S4

Episode 9

Must-Know Digital Advertising Trends for 2024

About This Episode

January 23, 2024

We unravel marketing trends that are set to redefine 2024’s digital landscape. Discover the next wave of programmatic strategies to stay ahead.

Ashley Britton | Director, Client Services, StackAdapt

David Nicotra | Director of Customer Success Services, Foundry

00:00

Transcript

Episode Introduction (00:00:00)

The best ad blocker is actually the human mind, we’re just really good at being able to align our attention to things that we value. And we’re really good at pattern recognition. And ads often show up in very consistent patterns. Whether that’s you know, never looking to the bottom, you know, banner slot on your mobile device and or going to a separate tab on YouTube while the ad plays and muting your screen. Many people may not even be as consciously aware that you’d actually do that.

How Agencies Thrive Introduction (00:00:27)

But then you think about the social landscape. Research Data is hugely significant when we combine all of these different touchpoints. So that long term loyalty and then diving into the clicks to leads to sales, gotten to a point where it can drive better results in audience targeting, and really, is what’s going to set you apart if you’re tuning in, you’re tuning in or tuning in to the How Agencies Thrive podcast.

Sneha (00:00:51)

The marketing world in 2024 may just be the right blend of technology and human-centric approaches. Don’t worry, it’s not your regular robots taking over the world podcast. But hey, are they going to take over? From AI to machine learning to unlocking the mysteries of emerging channels that you need to know about? We have everything you need to know, covered in this episode. All because I have some experts in the field sitting with me right here. Hello, and welcome to the How Agencies Thrive Podcast. I’m Sneha Suhas StackAdapt. And with me, we have David Nicotra from Foundry and StackAdapt’s very own Ashley Britton. And firstly, welcome to the show. And thank you for joining us. Secondly, I’m going to pass it to you for a round of introductions, please tell us about your expertise, and professional experience so far. So let’s start with you, David.

David (00:01:42)

Awesome. Yeah, I’m thrilled to be here to chat about this topic today. And my name is David Nicotra. I’m the Director of Customer Success Services, kind of the agency house of Foundry, which is a B2B company, I have a bunch of digital properties. And we have a marketing technology side of the house. I’m helping clients in the B2B space market their products and service to other prospects in the market. And I’ve been doing this for about 10 years. So five years at Foundry, five years at a mobile advertising space before that. So I’ve been in the ads ecosystem for a bit now. And yeah, I’m thrilled to be here to talk with you all.

Sneha (00:02:19)

Thanks so much. Passing it to Ashley.

Ashley (00:02:22)

I’m also so excited to be here. Full disclosure. It’s my first podcast. So I’m super excited to get that experience. But Hello, everyone. I’m Ashley Britton. I’m a Director of Client Services here at StackAdapt. I have about five-plus years of programmatic experience. David, you’ve got so much more on me. But I actually come from broadcast. So that was my main background previously, before getting into programmatic. But yeah, that’s a little bit about me.

Sneha (00:02:49)

Amazing. So much experience at the table today. Thank you for joining us. And my first question is about the key developments and advancements in programmatic advertising that we can expect to see in 2024. What is that looking like?

David (00:03:05)

Yeah, I’ll jump in there first. So, you know, I’m on the B2B side of the house. And, in general, I’m really excited about next year coming up here, just in terms of some of the potential simplifications to the very complex ecosystem that we operate in every day. You know, things like supply path optimization. There’s a lot of disintermediation that’s going to probably occur in 2024, in terms of trying to bring advertisers and people together more efficiently. In general, as I think about just the programmatic ecosystem, they’re kind of three pillars, three essentials, to the whole space. And without either one of them, the whole ecosystem would crumble. On one side of the house, as advertisers, they have all the money, they’re the ones who are kind of supporting this whole ecosystem, then they are trying to reach people, you and me, various millions of others out there and the programmatic ecosystem, and the place that they do that that third pillar is going to be, you know, publisher sites, social media networks, all of these places where advertisers and people can commingle, there are a lot of other players in the space. And, you know, it’s no secret that that’s added a lot of complexity, a lot of difficulty for marketers even to efficiently reach their audiences. Well, so I’m hopeful that in 2024, with you know, things like supply path optimization, things, like just marketers, being thoughtful about how they’re allocating their marketing dollars, we’ll see a bit of a simplification in the ad tech space and see people be more intentional about trying to find new and creative ways to bring advertisers and people together in meaningful ways. And it with that, too, I think, ad fraud is a very pervasive issue in the space and with some of the advancements on the AI, side of the house, I think there’s a lot of potential there to help call out some of the more fraudulent activities that occur in the programmatic ecosystem. I think it’s something like $71 billion get leached out of the advertising ecosystem per year from ad fraud stuff. So obviously, that’s diluting the efficacy of advertisers dollars, and is diluting the quality of publishers’ revenue that they can drive on individual sites. So anything we can do to kind of make real meaningful advancements on that front is going to be really great. And then I mean, like I said, I’m in the B2B space. So it’s kind of these kinds of questions, what to expect in the future is always pretty easy for us, because we’re always well behind our friends in the B2C side of the house. So basically, anything that B2C is doing now is where B2B will follow and do time, as we try to encourage more of the slower reticent folks in the B2B space to try to take advantage of some of the newer channels’ newer targeting tactics available within the programmatic ecosystem. You know, things like CTV, audio, digital out-of-home, those types of opportunities are slow to be adopted in the B2B side of the house. So hopefully, more B2B folks will pick those things up and 2024.

Sneha (00:06:23)

Awesome. And with the increasing focus on privacy and data protection, right, how will the evolving regulatory landscape impact programmatic advertising strategies in 2024?

Ashley (00:06:38)

Yeah, I can jump in on this one here, and start us off. And I think where my mind goes for a while now, and there are solutions to combat the cookieless environment, and I think StackAdapt has gotten ahead of this movement, you know, that’s been largely driven by privacy concerns with solutions and targeting tactics that don’t rely on cookies. Same, to the question, though, on how this will evolve advertising strategies, I do think advertisers are going to have to explore alternative methods of targeting, or even leaning more or even shift towards more of that contextual or first-party data. I mean, first-party data, it’s already an important and critical component in a lot of marketer’s strategies today. And you can do so in a privacy-compliant way. So I think this will continue to be a really important targeting tactic. I mean, it’s reliable, right? And I think that first-party data is generally more accurate in comparison to third-party, which in turn can lead to accuracy of targeting and more successful campaigns with contextual specifically, there are so many other benefits if you’re an advertiser, because, I mean, you’re reaching users who browse content about a specific topic, and it’s likely going to be relevant to your target audience. I also think it’s not just a great solution from a privacy and data protection perspective, say that 10 times fast. For overall strategy, right, as a marketer, you want to target your audience with ads served on relevant content, and I was actually reading a blog, or I might have heard it on a podcast, don’t quote me, or fact check me. But, you know, placing ads in the right context can actually lead to four to 10 times higher user engagement. So even with increased focus on privacy and data protection, some marketers may possibly feel that impact with their use of targeting tactics and addressability or have to pivot strategies in terms of audiences. But I do believe this can also lead to, you know, enhanced and increased performance. In terms of you know, audiences. I will say before I pass it off to David, because I know he has a lot to say about this topic as well. But I do think one of the challenges with some of the restrictions in place that focus on protecting user privacy, and data is actually keeping up with the restrictions that are constantly changing, and can vary depending on you know, your region or industry. And that’s why I think it is really important to find the right partner, if you’re a marketer, find the right partner who’s up to date with these regulations and supplies quality inventory with transparency.

David (00:09:10)

Yeah, that’s great. I can, you know, in the B2B side of the house, you know, context plays a really critical role in terms of an overall strategy just because it has such a different tenor in terms of what it’s trying to strike with its audience. And so yeah, any type of advancement or implementation of intentional contexts election by B2B marketers, advertisers, is always a good idea. And being thoughtful on that side of the house is really important. You know, as in general, as the privacy laws increase as overall addressability of audiences decreases. I think marketers are going to have to really kind of return to the basics of what we’re trying to do here. There’s a helpful framework that I try to employ with my clients with my own just overall thinking of of the market in the space. And that’s just like the four C’s of demand, you know? So there’s demand creation, that’s the first thing you do you educate the market about your own products and services. Next is demand capture. So once that demand is created, how do you actually start picking up some of those signals, so that you know how to inform your overall marketing and sales strategy. There’s the conversion of that demand, that’s traditionally when that the switches move between the marketing team to the sales team or as they’re trying to actually enter into a formal relationship with a particular customer or company. And then there’s the whole conservation side of things, how do you maintain that relationship for the long haul? How do you make it valuable, both for the customer as well as for the given, you know, advertiser company, who’s actually selling their products and services, those four pillars are essential as marketers think about their overall strategy, in a world where it may be more difficult to reach your particular audience, because of things like privacy laws, there’s a good side of this, I think that, you know, that type of introspection, that type of thoughtfulness, that type of pausing to reconsider the, how you approach, your target audience, your you know, the folks who are trying to actually win business with, is a really good exercise. It’s something that, you know, we probably don’t do enough as marketers and sellers. And, you know, I think it’ll force, especially on the B2B side of the house, this should force people to draw closer to their actual customers draw closer to their market, and to really try to enter into the world of, prospects, what are their pain points? What are the things that they’re struggling with, you know, the other benefit of the privacy laws, and in all of these, you know, kind of shrinking of the addressability is that everybody’s going through it, it’s not something we’re experiencing alone. So I think it compels us to to find new ways to engage with our audiences, find new channels, find new methods, create new venues. That’s why I think podcasts are so up and coming not just because of privacy side of the house, but it is a really great and human way to talk about the problems that we face every day in our various industries. So yeah, I think this is a really good just realignment maybe of some of the core instincts for marketers, especially on the B2B side of the house, but on the B2C side of things. And then just kind of final note that, you know, we’re already pretty limited from a B2B standpoint, because of a lot of the privacy laws that exist GDPR, in particular, and if you were doing any kind of business in Europe, it’s very difficult in maybe like the dark region, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, you know, that’s a very notoriously difficult place to do a lot of B2B advertising. And it’s only going to get harder. So again, I think that just behooves us to be more thoughtful, more intentional with how we reach our audiences, and take the four C’s of demand into consideration, particularly on the demand creation front, that’s often an arm of the demand kind of sphere that is, is left untouched by B2B marketers. So being thoughtful about that it’s going to be instrumental in terms of overall marketing success. And in 2024 and beyond.

Sneha (00:13:43)

Awesome. That makes sense. And I had a question about reaching the right audience and not being too intrusive, right, because consumers are increasingly using ad blockers. You know, there are rules and regulations that are coming up around these things. And how do you think programmatic advertising or just advertising in general, ensure that the messages are being reached, that it’s going to the right audience, and it’s not too intrusive. Where do you draw the line?

David (00:14:10)

I was listening to Elon Musk on the LEX Friedman podcasts. He was just on there recently. And he was reflecting a little bit about what makes a good ad. And he just held up regretability as the mark of whether an ad is good or not. Do you regret seeing that ad or not? In the B2B space, unfortunately, there’s a lot of very regrettable advertising efforts. On the flip side of the house, if you know if an ad is, is for something you need, when you need it, it’s not perceived as an advertisement. It is perceived as it’s actually content. It’s like it’s valuable. Content that somebody would enjoy that that’s like exactly what the movie trailer is. It’s I love going to movies, right? You’re showing me other movies that I might love. This doesn’t feel like an advertisement to me. That’s exactly what it is, it’s a piece of content that is enjoyable. That is, you know, it suits the user’s experience. And, yes, so so important, you know, ad blockers. Sneha, as you called out, there are definitely on the rise, I actually think, you know, ad blockers have been around for forever. Because the best ad blocker is actually the human mind, we’re just really good at as humans, at being able to align our attention to things that we value, and that matter. And we’re really good at pattern recognition. And ads often show up in very consistent patterns, whether that’s, you know, never looking to the bottom, you know, banner slot on your mobile device, and never really, truly observing the advertising content that gets loaded there, or, you know, going into a separate tab on YouTube, while the ad plays and muting your screen or, you know, there’s tons of ways that we, as humans, just naturally, avoid ads. And many people may not even be consciously aware that you’d actually do that. I think with the advent of more technologies that help kind of intermediate or block some of the ads being rendered. It’s actually ironic, but I think actually, it makes people a little bit more sensitive to ads. Because if you have an ad blocker in place, as soon as the ad blocker doesn’t work, or you get thrown into a context where there is an ad, it’s jarring, it’s like, whoa, what is this thing, and you actually become way more sensitive to those fewer times in what you do see an ad. But you know, that’s something that marketers should seriously consider in terms of, you know, people have a complicated relationship with advertising. And marketers ought to make every effort to make their advertisements as meaningful as value driving as possible. You know, that means being as creative as you possibly can with a given channel. I think, again, not in the B2B space. But Ryan Reynolds is a great example of this, and all of his advertisements are gold, he has something going for him, because he’s Ryan Reynolds. But you know, he does a great job at listening to the cultural moment, he does a good job at making the ads, his ads feel fun, light, warm. And there’s tons of great advertising content out there. But anytime an advertiser can speak meaningfully to their audience, in ways that resonate with them, then, you know, we’re going to be able to combat the larger landscape that is trying to find ways the news kind of the new normal for how advertisements kind of prop up much of the internet. And it’s unclear still, to me exactly how that all will settle. But you know, ads are not going anywhere anytime soon. And advertisers have to be very intentional about how they’re planning those things. One of the things you can do actually, is just even just ask people, especially in the B2B side of the house, as prospects are coming into the pipeline, or as you enter into formal relationships with folks, if they’ve signed contracts with you, then just talking to them and having honest conversations about did you see any of our advertising when you are out there, like what resonated with you, trying to set up systems to capture that signal from the market is super valuable. Sometimes this is just called self-reported attribution. If you just instead of depending on a lot of technology to tell you how people came, you can ask the humans how how they came to you. And often that can be very illuminating in terms of the efficacy of your marketing efforts. And there’s definitely ways to systematize that. Two very common thing is to add, how did you hear about us open text field on that’s required on all of your demo forms or things like that? That is a you know, sometimes that’s it can be a very scary prospect, because you don’t want to scare people away from filling out that form. But if people want to do business with you, then that question is not going to scare them, that’s going to just give them an opportunity to sort of surface, what types of marketing reach them that led them to this moment. And if it does scare them away, then it probably will help you reduce some of the folks that you probably don’t want in your pipeline anyways. So systematizing self-reported attribution is really a great way to kind of key into what types of marketing efforts you’re doing, that are really working resonating with your audience. And then kind of finally just, you know, it’s important here to develop strong partnerships with people in the ecosystem that are thinking thoughtfully about the prevalence of ad blockers the prevalence of, you know, all of the shifting patterns of behaviour that humans have, and to help you know, whether it’s on the ad fraud side of the house or the just coming up with new and creative way ways to reach your audience through new channels, you know, partners here will help you to make sure your message is resonating and resonating in the right way for a particular channel, because that does change. Depending on where you’re trying to do your marketing efforts, you know, display is very different than social, audio is very different than CTV, every single one of these categories has a slew of nuance and expertise that’s required of it. So knowing people who do that stuff well in each of those bases can help you navigate the complexities of the various channels in the ecosystem.

Sneha (00:20:34)

My next question would be about the emerging channels. So what do you think are some of the emerging channels that marketers should take note of? What do we have in store for 2024?

Ashley (00:20:46)

Yeah, I can jump in on this one as well. And I think, David, you make some really good points in regards to each channel carrying a different set of execution strategy and creative components. And I do really agree with what you were saying previously, that marketers really need to be more intentional and thoughtful in their strategies. For me, when I look forward, I think we’ll continue to CCTV and audio on the rise just going off, you know, David, what you were mentioning, as well, in regards to creative strategy and the importance of hitting the right note with the creatives and within the user experience. These two channels, CTV and audio really speak to the perspective and you’re interest in audio on how it’s human and hopefully, I’m understanding your idea of what you mean by human but in my mind, I think organic and enjoyable, and you know, it is an ad, or is it not an ad, we want that, you know, that kind of that guess to be like, oh, this is really organic, and it’s speaking to me, and for me, both of these channels, bring that, you know, emotional element. And it really is about storytelling and connecting with users in such an immersive experience, and people are already tuned in to what you know, they’re watching or what they’re listening to. And that’s super important. I mean, when I listened to a podcast, and I think all of us here, listen to podcasts, I’m choosing to listen to something and I’m choosing to play this content. And it’s a totally different experience for me when I compare it to browsing online and seeing a banner ad, so I’m engaged, I’m zoned in, then when I’m zoned in, I really get that emotional element that plays into the connection and really allows for us or user or someone to resonate with the ad itself and in turn, mostly potentially have better ad recall. And specifically speaking to audio. I think we all know here that audio listenership is growing and it is on the rise. And what stands out about audio to me is the ability to connect with an audience on the move, you know, wherever they are, I actually did a webinar about the rise of audio at the beginning of the year, and I spoke about this channel as well. And I’ll say it here again, I think it’s so unique because you can be at the gym, you can be on the go behind the wheel. And there’s that flexibility of On the Go advertising to really tap into your desired audience, while they are already in that immersive experience, which is so intriguing to me. And another thing that really piques my interest is the absence of visuals. I mean, of course you can support your audio ad with a companion banner. But I think why it’s super important for creative strategies. You know, hitting the right note, like I said before, is the significance of tone and messaging, because that’s going to become paramount when you’re creating an audio campaign, in that immersive experience, because you really want that organic storytelling and emotional connection for CTV specifically, and I’ve seen it you know, I come from the olden days, like what I like to call them of selling broadcast, but we’re continuing to see more and more people as cord cutters, and we’re seeing these cord cutters, my generation alone, I mean, most of my friends in my close circle, they don’t have cable TV. And I’m actually willing to bet a lot of Gen Z’s also don’t have access to cable TV unless they’re still living at home with their parents. So as the number of cord cutters actually continues to rise, I think the expected number of cord cutters is actually forecasted to somewhere between like 56.1 million by the end of this year. I think, you know, with that there are so many other ways in which people can consume this content and access this content that really makes advertising with CTV, so compelling. I mean, just the overall popularity of streaming services in general and the adoption of smart TVs can equate to you know, increased viewership. And I think that’s, you know, where we’ll continue to see that shift from traditional to CTV.

David (00:24:47)

Yeah, I had a couple of thoughts there, you know, I am on the B2B side of the house, in terms of emerging channels, it does vary quite a bit, I think, from industry to industry, and by audience so. For B2B, the challenge is always trying to get in front of the right buying committee within a given company. And, you know, if you’re going after really a senior level, people, often they tend to be a bit more affluent, they tend to be willing to pay for the non-advertising versions of connected streaming services, audio services. So that addressability piece can be a real challenge for B2B users. Even still, I think, you know, those channels connected TV and audio are really interesting to me, because they are such a powerful medium to be able to communicate to a given audience. And as you were saying, Ashley, just the inherent nature of how people are paying attention to those services or are dialed into those services is inherently different than you know, web browsing or even social browsing. So I think there’s a real opportunity there, I hope, in the B2B space that those two channels continue to grow and mature. And, you know, B2B folks just have to figure out exactly how to make that work within their targeting parameters. But yeah, I think there’s some great opportunities for that to grow. And then just in general, with the emerging channels, as you said, Ashley, the channels that are the most human, I think, are going to be the strongest performers. Anytime we can make meaningful human connections with one another, especially in a ever increasingly difficult world, a more digital world where it’s harder to get real human interaction, the better. So being thoughtful on that front is really important to me. And I would strongly recommend people could seriously consider that in terms of just like how they are approaching their overall marketing strategy, facilitating human connection, facilitating opportunities for people to collaborate, to learn from one another. Because those are going to be the real winners in the long run from a marketing strategy. And that may mean investing more heavily on the contents side of the house, than in the just distribution side of the house, I think there is this inherent tension in the programmatic ecosystem between trust on the one hand, and reach or scalability. On the other hand, those two things often kind of teeter back and forth. So you could, you know, take a channel, like display, lots of reach, you can get in front of a lot of people, but generally weaker on the trust side of the house, like it’s not going to hit home as, as well as, as some other channels, you can go on the far other extreme, where it’s just like peer to peer conversation reaches almost none, you know, just the people you know, and just the people you trust, but the trust is there, it’s deep. And you know, if your best friend recommends a product, you’re probably gonna go check it out. So finding how the ecosystem plots along those two lines on the trust side of the house, on the distribution, the ability to actually address your audience, is going to help marketers navigate what channels they should use. And it’s going to vary based on your industry based on your audience based on your space. Quite a bit. Yeah. And then just continuing to note that each of these channels requires new sets of skills. And so make sure you’re being thoughtful about how you enter into that space, and how you communicate on that, on those channels, as you explore and experiment.

Sneha (00:28:35)

Awesome. And how do you think artificial intelligence and machine learning is shaping the future of advertising and programmatic? And are there specific applications that will gain prominence this year?

Ashley (00:28:48)

My feelings on this topic are such a roller coaster. As my therapist would say, “let’s unpack that.” I was conflicted about my thoughts. And it was really dependent on the angle that I was taking everything and taking it all in. But I think that’s totally normal, and a natural response. But the reality is, AI is here to stay, and it’s not going away. It’s not like a passing trend. It really is the future. And when I do think about programmatic advertising, I already think about AI and machine learning. I mean, AI and machine learning already shapes programmatic. But when I think about where we can go further with it, my mind leans a bit heavily on the overall ease and ability. Number one for me, in my perspective, is automation. I think about how it’s been able to automate, you know, repetitive tasks, free up a lot of time for increased efficiency. And, you know, from my perspective, as a Director of Client Services, I do really need to think about how account managers are responsible for the performance and execution of campaigns and how they’re spending their time servicing clients providing support executing and managing and optimizing campaigns, all while building human relationships, loyalty and trust with our clients. And then, on the other spectrum, I think about how can we automate certain tasks to free up time for them, but also make more value and data-driven decisions at the same time. So I started to think about implementing, you know, chatbots, and virtual assistants, automated ticketing systems and, you know, algorithms to analyze historical data. And then I think that ties into, you know, predictive analytics where machine learning can literally predict a problem or proactively address an issue. And, not just from that client services perspective, but programmatic analytics, we literally work and live in a data-driven world. So predicting bidding strategies, budget allocation, media planning, all of those can make day-to-day in our industry and programmatic and advertising so much easier, with more learnings. And with more automation. A big topic here on the CSI of things is campaign optimization. And I think that AI plays, you know, a huge role in this because we can leverage it for data analysis patterns, more automated decision making. And on the flip side, I also think about, you know, having the ability to pull the levers and push all the buttons as a digital media buyer, or someone who’s hands on keyboard, like a campaign manager, those things are really important, but having AI at your disposal to make those decisions for more accurate data more thorough data-driven analysis and optimization can really really benefit the company, the individual, your day to day. And I think that’s where we’ll see a lot of success in the notable areas of where AI in general can help us in our day-to-day day just like that overall, automation, and ease and ability to be more keep saying this word thoughtful or data-driven, and how we do things.

David (00:32:06)

Yeah, I think everything you said, so good. There’s the definitely feels like we’re in kind of the phase of the AI tools, where it’s individually, personally, changing the way we work our workflows, changing the way we think about problems, I think, on the kind of just personal adoption of AI capabilities, tools, I think, like ChadGPT, and Claude and many of these others, you know, there’s a sense in which it’s empowering, like there are, maybe previously there was limitations in terms of what types of things you would even think you could do, or types of things you thought you may have the expertise to tackle with a lot of these tools, you know, it comes with so much that you can access so much that you can learn from the tools or just have the tools to help themselves, that you’re, I personally definitely feel more empowered to just maybe go write a bit of code I haven’t ever really tried before or to, you know, do some more robust data analytics, and then maybe I have ever done before or, you know, there’s a real sense of empowerment on the just the personal adoption of AI tools. And what I even have in my brain is like, things that I am able to do, so that I think there’s a really, really empowering side of it. I think we’re still early on in the overall tool adoption phase of AI. And that’s going to be the real magic, right, as you pointed out, actually, the more that different tools embed these things into the budget planning campaign design, in-app recommendations, quick answers to questions that people have, you know, that’s just gonna further optimize and make more efficient, all of the things we’re doing. There is a downside to a lot of the AI stuff in our ecosystem, in particular in the ads ecosystem. I think already before some of the AI advancements, I can’t remember the exact percentage, but I know it was over 50% of the total web traffic that is produced online, is produced by bots, sometimes good bots, sometimes bad bots, but you know, it’s that’s just the reality of a digital world. There’s a lot of machines out there trying to collect data, bucket data, you know, and provide tooling then to you know, normal consumers based off of that traffic AI only makes that worse, as as these tools are given access to go crawl the website to come back and summarize it, that will definitely have some impacts on the ecosystem in terms of just diluting even more the presence or the volume of human traffic, on properties on social media on all of these spaces, and that’s going to have knock-off effects on marketers dollars, you know, in terms of how how efficient they’re spenders, it’ll impact their margins, it’ll impact their performance. And some bots in the especially AI-enabled bots are gonna feel and act a lot like humans do. So it just becomes more and more difficult with some of these toolings as they get a deeper foot in the ecosystem to be able to rightly differentiate between what’s a human online versus a bot, and ultimately, on the audience side of the house, you know, people’s behaviour is just going to shift and change. You know, I know for me personally, I’ve used Chat GPT a ton since it’s come out. That tends to be the first place I go. Now, I don’t quite go as much to Google. Although some like simple, really simple questions, I’ll go and not wait for the full ChatGPT prompt to like, print out onto the page. But I have already seen it within myself a shift in my own kind of behaviours in terms of how I interact online, that’s only going to increase as these tools become more deeply embedded, more readily available to to folks across the ecosystem.

Sneha (00:36:00)

That brings us to the end of this episode. Ashley, David, thanks so much for joining us. Loved learning about everything you had to share today. It was very insightful. And thanks to you, the one listening to this. Whoever you are marketer, brand, agency, I’m sure you had a lot to take away. I definitely learned a lot of new things here. And to you the one who stuck around till the very end listening to this, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Listen to the new episodes right when they drop. If you like the podcast, share it with your teammates. That could be a cool resource to post on your work chat as recommendation. And if you want to get in touch, write to us at academy@stackadapt.com That’s academy@stackadapt.com we have episodes releasing every alternate Wednesday. So stay tuned. Until then, this has been the How Agencies Thrive podcast. See you in the next episode.

Episode Outro: (00:36:52)

Thank you so much for tuning in. This has been the How Agencies Thrive podcast. If you like what you heard, then there’s three things that you can do to support the show. Number one, subscribe. Number two, leave us a review. And number three, share our podcasts on social media or with anyone who might find value in this content. If you have questions or feedback or just want to learn how agencies and brands work with StackAdapt, you can us at StackAapt.com. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

S4