Interesting Infographics: How Digital Marketing Will Change This Year

customerthink.com

The beginning of a new year always brings us a fresh crop of lists predicting what the newest trends or technologies will look like. Even if some of the predictions turn out to be inaccurate, it’s still fascinating to see how thought leaders envision the future of their industries. In this infographic marketing technology leader Signal gives 8 predictions for how digital marketing will change in 2016:

1. Improved people-based marketing options will give advertisers flexibility and control. With customer data spread out over multiple data sources, there is a need for people-based marketing tools that can help build a clearer picture of customers. New marketing options will make it easier to market to real people, rather than to their devices or cookies.
2. Advertisers will shift focus from workflow efficiency to targeting precision. While programmatic media buying is efficient, more marketers are predicted to start turning to investments in targeting solutions (like Facebook), which will help them to reach known audiences.
3. Marketers will raise technology standards to close the mobile gap. There are more mobile-only consumers than desktop-only consumers, with 60% of all digital media accessed through a mobile device. However, current cookie-based technologies don’t mesh well with mobile browsing. In 2016, marketers are predicted to explore new solutions to fill this technology gap.
4. Limitations of walled gardens will force advertisers and publishers to make tough choices. Walled gardens offer only a limited view of customer information, and advertisers and publishers who want to increase their known audiences will to start to explore partnerships outside these walls, through data-matching networks.
5. With ad blocking as the new normal, better targeting, formats, and relevancy will become essential. Ad blocking can cost publishers up to $41 billion, and in 2016, advertisers and publishers will work on improving their data mining and data-driven offerings, leading to higher creative and targeting standards.
6. The race for data will drive bigger and bigger ad tech acquisitions. Data is king: close to one quarter of the M&A deals in 2015 were related to marketing and technology. In 2016, the race between Big Internet companies to acquire valuable technologies is predicted to heat up, leading to fewer choices and less buying power for advertisers.
7. The era of first-party data will create demand for data-driven C-suite roles. In this new age of data, new leaders will emerge to help companies unlock the value of their data. These leaders will be experts in data science and work within the C-suite, holding influence across the entire organization.
8. Coalition loyalty programs will open doors to more valuable second-party data. In 2016, brands are predicted to partner up and combine their customer data to create collaborative loyalty programs that give customers access to rewards from multiple brands, while gaining marketers greater access to their information.

It’s a pretty interesting list, with a number of insightful predictions. How many do you agree with? How many do you think may be too premature? Let me know!