Bid management and predictive marketing software provider Kenshoo held their annual user conference this week in San Francisco. It was a great event filled with lots of thought provoking material on the state of adtech and martech.
During the final session, a group of panelists were asked to share their thoughts on the future of digital marketing. Jeff Campbell of Resolution Media summarized with one word: context.
I couldn’t agree more. Channel proliferation and device proliferation are exploding. On one hand, managing the myriad of moving pieces this introduces is daunting. On the other hand, all of this information can be used to create targeted, tailored, and timely brand interactions.
And while the idea of personalized, contextualized marketing is nothing new, many exciting technology developments are taking place that are enabling marketers to get closer to reaching this goal. Here are a few examples:
- Kenshoo’s personas and audiences feature lets marketers define target audiences or personas. These users can then be targeted and retargeted with relevant, contextualized creative. As data is collected on these personas, the insights can be folded into bid management strategies.
- Cross device attribution platform Drawbridge uses first and third party data to help marketers identify a person’s digital presence, anticipate their needs and intentions, and deliver appropriate messages to them across devices.
- Call analytics and automation solutions are using the data surrounding the online, offline, and mobile path to purchase to make intelligent call routing decisions to get callers to the best person inside of a company to provide personalized, contextual experiences over the phone.
The first era of digital advertising – version 1.0 – involved negotiated placements and banner ads. Digital advertising 2.0 folded in search and social, and then expanded on them with programmatic. The future – digital advertising 3.0 – is about 1-1 personalization and mobile.
Another panelist, Janel Laravie of Chacka Marketing, summarized the future of digital marketing by saying “the future is here.” A fitting closing remark to a great event.