The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, but it's far from dying. Marketers are adapting to the ever-growing number of digital marketing channels and techniques available to reach their customers. Whether you're browsing cat videos, shopping online, or researching a strange pain behind your ears on WebMD, you're likely to encounter corporate marketing messages. So, what does this mean for marketers? Are we still competing for a piece of the voice in the digital world, amidst the noise of “buy, buy, buy”?The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing.
What I can predict is the inevitable shift towards more meaningful and informative content and an organic exchange of ideas around products and services. Just recently, Google announced its biggest update in over five years with the BERT search algorithm. This new neural network technique is designed to help Google understand and analyze the intentions behind search queries. This means that Google can now interpret the meaning behind full sentences instead of simply crawling keyword sequences to provide more relevant search results. In an era where trust in pop-up ads is rapidly eroding, and more people are turning to native content to learn about products, this could change the rules of the game in the evolution of e-commerce.
In fact, 87% of content marketers already consider native advertising to be somewhat or extremely effective. Now that Google is removing barriers to intention-based communications, marketers must respond to the need for relevance, meaning, and ethical limits. The current model may be suffering a slow and widespread death, but these expectations are likely to guide the birth of a newer avatar. The online advertising industry must respond to the need for relevance, meaning and ethical limits. While the current model may be suffering a slow and widespread death, these expectations are likely to guide the birth of a newer avatar. Contrary to popular belief, traditional advertising is still alive and well and heading for growth for the first time in a decade.
When used together, traditional and digital marketing can reach more audiences, build and maintain trust, and motivate consumers who might otherwise disconnect from marketing messages. The “green wave” has also influenced the way brands market and advertise to their customers. Due to this inevitable change in the advertising landscape, marketers will be forced to rely on targeting methods that are closer to traditional advertising models. New addressable TV solutions such as Finecast now allow advertisers to precisely target viewer segments through on-demand and live TV, eroding the segmentation advantage of online channels. Experts have long predicted the disappearance of traditional advertising. However, it's alive and well and heading for growth for the first time in a decade.
When used together, traditional and digital marketing can reach more audiences, build and maintain trust, and motivate consumers who might otherwise disconnect from marketing messages. The COVID-19 lockdown has also had an impact on digital advertising. According to data released by MarketingWeek, only 9% of digital ads are seen for more than a second. Study Finds Programmatic Advertising (Automated Purchase of Online Ad Space) and Social Ads Were Two Types of Media Most Susceptible to Ethical Concerns or Brand Risk. Harikumar adds that this depth of available consumer data puts marketing and advertising professionals in the “driver's seat”. The CMO survey found that 19.8% of companies invested more in traditional advertising (outside of online approaches) as a result. Consumer-facing companies are leading the change, with B2C service companies predicting the largest increase in traditional advertising spending (+10.2%), followed by B2C product companies (+4.9%).So where does all this leave us? Are we still competing for a part of the voice over digital impudence and the noise of “buy, buy, buy” crying out in every corner of the web? This has led to credibility concerns related to advertising fraud and concerns that digital advertising may be much less effective than reported.
