

As brands seek a unified approach to their data-driven marketing, a strong Web3 strategy makes for a valuable addition to their existing data foundations. From experimenting with new channels to developing your own platform like Complex did, there are many ways to test and learn your way to Web3 success. And by delivering experiences that people value, you’ll incentivize customers to share data that will help strengthen customer relationships.

Eager to learn how to build solid data foundations in Web3 and beyond? Catch the full episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse above.

When it comes to the privacy arena, what trends are you seeing agnostically?

Privacy is one of the fastest changing and most complex realms in the digital space, even more so than Web3. On top of that, privacy is an ever-present undercurrent—ongoing in everything that we do. With a plethora of global and regional players involved—the tech sector, regulatory bodies, public opinion—we can safely say there’s a complex interaction at play, which makes coming up with any long-term prediction or silver bullet solution practically impossible. As a consequence, our waterways can quickly go from clear to muddy. What follows is a sense of fear, uncertainty and doubt among many companies. 

In working with companies across the board, we still see a lot of confusion around technical terminology, with partners raising questions such as, “What is personal data compared to Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?” To be frank, we believe this is in part driven by clickbait. Headlines propagating that “GA is illegal” cause unnecessary confusion and concern, when the fact of the matter is that Google’s GA4 as a product has gone through a massive rebuild from the ground up to address and tackle the issues in question. As a baseline trend, we’re receiving more and more questions about privacy matters with regards to all products in the digital marketing ecosystem—and we welcome them with open arms, because we’re here to help solve the riddle. 

How are you helping clients navigate this new, data-focused advertising landscape?

Our objective is to help our partners take proper control of and ownership over their data collection and activation. Therefore, we first focus on basic data hygiene, conducting health checks and audits. It’s very important to know what your company has in store, so we ask questions like what data is collected, which cookies are set, how is the collected data used, and who else is getting the data of your users? Creating a graph of 3P consumers and beyond is complex and thus requires high levels of scrutiny. 

Though the third-party cookie deprecation has been pushed back until at least late 2025, we don’t like to wait around and carry on in the same way we have always done. Rather, we’re embracing a first-class, first-party and privacy-first strategy, for instance by helping companies migrate to GA4—because we see no reasons for taking a reactive approach. We make sure our partners get on the front foot as fast and efficiently as possible, with a strong emphasis on automation. When you’re working with large data volumes, you can’t rely on human-centric processes to manage compliance. For instance, we have implemented automated machine learning as part of the data pipelines in order to prevent PII ingestion. There’s no way that a company can afford to manage a breach retrospectively or be proactive without automation—simply put, this is the most efficient way to scale. 

What are the main lessons that you have learned on this journey?

First of all, we clearly communicate to every brand we partner with to always aim for transparency, make a plan, and move beyond the minimum. Let’s be honest, the economic headwinds that we are all currently facing mean that every dollar, euro and pound spent needs to deliver a return more than ever before. As such, preserving data quality is our top priority. To give you the full scoop: everything we do to be more transparent, protect users’ privacy, and apply rigor and governance to data collection and activation is, in fact, enhancing the data quality, too. So long as you go about your data the right way, you can’t go wrong. 

Speaking of data quality, another key lesson that we have learned is to use time to the fullest. Yes, industry leaders like Google may unexpectedly push back plans, but rather than seeing this as an issue, we believe it can work to our advantage. Setting up the privacy tech for this tool is quick and easy—the hard part is changing the people and processes, which we know can take a while to get completely right. Though we expect that many brands will interpret this extension of GA360 as extra time to look around and perhaps jump ship to another technology, we believe that this is a risky strategy. Instead, we recommend our partners to take this change of plans as an opportunity to perfect, rather than a chance to pivot. There are no excuses to delay GA4 migration. It's imperative to use this time to manage change, translate data workloads, dashboards and data pipelines, and ensure all those GA360 assets become high quality GA4 assets.

Do you see gaps in performance between brands that invest in privacy and those who don’t?

There's a clear and definite advantage to taking a strong privacy-first approach to data—and companies are catching on. People are realizing (or, at least, starting to realize) that we’re not playing a zero-sum game and the exchange of data in return for personalization and better ad targeting is the data privacy transaction we all engage in—with reciprocity being the key word. Those who are best able to complete this transaction at scale will be rewarded with the best results, whereas those who continue to walk the third-party cookie path will fall behind. For some time now, we’ve been helping many of our partners run on a healthy diet of deterministic and probabilistic data and not trip over the mix of consented first-party and modeled data, and we can tell you: they are in good shape. 

Want to discuss next steps? Get in touch. 

Everything you do for privacy feeds back into your data quality, hence the opportunity to sharpen and perfect your process of migration to GA4 is one to take with both hands. It’s essential for brands to look beyond the obstacles of GA4 and work to get the best first-party data off the back of the migration.

We’re here to help make sense of changes in the privacy landscape, how to make use of GA4 data, and how such technologies can support all your marketing needs. If you have any questions with regards to GA4 migration, please reach out to growth@mediamonks.com. We’ll schedule some time to discuss any questions you may have and see how we can support your analytics needs.

Insights for this piece were contributed by Doug Hall, VP Data Services and Technology, EMEA; Julien Coquet, Director of Analytics, EMEA; Suzanne Jansen, Head of Data Strategy, EMEA; Véronique Franzen, Senior Director Business Consulting, EMEA; Jakub Otrząsek, VP Data, APAC; Sayf Sharif, VP Data, NAMER; Michael Neveu, Director of Data, NAMER; and Wenting Wang, Senior Director of Data & Analytics, UK.