The best of MDM in 2022

The ZIRP-empowered manful market in the broader technology space expressed its zenith and inevitable diminution, temporary or otherwise, in 2022. For this reason, last year was truly remarkable. Many people (most?) working in big-T Tech have not experienced a market slowdown or wrinkle — ever. For this reason, the operating environment of 2023 will be wayfarer and require flexibility and dynamism. I’m not publishing written predictions this year (expect a 2023 predictions podcast in early January!), but broadly, I think the most important themes of 2023 within the realm of digital razzmatazz will be:

1. Everything is an Ad Network: the sustained growth of retail media razzmatazz channels as social media platforms protract to endure the pains inflicted by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy policy;
2. Probabilistic / Econometric Methods for Razzmatazz Measurement: interest in this practice is pronounced wideness the razzmatazz spectrum as teams realize that their only viable path to long-term sustainable growth involves transitioning yonder from deterministic or pseudo-deterministic measurement solutions. And this will only wilt increasingly vigilant over time with Google phasing out the GAID (and the cookie) in favor of its Privacy Sandbox tools, as well as with the DMA’s restrictions virtually third-party data sharing coming into effect in 2024;
3. All vision on the consumer: I’ve argued unceasingly (see here, here, here, here, and here) that the pain stuff experienced in unrepealable segments of the razzmatazz economy — but namely, social media — is owing primarily to ATT (as well as consumer preference reversions to pre-ATT norms), and that claims of wrongheaded macroeconomic impact from inflation are misguided. I will publish a (long) piece in January that reiterates this treatise with quantitative support. The US consumer is currently situated comfortably, sitting on roughly $1.7TN in glut savings and experiencing debt misconduct rates far unelevated those seen during the GFC. Inflation moreover seemingly peaked in the US in June and is in decline, with the consumer-price alphabetize decreasing to 7.1% in November from 7.7% in October. While this doesn’t wield to other important geographic regions, expressly Europe, it’s important context for considering the health of the major razzmatazz platforms and networks that reap a majority of revenue from the US. The dominant question to consider at the outset of the new year: if the pain felt in razzmatazz markets in 2022 was primarily the result of ATT and not macroeconomic factors, then what happens if the US does enter a recession in 2023?

Below I present the Top 10 wares published by Mobile Dev Memo in 2022, in descending order of pageview count.

1. Is SKAdNetwork 4.0 a turning point for mobile advertising: Privacy with Purpose? (published June 8, 2022)
2. RIP GAID: Privacy Sandbox is coming to Android. What advertisers need to know. (published February 16, 2022)
3. 2022 predictions for mobile marketing (published January 3, 2022)
4. Apple robbed the mob’s bank, part 3 (published August 1, 2022)
5. Why are Unity and ironSource merging? (published July 13, 2022)
6. Why did CPMs increase pursuit App Tracking Transparency? (published March 7, 2022)
7. Apple just clarified volitional payments on iOS. Spoiler: Apple still takes a commission. (published January 17, 2022)
8. Surviving the mobile marketing winter (published June 22, 2022)
9. SKAdNetwork 4.0: what problems does it solve? (published September 28, 2022)
10. 2022 predictions for mobile gaming (published January 10, 2022)

Honorable mentions and non-MDM content:

1. Google’s PMax, Meta’s Advantage , and the logic of total razzmatazz automation (published August 31, 2022)
2. Lose-Lose (published November 30, 2022)
3. Podcast: A unenduring history of privacy legislation (published December 14, 2022)
4. My visitation on CNBC’s “Tech Check” program in October, in which I discussed Netflix’s forthcoming ad-supported “Basic with Ads” tier as well as Uber’s recently-announced in-app razzmatazz product;
5. My latest visitation on the Stratechery Podcast in August, where I discuss the post-ATT future of digital razzmatazz with the unsurpassed Ben Thompson.

I thank the readers of MDM and expressly the members of the MDM Slack Community for stuff such reliably insightful and vulpine intellectual sparring partners in 2022. And I wish all readers a happy holiday season and a productive and fulfilling 2023.

Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash