As the digital advertising landscape evolves, brands are searching for effective ways to keep up with rapidly changing marketplace dynamics. Looking ahead, you’ll need to reach customers with engaging, relevant messaging to have a lasting impact that will get them into your stores.

From the advent of 5G and industry standardization to redefining traditional success metrics, you’ll need to keep an eye out for the hot trends to implement going into the new year. So, before we all cheer to a new decade, here are the five trends that will define 2020 in the ad tech industry.

Say goodbye to cookies

With behemoths Google and Apple introducing tighter controls around the use of 3rd party cookies this year, advertisers are now having a harder time delivering targeted ads to users.

If you want to keep your standards up and your ad delivery high, consider these alternatives:

  • Switch to a cookie-free app-based inventory,
  • Use location and contextual data sources to get insights into user preferences and offline and online in-app behavior,
  • Invest in first-party identity graphs to track users across their touch points.

Time to switch things up with 5G 

It’s happening – 5G networks are primed and ready to go! Thanks to unprecedented data speed, customers will start using their mobiles more – especially to stream content. This is a golden opportunity for you to invest in video formats that’ll have little to no load time.

Time to embrace mobile-first creatives and best practices. From short-form video content to focusing on formats suited to the mobile environment, make the most of mobile to stand out.

Media metrics are on their way out. Time to welcome business KPIs

Proving the effectiveness of a campaign is no walk in the park. Especially when your board doesn’t speak your language.

There’s an easy solution. Move away from media and marketing metrics like clicks, views, viewability and engagements, and turn to more tangible ways to judge your advertising performance – like increased numbers of customers in store or how many more people are buying your products.

Mobile is more than a channel, it’s a measurement tool

As we move into 2020, mobile is going to become more than just an advertising channel. It’s going to be the technology which helps prove campaign ROI.

With the ability to deliver one unique user ID, track user engagement and visits to a store location and so much more, brands will start using mobile as a measurement tool to prove campaign effectiveness. Don’t miss out!

Creating an industry standard

As it stands, the current system to validate campaign effectiveness is flawed. When those delivering the ads are also the ones reporting on campaign ROI, and the definition of store visits changes from one provider to the next, how can advertisers measure like for like?

To avoid any issues, independent third-party experts with no stakes in the campaign performance must become your go-to for evaluating and proving ROI on drive-to-store campaigns, and they must . It’s only by working with them that you’ll make sure your campaigns are delivering the visits you’re buying.

Whether all of these predictions come true or not, they all point to a rapidly changing industry, determined to deliver effective ads through creativity and innovation. Make sure to monitor these changes closely, don’t forget to adjust and look for hidden opportunities to stand out.

2020 has a lot to offer to brands who are ready to seize these opportunities. If you want to know more about what the coming decade has in store for you, download our 2030 report.