Will the 2020s be online advertising’s holistic decade?

With less than two months left in the decade, advertising is again entering a new phase of rapid expansion with customer experience front and center.

The explosion of data and identity management, combined with technical advancements in real-time signal detection and machine learning, present new opportunities to respond to consumers, but mastering this ability enables marketers to create “magic moments” — instances of hyper-relevant content, delivered at the perfect time and place. 

We’ll see evolutions on the back end in terms of delivery and measurement — as well as on the consumer-facing end — through new creative deployments that enhance the brick-and-mortar shopping trip. Marketers will be held to a higher standard, both by clients demanding world-class performance and proof, as well as consumers who want relevancy, helpfulness and privacy from their brand relationships. 

Achieving this balance won’t be an easy task, but the most progressive marketers will succeed in driving this industry toward a more customer-centric future because they took steps to evolve before it was too late. With that in mind, here are five ways we expect advertising to become more holistic in the 2020s: 

Smart data will take priority over big data

Most marketers have heard the adage, “garbage in, garbage out.” For too long, the industry relied on sheer quantity of data with no quality metrics for making key audience assumptions. This mentality has had a detrimental effect on our industry, creating an ecosystem where people simply hate ads and brands focus on viewability over ROI.

To truly understand our audiences, we must first turn data from multi-channel interactions into smart, actionable insights. This involves not only understanding who the customer is, but what motivates them. 

Progressive marketers will continue to invest heavily in identity graphs to tie critical data and behaviors to individual profiles across channels. Using data science and machine learning, marketers will then be able to advance their knowledge about consumers to new levels, employing new messaging tactics based not only on value, but also on what inspires action. Key nuances, like distinguishing a deal-seeker from a value-seeker, will lead to more engaging personalized experiences and ultimately better ROI for advertisers.

We’ll see a flurry of investment in real-time engagement

We live in a world where our technology predicts where we are going, what we are seeking and how long it will take to get there by recognizing our patterns and everyday behaviors. The benefits in terms of convenience and knowledge are addictive. Look no further than email, social and Alexa to see how real-time awareness and time savings from these interactions impact our everyday lives.  

For marketers, capturing this lightning in a bottle has always been elusive — until now. The rise of real-time advertising, customer data platforms (CDPs), data science and machine learning have created the ability to detect purchases as well as online and real world location signals in real-time. This enables marketers to not only predict the next shopping trip, but what a consumer is likely to buy, when it matters most.

These sense-and-respond capabilities will enable progressive marketers to create experiences of enormous value at the moments that matter, such as triggering an offer of relevance upon entering a store or delivering a tailored experience at a specific time and location. The new decade will bring about massive investments into these technologies given their immediate ability to influence consumers during the actual purchase process. We’ll see budgets being specifically carved out to support real-time advertising and technologies as marketers optimize and convert users with greater effectiveness.  

For consumers, it means that the in-store experience will continue to become more interactive, with mobile devices as the connecting point between e-commerce and brick and mortar. Brands that thrive in this environment will win by delivering meaningful creative that connects both online and offline worlds in a helpful and relevant way.

Cutting-edge tech will create new ad experiences

If there is one theme consistent across all of advertising’s future growth areas, it’s the idea that technology can help us create better experiences throughout the path to purchase. We’ve come a long way from the inky print circular and have just lived through the mobile revolution in which coupons, deals, shopping lists and other trip-relevant information have migrated to the personal device. The next migration of helpful content inside the store will involve mixed reality, and will be aided by increased investment and advancement in wearables. 

Today, ad units and experiences are being aligned to where the customer is in their journey, offering marketers the ability to create timely value as shoppers consider what to purchase. As we enter the 2020s, new consumer-facing technologies, most notably augmented reality, will rise in both experimentation and adoption throughout the decade. We’ve already seen early iterations of this through surface-layer tactics like geofilters — but the future will involve AR in tandem with data-driven, real-time advertising to help shoppers make decisions during critical moments of their purchase journey. 

We’ll measure advertising all the way through to purchase

With progressive marketers investing so heavily in data, content targeting, CDPs and real-time advertising initiatives, they will need to prove their effectiveness and be held accountable. 

In the physical world, much like in e-commerce before it, true measurement starts with understanding an ad’s impact on driving visitation to the store. We’ll see an increased focus and investment in online and offline measurement in an effort to truly close the loop and understand sales impact. Key advancements in this area will allow progressive marketers to grow and optimize the effectiveness of their initiatives over time. From there, connecting ad efforts to sales will be accomplished via multi-touch attribution models, mapping the entire journey from inspiration to checkout.

Deep analytics from advertising programs will be used to guide future targeting and ultimately ad spend. Gone are the “Mad Men” days of marketing-by-instinct. Just as with e-commerce today, offline marketers of the next decade will know exactly how impactful their engagements are at driving foot traffic and closing sales inside the store. 

We’ll set better industry standards for privacy

You can’t have a discussion about advertising in the 2020s without focusing on privacy. GDPR and CCPA highlight the responsibility of marketers to provide notice, choice and transparency when collecting and utilizing signals from consumer interactions. This will all be heightened in the 2020s, as consumers rightfully demand more control over how their data is being collected, and for what purpose.

With additional legislation expected following California’s lead, marketers must continue asking for permission — not only by disclosing what is being collected and how it will be used, but also in what value the consumer receives from sharing their data. The consumer’s right to privacy is paramount above all other things, and data-driven marketers must always take into account that transparent opt-in policies are an absolute requirement when working in this space. 

Privacy will remain a hot topic as congress and all industry players, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon embark on a shared value exchange through transparency. The advertisers who succeed in the next decade will proactively take care of their audiences’ information because it creates a better ecosystem for all parties involved. 

The start of the new decade offers many exciting opportunities for leading marketers who want to evolve the ad industry for the better. The advancement of technology combined with experiences from the past ten years will fuel advancements in how we market, connect and build relationships going forward. What will separate progressive marketers from the past will the constant focus on creating more valuable, relevant and positive experiences for consumers in real-time and when it matters most.

Done well, this new sense and respond capability has the opportunity to create serendipitous interactions for all involved.