Performance & Optimization

You’ve probably heard by now that by the year 2022, those of us in the digital ad industry must say “adiós” to the third-party cookie. The third-party phase-out was first announced in February 2020, but Google stirred the pot a little over the last month when they announced that they won’t be building alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web. Some companies fear that this will negatively affect their abilities to target the right consumers, but we at Genius Monkey say, “Lighten up, it just ain’t that big of a deal!

The unforeseen upheaval of 2020 has been hard on all industries, but colleges and higher education institutions have taken a particularly rough hit since social distancing and stay-at-home mandates went into place. Without the opportunity to make personal connections, foot traffic has greatly decreased on campus, while many prospective students are now hesitant to enroll in any higher learning programs due to economic uncertainties. With so many unknowns still up in the air, educational institutions have been forced to shift their marketing strategies and re-evaluate their advertising message.

How long do advertisers have to make an impression when they engage an audience online? Not as long as you might think. Marketers typically assume people will watch all of their 15 or 30 second spots or all of their rotating banner ads. But when looking at the data, it seems that’s not always the case. In fact, it rarely ever is. The IAB Digital Video Glossary says a video ad is considered “viewable” if at least 50% of the ad is viewed for two consecutive seconds.

The year of 2020 has been a wild ride and it’s still going strong. This year has thrown marketers from every industry for a loop when it comes to customer patterns and advertising predictability, and while much of what we’ve learned this year has come at a high cost, we’ve learned a plethora of lessons involving consumer behavior, trends and overall ad effectiveness–and savvy marketers are continuing to adapt their campaign strategies accordingly.