The new year will surely see a continued focus on improving customer experience. This Intercom survey reinforces the fundamental point that consumers will walk away from companies that treat them poorly. This Vonage survey confirms that result and gives nerdly fascinating detail on consumer contact preferences by age, region, channel, and purpose.

Let’s look at some of the story lines we expect to track this year.  One will be increasingly successful attacks on the once-invincible Tech Lords at Google, Meta, and Amazon.  This ProPublic report offers new ammunition, finding that Google Display Network is exceptionally lax in blocking placements on sites that host fraud, porn, disinformation, and other bad things.

In partnership with attention metrics provider Adelaide, The Trade Desk is now offering high attention inventory to advertisers. Attention — often based on reactions of opt-in panels to ads — is now competing with viewability as a valued attribute, and is being used to complement contextual metrics. Attention has been used in the past to test ads once they have been published; now it’s entering the pre-bid space.