Is digital advertising at the dawn of its heyday?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING”People told us that the Internet would vomit on us if we put ads online [...]”, Louis Rossetto, the co-founder of “Wired”, tells Digiday. In 1994, the HotWired site put the first advertising banner online. The 2000s saw the invasion of pop-ups - whose creator Ethan Zuckerman repents today - and 2009 marks the beginning of the programmatic era. Since then, many new formats have emerged and the world of digital advertising has evolved considerably, allowing a multitude of trends to emerge. One thing leading to another, the success of smartphones, the emergence of video and the arrival of the first mobile audience measurement have become major events for the market. But any change brings its own set of questions. Do all the ads “really” fit into a reading context that arouses interest? Can users decide what advertising content is offered to them? And above all, how is their data used? A new trend then emerged: Adblockers. Although the presence of the latter seems to be an obstacle to digital advertising, they have proved to be an accelerator of its evolution. The market has become aware of the need to act against ads that are too intrusive. Many actors then contributed to the creation of new advertising standards, those that would not be harmful for its users.ADVERTISING, WHICH CONSUMES MORE AND MORE USER DATAThe functioning of advertising based on user tracking inevitably means that a number of actors have control over data collection. Personal data is the raw material of the advertising industry and, through advertising, is a major source of funding. When the question of data arises, it is essential to also ask the question of obtaining the consent of the owners of this data. However, the race for advertising effectiveness has come at the expense of the user and respect for their privacy. Since the implementation of the RGPD in May 2018, 2021 has also been a record year for the CNIL, which has imposed 18 sanctions for an amount of more than 2 million euros.With the decrease in the volume of available user data, concern is growing: advertisers fear losing the link with their audience. While these developments can have a significant impact on revenues, especially for publishers, they can also inject new momentum. Practices are evolving to meet new market challenges: optimizing target coverage and promoting inventories while placing the user at the center of the value chain, thus proving the resilience of an entire industry.WE WILL HAVE TO GO EVEN FURTHERThere is no doubt that the digital advertising market will find a second wind and put the user back at the center of the value chain. He is the main player in the advertising game, the one who gets the last click. Contextual targeting then makes perfect sense. Content remains the first entry into the user experience and it is from this content that targeting must be done in order to create new advertising models. However, it will be necessary to be able to go even further in “classical” contextual targeting and addressability with “profiling” solutions capable of offering a very detailed understanding of audiences without depending on user data. The future of advertising will therefore require the creation of a more virtuous ecosystem made possible by a wider use of contextual targeting and programmatic distribution. Praised by some, hated by others, digital advertising still has a bright future ahead of it because we are not yet ready to pay for an ad-free Internet.