The nine things the experts will say this morning about the future of digital advertising
Julian Peterson will be at AIMIA’s The Future of Digital Advertising conference in Sydney today. He reckons he knows most of what the speakers will say.
I’m going to the AIMIA event and I’m pretty excited. I’ve been avoiding conferences and talks recently, but this will be a good one. Unfortunately I’ve had one too many coffees today and rashly told Mumbrella that I could predict what everyone would say.
1) Retargeting – the future is micro-retargeting
Re-targeting has improved the effectiveness of display advertising – visit, for example, Dan Murphy’s, TM Lewin or eSuperfund and you’ll be pursued for days around other sites to complete your sale. Dan Murphy’s already retarget using specific products that you viewed but currently this is unusual.
In the near future, it will be routine to do your business online, let’s say weekly shopping, and then see banners elsewhere saying “Julian, you forgot the milk”
2) Annoying
What we in digital advertising think is cool, some consumers find really annoying – micro-retargeting and targeting by personal details such as we see on Facebook will increasingly annoy people even more than it does now. (“Why am I being targeted with singles websites ads?” Because you’ve been married for 12.3 years.) There’s a fine line between clever targeting and stalking.
Insincere, spammy and bogus social campaigns will also increasingly annoy consumers who have become tired of brands who say “Happy Friday – what are you doing today?” when it’s got nothing to do with the brand.
Consumers will become more adept at expressing their displeasure at brands who get it wrong – see the many brand Facebook pages that are already rivers of hate. Regulators in the EU (mainly) and US will continue to legislate in favour of privacy.
And we will continue to find ways around this.
3) Publishers will have to collect and provide more details on their audience
Publishers will have to allow advertisers to segment their audience and target them by the information that the publisher will have to collect about them. Both their personal details (from subscription or login) and their browsing history, preferences and behaviour will form part of this targeting.
4) Real Time Bidding and automated trading
Real Time Bidding is in for a bumper couple of years – agencies will attempt to automate as much of their digital buying as possible to reduce head count and increase efficiency.
Publishers will attempt to automate as much of their digital selling as possible to reduce head count and increase efficiency.
Those heads who remain will realise that the eCPM from most of these ad exchanges, DSPs and SSPs is closer to $1 than $100 or even $10.
The winners will use technology but still understand the relationship between publisher / website and advertiser and how to work together strategically and not just on price.
5) Mobile
Mobile mobile mobile mobile mobile. Mobile.
By Christmas 2013, anyone who has a site that is not responsive or has no mobile version will have been “let go”.
Smartphone usage will rise and rise – even your granny will ditch her old Nokia – advertisers will need to find ways to interest mobile users without jarring their experience (not many succeeding in this at the moment).
Many will continue to struggle to understand why people are now applying for mortgages on their phone on a bus but eventually understand the sequential use of screens – find you on a mobile, share you on a mobile, complete the transaction from a laptop.
6) Facebook
Facebook hasn’t even got started yet with what it can do and using what it knows about you now.
Facebook will grow an increasing team of data scientists with the hugest hadoop set up and will begin to predict your movements, purchases and interactions with increasing ease.
You’ll be targeted with offers at cafes, bars, and shops on trips that you haven’t even planned yet. In fact, you may even plan the trip that you hadn’t planned yet because Facebook predicted it and made you an offer. Because, given enough information, everyone is predictable.
7) Online Video
Video content and advertising will continue to explode – TVCs on many sites will continue to be fully booked as publishers struggle to find enough quality and cost effective content to produce the required page impressions.
Australia will continue to be held back in this regard by its high broadband prices and lack of fibre network to the consumer, with speeds continuing to dawdle between 1Mbps and 10Mbps. When/if this is fixed consumer demand for video will go nuclear and video advertising online will follow suit.
8) Banners and Click Through Rates
Everyone will continue to be secretly appalled by the click through rate from most banners. Some will claim its the wrong metric to measure.
Advertisers who know the above and have budget will increasingly demand either advertorial (integrated / native) or bespoke creative solutions – huge moving creatives that burst across the screen shouting for your attention or sponsored editorial from publishers who would previously not have considered it.
Advertisers with limited budgets and some digital reporting knowledge will increasingly seek performance based advertising – cost per click or cost per lead for example, because they’ll have to for any ROI.
9) Content marketing
Some brands already have websites that resemble newspaper websites with up to date articles, videos and quality content that informs rather than just sells to the consumer.
Increasingly large numbers of redundant journalists will find new careers in writing good content for brands. Good content will be in the minority – most content used for marketing will be unremarkable, salesy and bland.
Enough.
I think I’ve stolen a main point from all the speakers tomorrow so it ends here.
Julian Peterson is the sales and marketing director of Dianomi.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I hope the conference is more meaningful that a list of specific little points we already know.
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Well i didnt and i thought it was very useful, tx Julian
–> @OhNo you must be disappointed that you weren’t asked to write this piece. Obvious why not when you’re such a crankypants
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Everything above makes sense.
Some companies are not time restricting their retargeting / re marketing and I am being hit with car insurance ad’s 4 months after I renewed with another insurer = some agencies are wasting their clients money…
Check out the ‘Conduit’ page on Facebook as an example of their Facebook ad’s gaining a crap response (scroll down the page and when you see a post that has a heap of comments, that would have been sponsored and check out the furore) The 21st Jan is a good example: http://www.facebook.com/conduit
An interesting one re publishers. So many publishers still operate in a very ‘fluffy’ manor. Even their own staff do not understand the full demographics of their audience, nor know about the amount of cross over from one publication to another. As analytics become more and more the norm, clients will and should shout louder about audience incite before booking a campaign with a publisher.
Unlike JP, I haven’t had a coffee and will stop there.
Enjoy the conference.
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Now I understand why I’m getting the “mature” singles ads on Facebook – I’ve been married 43 years. They must think I’m well overdue to trade up to a new model! (they’d be wrong BTW).
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I’m just impressed he knows about on-line advertising AND Hadoop Clusters!!!
JP – you are clearly a god amongst men. A Jedi warrior no less.
I bow before thee….
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@ Makes Semse – is the “fluffy manor” like a furry farmhouse or something?
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This made my day.
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What about WXM? very few websites do it and has massive potential to increase conversion for eCommerce sites. Glad to see mobile has finally taken off, now lets stop focusing on apps and make sure all websites have responsive design.
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