A glimpse of the digital marketing utopia

From programmatic marketers to cloud-based, universal cookies, the future is set to turn advertising on its head, says Dax Hamman, chief product officer at Chango. So what else can industry expect from the future – and what problems will shortly be solved?

With the internet a deeply established part of our lives now, it’s easy to forget how much digital technology has changed the world, and in a remarkably short space of time.

Renting a movie from the video shop, buying a CD or flipping through the print pages of a national newspaper – just a handful of activities radically changed by digital.

But if you thought the last two decades were a roller coaster, the changes we’re about to witness will make the first phase look like the prelude. The media and marketing landscape, already so different from what it was only a decade ago, will see another, more dramatic transformation.

Foremost among those changes will be a blurring of the lines between traditional media categories. Most media is gradually becoming universally accessible by smart mobile devices, whether that’s a phone, tablet, smart watch or even a connected car.

But before marketers can truly take advantage of this new landscape, one of the great conundrums of digital advertising – cross-device marketing – will need to be cracked. Luckily, unique device identifiers (UDIDs) will help move us closer to the dream of a universal cloud-based cookie.

Cross-device insight and attribution will make it possible to establish persistent “keys” that allow for cross-channel user attribution and, in some cases, support holistic campaign execution.

“Look-alike” modelling will allow for more efficient targeting by comparing individual-level data with broad audience insights and thus reduce the need for individual-level tracking.

As a result of these advances, the concept of targeting specific devices (i.e. buying on TV or mobile devices) will hardly exist in 2020. It will become nonsensical to define internet-connected media content by its delivery mechanism. Every campaign will automatically run across multiple devices because we’ll finally be tracking users through the universal cookie.

Programmatic advertising technology will be at the heart of this category-free media future. In fact, by 2020, most marketers will view themselves as “programmatic marketers.” Brands will use programmatic technology to automate every campaign in minute detail, with budgets targeting preselected groups of anonymous individuals on their media journeys.

Programmatic Advertising Platforms will follow rules and automatically shift budgets to those mediums or devices that have the largest impact on purchase behaviour. All TVs will be Internet-connected and budgets will flow seamlessly across those channels that are part of the “critical path to purchase.”

But before this digital marketing utopia can be realised, there are some important hurdles that the industry will need to overcome. Addressing privacy issues, a key theme of the debate around big data, will be crucial.

If we expect consumers and government agencies to embrace the idea of a universal, cloud-based cookie, we’ll need to earn their trust first.

The problems will arise if we keep both groups in the dark. Ultimately, by being transparent and open about the information that is being gathered by digital marketing firms we’ll make consumers feel in control of their own privacy. Eventually, they should be comfortable enough to directly engage with the system, trading their own data for incentives.

Equally important will be “brand safety”. We are still seeing display ads popping up on websites featuring inappropriate and sometimes offensive content. If we can’t offer a 100% guarantee to brands that this won’t happen, then we can’t expect them to fully embrace the latest digital marketing techniques.

The industry needs to work collectively to set and enforce transparency standards that build trust.

By 2020, the marketing landscape will almost certainly look very different from today. And while no one can say for sure what the future holds, you’ve got to think ahead if you want to be ready.

The bold new world of digital media is only just beginning to take form.