Remember last time we talked about why it is a good idea to attend DMEXCO in 2022? Sure, DMEXCO is a very popular and exciting event among digital marketing and advertising experts. This time it attracted 40,000 visitors, with more than 770 speakers along with partners and sponsors like Google, Yahoo, Snapchat, and a lot of international adtech visionaries.

These reasons were good enough to visit DMEXCO this year again. However, this time we were waiting to attend this conference like never before because we could see how the digital world revives after years of lockdown. Additionally, VideoWeek has partnered with the event to record the latest news and views from the exhibition floor. As well, VideoWeek organized a networking dinner at FRÜH Gastronomie that was held on September 21st. Seeing it as a perfect opportunity to relax after a hectic day at DMEXCO, as a sponsor SmartyAds invited Senior Executives from brands, publishers, and agencies. We had a lot to discuss.

It was an outstanding opportunity for us to unwind and discuss the freshest digital industry findings with industry partners. We were honored to rub shoulders with many renowned companies like Index Exchange, Show Heroes, Ex.co, Publica, Pluto TV, Vevo, and the list goes on. These two unforgettable days brought a lot of highlights, and undoubtedly, delivered yet another chance to build important business connections.

Video and TV as the main focus

Not surprisingly, a lot of attention at the event was drawn to video and CTV advertising as those channels are peaking in popularity, especially after the lockdown. As the CTV advertising medium is still relatively new, its main challenges are related to measurement and targeting. That’s why the conference attracted a lot of experts in this niche, e.g LiveRamp’s Jay Prasad who was speaking about the future of TV advertising and the role of digitalization in it.

SmartyAds took part in the discussion as well - Liz Tokareva, director of in-house products at SmartyAds was talking about increasing demand for CTV inventory and also covering the subjects of e-commerce, measurement, and ways of utilizing QR codes for increasing online traffic.

Speakers from BBC News, Integral Ad Science, and The Trade Desk were also highlighting the growing significance of social video platforms like TikTok, as it delivers the opportunity for brands to reach and engage digital-native audiences.

Privacy-first advertising

In light of changing privacy regulations and service politics introduced by Apple, Google, and other tech giants, the world undoubtedly moves toward tighter data sharing standards. At this time companies are trying to innovate when it comes to creating privacy-first advertising environments that will be beneficial for advertisers, publishers, and users alike.

A certain share of advertisers will most likely diversify investing their budgets in contextual targeting that will experience revival in the near future. In addition to this, we see that targeting is now moving towards cohorts and segmenting users into certain groups instead of relying on single user identification. Evan Hills (Dstillery), Melinda Han Williams (Dstillery), and Frank Puscher (Speakersdelight) were sharing their insights about where we move from there.

Sustainability in digital advertising

Sustainability in digital advertising was discussed with Csaba Szabo (Integral Ad Science), who provided a lot of new insights regarding this subject.

As known, environmental protection becomes an increasingly important issue for all industries and business sectors. Even Google introduced special policies that ban ads and restricts content monetization that carries the message of climate change denialism.

As the world currently witnesses another biggest energy crisis, it’s important that we develop new leverages for tracking and eliminating emissions. For example, industries like travel can learn new ways of carbon calculation and elimination that are currently being developed. Soon, we will be marching into 2023, so a lot of industries including adtech will reckon how to promote sustainability and which steps they should take to counteract it.

The last word

Dinner at FRÜH Gastronomie was very delightful as we had a chance to enjoy local cuisine and combine it with networking and gathering very useful insights. We enjoyed these two days to the fullest and will prepare for our next destination — Web Summit 2022. Are you ready to meet us there?