Mobile Advertising Trends In 2019
We have observed a rapid advancement in technology in the past couple of years. These advancements have rendered traditional marketing strategies a little less convenient and have given rise to new and enhanced digital marketing strategies.
Mobile advertising has been one of the most widely used marketing strategies, and why shouldn’t it be? Gone are the days of sticking fliers on the trees, painting benches at bus stops with the advertisement, it’s time to be omnipresent, anyone with a mobile device should have a taste of your brand.
Year after year we have seen a new trend in advertising coming to life, let’s see what emerging technology will give rise to in 2019.
01. Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
William Arthur Ward once said, “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.”
It’s not just a quote anymore, AR/VR has given us enough power to bring our imagination to life.
People only remember those ads which were interactive enough to hold their attention.
Current media puts a constraint on the amount of interaction one can have with an ad, but, AR/VR has surpassed all those limits and has provided users with interactive ads that go way beyond the traditional ads.
Anything can be put up for a display now- be it your new furniture or your next holiday. This is just the beginning, who knows, by 2025 you could see an ad on VR and place your order right from there, or have real-time notifications popping up and you’d have the option to choose what to do with them, it could be the best replacement for facetime, integrating VR with your video calls, holographic projections as real and interactive as if the person was standing right in front of you.
After Apple launched its ARKit last year in WWDC 2017, leading voice, video and broadcasting platform Agora.io has managed to integrate it with their platform to create an augmented reality video conference system.
Microsoft’s
02. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
There are specific times when your target audience is most active and the amount of engagement with your ads at this point is at its peak.
Advertisers need to analyze data to figure out this peak time when the user interaction is maximum in order to capture their attention.
Now the problem that every marketer faces is that there is a mountain of data and there is comparatively lesser time to analyze it and narrow it down on the demographics, their preferred time to watch and engage with the ads.
This is where AI/ML comes into the picture, it does all the work of keeping a track of user’s interaction with your ads, keywords they use and accordingly predict what’s the best time to display ads that will get maximum user interactions. ML can work wonders by analyzing all the data. This, in turn, helps to start predicting the best times to display an ad and help run optimized marketing campaigns.
Using data predictions from AI/ML, marketers can only direct those ads to user’s newsfeeds which are of interest to them. For instance, when we listen to songs on music streaming sites, we get suggestions of similar songs based on our search history.
AI/ML might just give rise to artificial entrepreneurs, they might be able to observe and identify a market opportunity and come up with various strategies to satisfy the market need.
MediaGamma an AI technology company which uses Machine Learning and Data Science to help digital clients understand user behavior, won a grant from the UK government’s innovation agency to develop AI that can generate text and images for the targeted ads.
“We could have a banner ad specifically tailored to a person’s tastes,” — Wang, co-founder of MediaGamma mentioned at the event.
Our favorite online streaming platform Netflix has been showing the users what they need to see, it uses AI to predict it’s users choice and recommend shows accordingly. No wonder they have got everyone hooked on to their platform.
AI/ML is going to ease a lot many things for all the marketers and advertisers.
03. Chatbot
We are living in an era where we text more than we speak, but we can’t have someone on the phone or sitting on a computer 24/7 to have a conversation with everyone.
We have a better solution, Chatbots! They are taking over the customer service.
Let’s face it, customer service is one of the most important aspects of a user’s journey. Better the service, loyal the customers.
All a customer really wants is a direct line between their problems and their solutions.
Marketers can use Chatbots to their advantage as a communication channel to solve customer issues, promoting events and offers and many more things.
Chatbots aren’t just limited to customer service, utility bots can be used to order takeouts, placing orders, or book a hotel room or an entire trip.
It’s totally up to you what functionality you would like your chatbot to have and what customer needs you want to cater to.
Imagine if your brand could talk, what would you like it to say? And most importantly, how would you like to say it? As cool as Chuck Norris, right? That’s what you can develop your chatbot to be.
If you’re a coffee fanatic, you already must be aware of the chatbot Starbucks has been using in its app. It has made it incredibly easy to order your favorite snack or coffee with the exact cost and time it will take to prepare your order.
Staples has developed a Facebook messenger bot in partnership with IBM’s Watson which makes it convenient for the customers to order, track and return their packages, you can even check if the item of your interest is in stock or not.
04. GDPR
Users really like to experience something that is personalized for them, but what they also value more than anything is the privacy of their data.
The authorities in the European Union established the General Data Protection Regulation for protecting users from data breaches, identity theft and other forms of cybercrime.
Mobile marketers usually have a global audience, and if some of your audience hails from one of the 28 countries that make up the European Union, then you need to comply with the GDPR.
Marketers need to be completely transparent about how they are going to use the data they are gathering from their users, they need to get users’ consent before they even begin to gather data, no more pre-checked boxes.
If your company faces any kind of a data breach, it’s your responsibility to notify your customers about it.
05. Internet Of Things
IoT is a blessing for marketers who can come up with strategies to target connected devices to give their consumers a seamless experience. IoT gives marketers a chance to build their brand, voice their opinions at the right time and at the right place.
IoT can be used by marketers for real-time interaction, gathering insights about customers journey, their buying behavior. A lot of data can be gathered and analyzed to predict customers’ experience and buying preferences.
And since all of the devices will be connected, marketers won’t have to put much efforts in deciding which device to promote or engage the customer on, whichever device seems the best for a particular ad, the user would see it on that particular device.
One of the best examples of IoT is Amazon’s Alexa powered Echo.
You can get a feel of what it’s like to be Tony stark living with Jarvis. Your very own personal assistant, who take voice commands from you, play music and even order food.
Conclusion
These emerging trends can work wonders if utilized properly, marketers need to think about how they can use this immense power to their advantage and lead their business or company towards rapid growth. Uncle Ben was right all along, “with great powers, comes great responsibility”.