2016 is drawing to a close, and it’s certainly been an eventful year – and not just in the world of ad tech and digital. We’ve listed a few of our most memorable moments, industry game changers and pieces of news that particularly sparked our interest. Here’s our “Tech Throwback”:
JANUARY
- A Year of Predictions
There were many predictions for 2016, from being dubbed as the ‘year of the mobile’ to the investment in VR (virtual reality), m-commerce growth through mobile payments and the ongoing ad-blocking war to name a few.
FEBRUARY
- Google Launches AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Google rolls out AMP, the news carousel for mobile which enabled consumers to access news on the mobile webs four times faster than before.
MARCH
- Selfie Payment Patent
Amazon filed for a selfie payment patent whereby users would be able to pay for goods on the marketplace by taking a photo of themselves. Although yet to materialise into anything, we like the ecommerce giant’s forward-thinking.
APRIL
- Pinterest’s Promoted Pins
Pinterest introduced native ad units to its platform in the UK. The Promoted Pins ad format offering was aimed at extending visibility to search results, category feeds and users home feeds.
MAY
- Instagram Video Carousel Ads
The carousel video ads feature on Instagram was made available to all advertisers enabling them to tell much richer and compelling stories.
- Facebook Exchange Dropped
The end of FBX, Facebook’s desktop-based ad retargeting exchange was announced. With Facebook users moving over to mobile, the writing was on the wall.
JUNE
- The Criteo vs Steelhouse Lawsuit & Counter lawsuit.
Counterfeit clicks, false advertisement and rampant fraud accusations; underhanded activity from opaque ad tech companies need to end.
JULY
- Pokemon Go Craze Sweeps UK
The phenomenon was all anyone spoke about for the next couple of months and it drew in a diverse crowd. If you saw someone staring down at their mobile whilst bumping into someone, the likelihood that they were on the search for Pokemon was high.
AUGUST
- Instagram Stories
Instagram introduced a copy-cat Snapchat feature, “stories”. Within weeks 100 million people were using the feature on a daily basis.
SEPTEMBER
- Adblock Plus
The self-constructed gatekeeper, Adblock Plus showed its true money chasing intent by announcing the launch of its new service, running an ad marketplace for “acceptable” ads.
- Facebook’s Faulty Video Metrics
The issue of transparency reared its head when it came to the discovery that Facebook had found a troubling “discrepancy” which meant certain video metrics had been overinflated for more than two years! It will be interesting to see how much of the walled garden Facebook is willing to bring down to restore advertiser trust.
OCTOBER
- Vine Shut Down
Twitter announced that it would be shutting down the video app, Vine. The looping video platform started off strong back in 2012 when Twitter acquired it, becoming No 1 app in the iTunes Store, but a declining user base and stiff competition from Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube proved too much.
- Mobile Overtook Desktop Ad Spend
Mobile ad spend (£802m) overtook desktop spend (£762m) for the first time in 2016 in the UK as revealed by the IAB. Mobile has fuelled programmatic growth in recent years. With the proliferation of smart devices, 4G connectivity and the ‘on the go consumer’ it’s no wonder the UK has been dubbed a smartphone society and marketers are spending their brand dollars on mobile.
NOVEMBER
- Facebook Dominates the Social Network Players
Although Instagram is touted as the millennial app, the overall advertising opportunities are far greater on Facebook. With 1.5 billion monthly active users and generating $7.01 billion in revenue for Q3, Facebook’s still the key player in the market.
- Instagram Ads
Instagram announces launch of 3 new features to Stories, and they’re BIG!
- URLS: Verified creators can add navigable URL links to stories allowing viewers to be taken directly to whatever website the creator wants.
- Mentions: Creators are now able to use @tag to tag any other user in their story
- Boomerang: The stand-alone looping app was incorporated into Stories
DECEMBER
- ‘Buster the Boxer’
Ending on a festive note, John Lewis Christmas spot is the most shared ad of 2016 on social media. It’s reached around 2 million shares since launching on 9th November.
Are you ready for 2017? Get in touch with us at [email protected] to discuss how we can help you reach consumers through display advertising and take your 2017 marketing strategy to the next level.
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