5 2022 Marketing Predictions From One of 2021’s Hottest Adtech Companies

As the year is winding down, it’s the season of recaps, wrap-ups and best-of guides, but it’s also the time to set our visions of what’s to come. And who better to consult on what we can expect in the future than the folks that are paving the path forward?

Recently Rockerbox was recognized as one of Insider’s Hottest Adtech Companies of 2021, naming our head of product Sameen Karim as a “star to know” in the industry. So we sat down with him to provide some insights into what DTC e-commerce marketers will likely see come their way in 2022.

Here are his top five marketing predictions for the new year.

While there were numerous privacy updates that made the news in 2021, the media has started to recognize what adtech companies have known for years—the sky is not falling. Marketing Brew even declared the death of the third-party cookie as one of this year’s top overhyped trends.

With Google delaying its phase-out of third-party cookies until 2023, next year should bring a more metered approach to marketing measurement rather than the industry-wide freakout that occurred in 2021.

Sameen noted the silver lining to this collective chaos: “The media frenzy about third-party cookies this year was a forcing function for many businesses to audit how exactly they’re tracking user data for the first time and re-evaluate their marketing strategies from top to bottom. Holding businesses accountable to preserving consumer privacy is a win-win, because it raises the bar on what great brands are capable of achieving.”

Part of the unfortunate fallout of this media frenzy, however, were hyperbolic and bombastic claims that any specific attribution methodology is either dead or the one right solution. This type of thinking will prove largely untrue, as Sameen explained:

“Every approach to marketing measurement inherently has its flaws, so you should question any vendor who tells you otherwise. The best brands understand the importance of having a strong foundation based on first-party data and using a variety of measurement methods. By using a combination of approaches from attribution to experimentation to media mix modeling to surveys, marketers can be more confident in the effectiveness of their marketing.”

It’s certainly been a rollercoaster of a year for Facebook—ahem, Meta—and the advertisers it serves as Apple’s privacy changes caused performance on the platform to decrease significantly. As Facebook’s dominance continues to decline, Sameen believes we should see more brands diverting their ad spend to other platforms:

“More marketers will likely shift their spending from Facebook to newer platforms like TikTok, Snap and Pinterest to capitalize on its popularity with Gen Z and its more cost-effective acquisition. But as many continue working from home next year, we’ll also likely see a rise in advertising via direct mail and OTT. Offline marketing measurement will continue to advance, making it easier for brands to launch and test new channels.”

Every year consumers are interacting with more devices that have become core to their daily lives—after all, consider all the technology you may have in your own home: laptops, smartphones, televisions, tablets, e-readers, watches, voice assistants, home and car automation, fitness trackers, and the list goes on.

Sameen explained, “As the ways of interacting with brands multiply, marketers must be able to successfully identify users and create a cohesive experience across these devices. Relying on in-platform data only creates a distorted view where channels are siloed, cross-device behavior isn’t integrated and conversions are duplicated. Having a single source of truth is the only way marketers are going to be able to confidently execute and measure their multi-device marketing.”

The global pandemic unleashed a ripple effect on businesses—not just on their supply chains, but also on their bandwidth. So when it comes to making technology decisions, internal resources have become more limited than ever and most companies don’t have the luxury of building homegrown systems.

“The common adage says that if you have a problem that money can solve, then you don’t have a problem,” said Sameen. “E-commerce businesses are laser-focused on delivering exceptional products and services—not on solving problems not core to their mission. That’s why more DTC brands are leveraging technology providers because they can use shared knowledge from hundreds of similar businesses to build better solutions.”

Kickstart Your New Year With Rockerbox

If we were to make one final marketing prediction, it would be our hope that 2022 is your best year yet. Whether you’re planning to launch an exciting new cross-channel campaign, overhaul your tech stack, or simply wrangle all your marketing data once and for all, Rockerbox can be the foundation to make it happen.

Reach out to learn how Rockerbox can help you grow and scale your DTC marketing efforts so your brand is set up for success.