And once you’ve read our top tips, don’t miss out on our newly released Growth Guide, where we surveyed 600 marketers from across India, the Netherlands, the UK, the US, France and Germany to get some hard stats on professionals’ budgets and strategies for 2022.  After all, what’s better than data?  

A holistic approach to marketing: is your brand ready?

Matthias Riedl, co-founder and CEO, DCMN rightly points out that the performance vs branding battle is a thing of the past. Previously, marketers often siloed performance and brand marketing in terms of budget, resources, and brand impact. The irony is that while investment in performance marketing has risen sharply, it’s become increasingly harder to measure due to iOS changes and the death of third party cookies. Brands will need to make up for this loss of data accuracy in their digital efforts with more sophisticated measurement solutions elsewhere – namely, offline.

“That’s why in 2022, we’ll see big impact branding channels — such as TV, Radio and OOH — adopting a more performance-driven approach.” 

Mohit Gyanchandani, Head of Media Planning and Growth from DCMN’s India office, also reflects on how COVID has forced marketers to rethink their goals. Up until now, the focus has been on either branding or performance. However, in the last few years, brands have been pushed to re-evaluate their goals: “Companies know that to succeed, they need to build brand salience,” he says. As covered by Business Insider, Mohit predicts that the clear lines between branding and performance will become increasingly blurred and marketers will take a more holistic approach, where a campaign aims to achieve both branding and performance goals.

An OOH revival: digital brands are testing traditional channels 

“Across Europe, there’s been a spike in start-ups and e-commerce businesses trying out traditional OOH campaigns. Whether it’s Gorillas, Flink or VanMoof — these digital biggies took over major cities with their catchy billboards this year alone.” says Ulrike Tusk, Global Expert Offline Marketing.

Another trend she predicts to continue is brands focusing on short-term planning, particularly for countries where COVID rates are increasing: “Brands find it difficult to commit to a marketing strategy for a full year in the current unpredictable situation.” In 2022, brands will continue needing to be as agile and timely as possible when it comes to planning and execution of campaigns.

And they want TV too…

What other channels are set to be big in 2022? Maria Mryasova, Director of Product adds, “In 2021, we saw more and more startups and scaleups turn to TV as a new means of performance marketing — especially once they outgrew other methods of user acquisition online or on mobile. After all, TV is still the most efficient marketing channel to reach a huge audience in a short amount of time. The pandemic also opened up new opportunities for growing brands to test the waters with smaller risk, as media buying prices were a lot lower.”

And this trend looks set to continue in the new year: our Growth Guide shows that 36% of marketers plan to focus heavily on CTV in 2022, with another 33% investing in linear TV.

Hello to the cookie-less future!

Advertisers saw a decline in targeting possibilities after Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy came in, and have responded by cutting their budgets for Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Instead, marketers are increasingly focused on reallocating their spending to Android users or Apple’s own ad businesses. In light of this, Polina Weber, Global Expert Digital Marketing, says that delivering the right message at the right time for the right user has never been more challenging – but at the same time, is more important than ever. 

“I believe the cookieless future and user privacy are set to be the hottest topics for 2022.” 

With increasing restrictions on targeting capabilities, Polina predicts that “Companies will shift budgets to the remaining channels that are still trackable. They will also put a stronger focus on customer relationship management: this is especially important for subscription businesses, who will need to utilise user data as much as possible to increase customer LTV.”

Your data is gold, don’t sleep on it

While targeted advertising is becoming trickier than ever, advertisers are often sitting on a gold mine of first-party data without even realising it. Activating consumer data directly will continue to be one of the biggest trends on the demand side, adds Maria. “With the right investment and strategy, brands hold the key to creating the most reliable and accurate view of their audiences in 2022,” she says.

Enjoyed these predictions? Find out what marketing experts across the globe have planned for 2022 in our growth guide.