A new paradigm of physical retail, created and accelerated by the pandemic’s disruptive forces, is ready to emerge. In the coming year, the “retail apocalypse” will reach a crescendo as many teetering legacy retailers close hundreds of locations. In their place, frictionless, digitally enabled retail experiences will dot the landscape.

The dominant digital path to purchase begins with a product search—often unbranded—during which the consumer demonstrates intent. They are subsequently delivered paid and organic results for relevant brands and retailers, steering them in the direction of a conversion event. But what about all those times when a consumer doesn’t know what they want? That’s the opportunity for discovery, and where social commerce platforms are beginning to fill the void.

The availability and use of data has revolutionized advertising in recent decades. Shane McAndrew, chief data strategy officer at agency Mindshare, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss the new Data Ethics Compass developed with GroupM and Unilever, what consumers expect from advertisers and their partners, and why experimentation is critical to attributing revenues to marketing touchpoints.

Better data, better campaigns: In a natural progression of its paid advertising capabilities, TikTok will begin personalizing ads based on in-app activity.

When we spoke with experts in publisher ad monetization in January, most of them expected the field of identity solutions to narrow over the coming year as adoption continues, but they felt it was unlikely that a single identifier alone would replace third-party cookies.