Social media platforms and online videos will become even more dominant in advertising in 2020

Spending on digital advertising will increase significantly in 2020 as marketers look to optimize their media mix. 84% of marketers plan to increase their investment in online video advertising over the next twelve months. 70 percent want to increase their spending on social media networks and 63 percent want to increase spending on podcasts. This is in direct contrast to the planned spending on print media: 70 percent of marketers will reduce their spending on magazines and 66 percent will reduce their investment in newspaper advertising.

Despite the predicted growth of online advertising, digital measurement of impact remains a challenge for marketers. Information gaps affect the ability to understand cross-channel performance and therefore assess the overall performance of their brand.

For the sixth time, Getting Media Right examines the current state of marketing in a fast-moving, networked world. The study is based on in-depth feedback from almost 500 experienced marketers from advertising, media publishers and agencies worldwide. It reveals an industry that continues to diversify its use of different media contexts and needs a better understanding of how to connect ideas, content and media channels to achieve its goals: short-term sales and long-term brand growth.

Key findings of the study:

• The Short-term vs. long-term dilemma is coming to a head. Almost all marketers (including 88% of advertisers) now recognize the importance of balancing short-term sales with long-term brand building. However, only 54 percent of marketers use both short- and long-term measurements; 38 percent still rely solely on short-term sales results. 
• Marketing specialists are still struggling with integrated campaigns. A quarter of advertisers (25 percent) have failed to integrate their marketing organizations. 27 percent of advertisers do not have integrated strategies for media and non-media activities. 
• Programmatic targeting continues to grow. Four out of five marketers (80 percent) currently use programmatic targeting for their campaigns. By 2020, this figure is expected to rise to 90 percent. Nevertheless, almost one in three advertisers is not sure whether they are successfully addressing the right target groups. 
• Advertising without cookies could leave marketers in the dark. The majority of the industry - almost half of agencies and almost three quarters of advertisers - have not yet started preparing for a world without cookies. Many are concerned about how this change will affect the industry. 
• Almost a third of advertisers are not sure whether they want to use the Influence of advertising in context understand. Almost two-thirds of marketers agree that developing customized content is a must. However, when it comes to understanding how context affects creative executions, there is still a knowledge gap. More knowledge is needed about how specific content needs to be tailored to specific contexts to make it more recipient-friendly.

"While the rapid growth in digital ad spend is no surprise, this new study shows that marketers still have a long way to go when it comes to cross-channel measurement and proving ROI," said Jane Ostler, Global Head of Media Effectiveness, Kantar's Media Domain. "The next twelve months will see big changes for the industry. The emergence of newer channels such as podcasts and advanced TV, as well as the move away from cookies, will change the way advertisers target and measure their campaigns. Marketers should strive for the best of both worlds: they need to create a framework to measure the impact on business and brand metrics. This means harmonizing measurement tools and building an infrastructure that enables measurement across the entire marketing mix. With the help of these insights, it is possible to improve performance across all channels."