DMEXCO Recap: How To Thrive In Challenging Times (2022)

Those of you who are somehow related to the digital economy know that September comes with a special treat for all marketers, media agencies, and tech service providers. Yes, we are referring to DMEXCO, one of the biggest annual trade fairs in Europe, which after two years of being held in completely digital form could once again welcome international guests, participants, and speakers in Cologne, Germany. Eskimi included!

Our team of 10 highly-experienced Eskimians was among more than 560 exhibitors from all over the world (including such giants as Yahoo, Google, Pinterest, Snapchat, Shopify, and many more) who came to DMEXCO 2022 to catch up on the hottest industry topics and present their products and services to global partners.

Here’s a recap of what Eskimi’s team has experienced and accomplished in Cologne this year.

The era of performance branding

The shift from individual, hyper-personalized targeting to broader performance and branding-based groups is becoming evident. The cookie removal trend everyone is (still) talking about, additional privacy measures, and an abundance of non-cookie targeting solutions could be felt flowing in the air: contextual, location-based, traffic scoring based – you name it – it's all there. Partners kept coming in, one solution was more interesting than the other.

“From the discussions we had, we see personalization trend moving to performance branding – focusing on what's the message and where it's shown, as opposed to what user is seeing the message,” said Vytautas Jakstys, Chief Product Officer at Eskimi.

“There are so many places where companies are now seeking users’ attention, including in-game, CTV, and others, and our goal is to offer solutions to find those users and show them an attention-grabbing message.” 

Core discussion points were:

• Viewability. Viewability is one of the biggest problems in advertising – often, ads are shown but not visible, negatively impacting performance branding.
• Quality environment. For an agency to maximize programmatic advertising results, the environment has to be carefully curated. Many clients and partners are either currently looking for or suggesting such an offering. This feature guarantees that your brand will not appear in an unwanted context, showing ads only on quality websites, improving brand safety and reducing fraud possibility.
• Attention economy. Brands are fighting for user attention – it’s essential to appear on the screen but it’s also crucial to grab the potential customer's attention. We’ve seen many non-standard creative solutions with endless potential, both required for the market and proposed by the market. 

Overcoming market challenges

Market challenges are one of the driving forces for product development. Here is where many interesting solutions are born – from different ways to identify user location to dealing with algorithm updates. At DMEXCO 2022, the Eskimi team presented several different ways how the platform can help to overcome the ongoing changes in the market.

Location targeting

The internet is becoming more private, moving away from ID-based solutions toward different ways of collecting audiences. Therefore, many new location targeting solutions appear, allowing to detect user location and collect information without compromizing their privacy. For instance, contextual scoring, precise and imprecise location audiences, geofencing, or using various phone signals (e.g., GPS once a user enters a supermarket) can significantly strengthen location targeting functionality for clients. 

Algorithm updates

The number of companies offering algorithm services is growing exponentially which proves that this market is already dictating specific standards, and original solutions come from an even bigger focus on a client. Parts of DSPs are commoditized further – and we see the algorithms catching on to this trend, too. Building a machine learning algorithm to determine the right CPC is no longer considered unique. Brands cannot compete on algorithmic buying anymore, it’s the channels, support, and access that win.

Niche traffic

Companies, especially different traffic providers, are actively looking for ways to stand out from the competition. “If you run an SSP (Supply Side Platform) and have direct access to some traffic, it’s very likely that all of your competitors have it as well,” said Vytautas. “We’re now observing the growing trend of seeking relevant niches, be it in-game audio, specific browsers, or some exclusive traffic that can be ensured for SSPs.” This is also a part of the quality environment brands are aiming for.

Meeting global partners live and in person

During two days of the DMEXCO exposition, the Eskimi team met with many partners from all over the world, which did not leave much time for rest but was a very rewarding experience.

“DMEXCO is a great environment to start discussions, talk about rising trends and understand them, and, of course, strengthen ongoing relationships. We even managed to close one deal!” said Egle Ribaciauskaite, Regional Director West Europe & Partnerships at Eskimi. “Programmatic, despite being the future, still comes with some negative stigmas that might prevent one from even trying it out. However, I’m happy to say that Eskimi gained visitors’ trust and attracted a lot of interest as a tool that can offer quality solutions and help to deal with existing problems in programmatic advertising.”

Vytautas agrees that this year’s DMEXCO was an amazing event. “It was noticeably smaller than some previous years, yet felt much more concentrated. We’ve met many people whom we wanted to meet, and what is even better – many that we were not planning to meet but they all made great sense for us in the end. It was really worth it, and during these live meetings with partners we have also managed to solve or finish some questions that we couldn’t resolve for months while communicating online.”

DMEXCO 2022: what does the future hold?

This year, more than 770 speakers at the DMEXCO conference presented various topics, focusing on the changing digital trends, the future of data, growing mediums for marketing and advertising, and social advancement in the digital era. The key idea of the conference was to emphasize the growth of the digital economy despite the numerous challenges it is currently facing.

For instance, one of the top speakers, Sir Martin Sorrel, CEO and Founder of S4 Capital, highlighted the important connection of what was once considered polar opposites within the marketing world – data and creativity. He stated that “data doesn’t destroy creativity, data improves it,” emphasizing that data-driven creativity will play a powerful role in the future.

Meanwhile, Sameer Patel, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer at SAP America, noticed the need to finally learn how to leverage the right data, look at it differently, and start creating better experiences for customers.

“With privacy changes, browser and device identity restrictions, advertisers had a lot of bad experiences when activating data sets. In certain cases it still makes sense and that is why we also focus on actionable data and choose the right industries for that – like our telecom audiences and device brands data points or offline attribution solutions,” Vytautas Paukstys, CEO of Eskimi, commented.

Rising trends for delivering effective ads

As for advertising, there were several factors discussed at DMEXCO 2022 that will shape how companies will continue to deliver effective ads. The keywords here are the end of third-party cookies and the need to rethink the whole system, the growing importance of retail media, online display, and video advertising, especially the combo of TV/video and programmatic.

The latter combination is actually making waves in the programmatic advertising world as the video format is not losing its popularity and many advertisers still have not taken advantage of the space due to some doubts and uncertainties. In fact, in Germany alone, the sales volume generated by moving image advertising is expected to reach more than two billion euros for the first time ever by the end of 2022, according to the predictions of Online Marketing Group (OVK), which is part of the German Association for the Digital Economy.

It’s the perfect time to give programmatic advertising a chance, isn’t it? Contact the Eskimi team to uncover new opportunities.