With Christmas celebrations upon us and the new year fast approaching we look back at what an incredible year 2022 has been! In this blog, we celebrate all of IAB Europe’s best bits and all the great work we have accomplished with our wonderful members.  Before we ready ourselves for an action-packed 2023, we look back at everything we have achieved together and thank you for all your hard work, support and expertise.

Key stats

In 2022, IAB Europe ran over 40 events and webinars attracting nearly 5,500 attendees across the year, sharing information and knowledge within the industry. We worked with industry experts from across our membership to produce 9 guides on key topics such as In-Gaming, Identity and Ecommerce. We also worked with our members to deliver:

1)Events 

Interact 2022 - Driving the Next Digital Decade 

In May, we travelled to Madrid for our flagship event, Interact, to bring over 270 industry leaders together from across 22 nationalities for two days of keynote speeches, panel discussions and networking under the central theme of ‘Driving the Next Decade’. 

Virtual Programmatic Day

This event was brought together by industry experts and thought-leaders to explore the latest trends, drivers, and barriers impacting programmatic trading in Europe. Topics on the agenda included Identity and Privacy,CTV, Diversity and Inclusion, the future of programmatic, the ecosystem post cookies and more. This year we held two events, one is H1 & one in H2 which were attended by over 650 viewers.

State of the Nation 

The ‘State of the Nation’ is an exclusive digital advertising outlook, led by our Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp. In uncertain times, with added economic pressure, predictions are ever evolving. Daniel shared his latest outlooks for the industry detailing growth opportunities and the upcoming challenges the industry will face. 

Virtual CTV Day

Our bi-annual Virtual CTV Day was back again this year, the events featured a series of panel discussions and market deep dives from our member companies, and unpacked key topics on CTV. This year we held two events, one is H1 & one in H2 which were attended by over 300 viewers. 

Trust & Transparency Series

This September, we hosted a series of virtual events to discuss and debate trust and transparency in the digital advertising industry. The series discussed what’s currently being done and what needs to be done moving forward to ensure a sustainable future.

Network Next

Exclusively for leaders of National IABs from across Europe, Network Next aims to share best practices, discuss the latest industry trends and challenges and collaborate on future European-level initiatives and projects. In 2022 we held two events,  in Paris and in Sweden. 

Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Event Series 

2022 was the year we took action and set up our Sustainability Standards committee and launched IAB Europe’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability in the European Digital Advertising Industry event series. A panel of industry experts joined our Chief Economist, Daniel Knapp to look at what’s next and how we can help combat the problem.

2)Industry Leading Research

AdEx Benchmark

IAB Europe’s AdEx Benchmark Report is the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in Europe covering 28 markets. The 2021 Report details the formats and channels that contributed to digital advertising’s annual growth of 30.5 percent in 2021, culminating in a total market value of €92bn.

Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising 

Our annual Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising study is an industry benchmark to show how programmatic advertising attitudes, adoption and strategies are evolving. The 2022 Report highlights trends such as an increase in the use of Programmatic Guaranteed, a shift in the type of data being used and CTV as key to the growth of Programmatic Advertising. 

The Retail Media Opportunity in Europe

To understand this exciting new advertising sector, we joined forces with Microsoft to survey over 800 buyers across Europe in Q4 2022 to understand their current experience leveraging retail media. More than 90% of advertisers surveyed said they are now partnering with retailers to reach consumers, proving that retail media is now an established part of the media plan. 

Buyers Survey on Digital Advertising Quality

New for 2022, this survey identified buyers’ digital advertising quality concerns and their attitudes towards industry standards for these concerns. The Report highlights that buyers are willing to pay more for premium, high quality and trusted inventory and that the majority prefer to spend their advertising budget with suppliers that adhere to industry standards in the area of quality.

3)Guides Authored by Industry Experts 

Updated Buyer’s Guide to CTV

Our Buyers Guide to CTV was originally written by experts from the Brand Advertising Committee in 2020. Since the CTV landscape in Europe continues to evolve, the Committee has provided updates to the Guide to ensure it continues to provide clarity to the often confusing advanced TV market and align all industry players on clear and concise pan-European definitions.

Channels & Formats Spotlight - One-Sheets

Our one-sheet’s provide a handy summary of the key opportunities, current challenges & solutions. So far we have created one for In-Game Advertising and one for CTV, with more to come in 2023. 

Guide to Ecommerce

Released in September, our  ‘Guide to Ecommerce for Digital Advertising’ provides an introduction to eCommerce and retail media advertising in Europe. The Guide, which is aimed at buyers, explores opportunities in this category,provides insights into how e-commerce works, available ad formats, considerations and best practices.

Guide to Identity - Technical Standards & Key Considerations

This short guide was developed by experts from our Programmatic Trading Committee to help publishers and buyers get to grips with some of the technical standards that need to be considered in the ID market. 

4)Policy, Advocacy and Legal 

Let’s talk policy! This year, we have continued our policy advocacy efforts, demonstrating the value of the industry with a view to contribute to discussions on relevant EU policy dossiers. 

The Digital Services Act (DSA) was front and centre in our policy programme over the past two years and that remained the case in 2022. Further to considerable investment in addressing misconceptions about targeted advertising, with initiatives such as the ‘No Easy Wins’ campaign, we welcomed the EU co-legislators’ political agreement on the DSA in April 2022. With the DSA being directly applicable across the European Union from 17 February 2024, the industry’s attention is shifting to compliance. As the European Commission and future national Digital Service Coordinators are in the process of shaping the DSA enforcement apparatus and designing ensuing secondary legislation, stakeholder engagement will be critical. We have declared our readiness to support industry players preparing to apply the DSA rules, and accordingly, have commenced a work track to ensure technical means to comply with Art. 26 transparency requirements.

The finalisation of the strengthened Code of Practice (CoP) on Disinformation, with us endorsing the CoP instrument in June 2022 constituted another important milestone. The industry has also been active on other files with expected impact on the digital advertising industry, which includes proposals for Political Ads Regulation, Data Act, Media Freedom Act, and ePrivacy Regulation. Our position papers can be consulted on our website here. 

In 2023, we will continue our active engagement in European Digital Policy. The scope will comprise efforts to support the industry with respect to relevant standardisation and guidance stemming from the DSA, as well as work on the aforementioned open EU dossiers, and policy approaches to Disinformation and Ads Misplacement. We will also pay attention to the Commission’s fitness check of EU consumer law on digital fairness, designed to determine if existing laws ensure a high level of protection in the digital environment, as it might have an impact on matters such as the so-called ‘dark patterns’, personalisation practices, or consumer vulnerabilities, and more generally, influence interpretation of the data protection laws. 

The complete Commission work programme 2023 can be consulted here. 

2023 - What’s on the Horizon?

As we look forward to 2023, you can expect lots more great content, insights and news from us. Alongside working to ensure the digital advertising industry becomes sustainable, we will be focused on topics such as The Attention Economy, Retail Media, Data and Ethics, Omnichannel and more.

We will also be hosting our annual Interact conference in Madrid on 23-24 May! Save the date and keep an eye out for more information on our website. 

So that rounds up 2022! A huge thank you to all of our members for getting involved in our initiatives this year and for helping to keep content engaging and thought provoking. 

If you are interested in joining IAB Europe, or are already a member and want to get more involved in our committees or task forces, outputs or content, please get in touch with the team at communication@iabeurope.eu 

We wish you all a wonderful festive period and a relaxing break. We look forward to working together and collaborating in the new year to drive the industry forward in 2023 and beyond!