Outlook for 2020: Disruption in the digital advertising industry

The advertisements have sought to cut through meaningless clutter. In fact, some players have shown the way by converting these advertisements into a direct revenue stream for the consumer and their preferred charity. This path of personalized advertising also resonates with the end customer making marketing campaigns smart and effective.

Digital marketing is taking huge strides, and the digital advertisement spends are already pegged at over $2 billion in India. The paradigm shift to digital media from the traditional print and television mediums is expected to be about 21% of the total marketing budget by 2021. The rate of growth is slated to be a humongous 32%. The modern technological advances have opened the doors to better-personalized experiences.

New technology advances in Advertising

Innovation is the name of the game. The idea is to create customer-centric campaigns that leverage reach, hold attention and help in conversion. An effective marketing plan needs to be relevant to succeed in this world of cut-throat competition for the viewer’s attention.

There are many companies in the market today who use advertising as the culmination of the judicious use of technology, data analytics, and communication, tempered with customization. It is a new channel for a fair trade marketplace for both advertisers and viewers. It includes the active participation of the viewer in the digital ad process. The aim is to gather first-hand data and provide advanced targeting for advertisers. The fraud issues are sorted as the campaigns are processed with care. There are various formats available for different campaign goals. The vision is to be non-intrusive and staying within the threshold of not annoying the end consumer with meaningless advertisements and making the campaign counter-productive.

A smart solution like the “Attention Ledger” is used to cut through this problem. The Attention Ledger system effectively calculates the ad view frequency and cuts off exposure once saturation levels are reached. The viewers are rewarded with real cash, and the campaign becomes beneficial for both the viewer and the marketer.

The shifts in the digital advertising process

Ads have become intrusive, and the ad block phenomenon is spotted in almost 11% of the global viewership. The growth in the adblocking phenomenon has nearly been 30% since 2016. One in four campaigns lacks proper execution. The lack of integration, resonance, and recall worthy criteria is the downfall of many a project. The key is to customize the campaign by catering to personal preferences. The well-executed multichannel marketing campaign looks to take advantage of contextual clarity of end-consumer choices.

Advertising budgets will start shifting into conversion rate optimization in the near future. Digital ad costs keep increasing, and real engagement will become expensive. Social media platforms have already made this paradigm shift, and ads are targeted towards particular demography that has the highest tendency to convert. The campaigns are growing highly customized and data-driven needing clarity of vision and intent.

Data-driven marketing and personalized ads are the future. AI and machine learning power campaigns of the future. The shift is from one-size-fits-all to individualized customer preferences. The shift enhances decision making and promotes real-time action, making the advertising campaign effective. The ROI is measurable, and the advertiser gets a sense of the value of each paisa spent. The focus remains on using technology to ensure real-time analytics, individualized communication, call to action measurable and experimentation too!

The key is reach. Has the ad been successful in influencing the end customer? The pressure points are many when the efficacy of an ad campaign is ascertained. The right placement, resonance, and impact are the ones that affect the outcome the most. Programmatic advertising is a smart solution.

There is a steady decline in organic search and traffic due to trust issues as more and more ad frauds are spotted. A rough estimate shows that Indian consumers lost $350 million on these frauds in 2017. Advertisers need to make a massive shift in their thought process and redesign advertising investment plans.

The consumer journey should be the focus and ads should be contextually targeted, purposeful and cost-effective at the same time. The campaign should take cognizance of the risks that digital marketing can entail and also ensure a measurable ROI for every campaign. Sliced and diced analytics with a vast database can bring credibility to the campaign.

Authored by Mr. Rick Tsing, Founder and CEO OneOneDay.