E-commerce Marketing

Welcome to the Future: ad:tech 2022

By Team #ARM Worldwide
April 29, 2022

ad:tech New Delhi brought together the brightest and most influential brands, agencies, publishers, and technology providers to discover the future of marketing and do business face-to-face. They set the stage for reputed leaders with ideas to share their stories, learnings, and unique perspectives. Needless to say, the event was a huge success, and we got to learn a great deal! In case you missed the 2022 ad:tech exhibition, let us, the proud marketing partners of ad:tech 2022, fill you up with event deets!

Evolution to Omnichannel

“Omnichannel is a seamless shopping experience for the consumer. From a business point of view, it's about getting the last mile data and providing a personalised experience.” - Vishal Parekh, Vice-President at Reliance Retail. The modern consumer aspires for a brand relationship that goes beyond the digital sphere. Therefore, companies must embark on an omnichannel transformation that views touchpoints not in isolation but as part of a seamless customer journey. Omnichannel marketing supports a customer journey that is fluid. In fact, 76% of users are more likely to recommend a brand because it provides simpler experiences and communication. In-depth insights on sales to improve media usage demographically and sharing data changes over time allow brands to modify their marketing strategies which helps increase revenue. Further, brands need to design service journeys, ensuring that the end-to-end digital and live contact are addressed to identify customer needs/preferences and clearly define digital migration points.

Road to Metaverse: Interaction & Immersion

“Gaming, entertainment, retail, and online shopping are just a few of the use cases where the metaverse is providing an immersive experience.” - Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of GMS, India at Meta. The future is being created as we speak! By coming together, developers, regulators, privacy experts, businesses and creators will build the metaverse ecosystem to prepare ahead of time. The most immediate opportunity for brands is to create immersive and interactive experiences by organising virtual concerts, interviews, events, games, etc., to boost engagement. Positioning the brand and products in this virtual space should be unique. Instead of aggressive advertising, brands should provide opportunities for interactions and memorable experiences. As opposed to just placing simple ads, brands should continue creating virtual worlds, venues, and spaces to host different events such as exhibitions, concerts, and live music shows.

D2C-ing it right!

“There is a clear establishment of the internet as a strong demand generation channel. Marketers will be the torchbearers in the D2C journey.” - Siddharth Puri, Co-Founder and CEO at Tyroo. D2C presents the best opportunity for innovative brands to build direct relationships with customers. Building D2C capabilities helps steer brand strategy and innovation based on real-time consumer insights. D2C players have raised an excess of $2.5 billion since 2014, bringing the D2C sector to $44.6 billion in India as of 2021. It is expected to be $100 billion by 2025. A robust, scalable supply chain positively impacts the entire CX, leading to higher customer lifetime values and greater longevity for your brand. Brands must build a unified customer view by collecting and tracking customer data points that are – Right, Relevant, Rich, & Real-time. This ties all efforts together seamlessly to develop and execute an effective 1:1 omnichannel personalisation strategy.

Old is New Again: Contextual Advertising

“Contextual technology has gone from retro to revolutionary. It's not just about perception and preference but also sentiment. A majority of consumers feel that the sentiment of a page affects the perception of the brand.” - Saurabh Khattar, Commercial Lead at Integral Ad Science. The advertising industry is actively preparing for a privacy-led future. Contextual advertising has emerged again as a way to meet privacy expectations while still delivering results. The global market for contextual advertising, estimated at US$157.4 billion in 2020, is anticipated to reach a revised size of US$ 335.1 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 13.3% over the analysis period. Brands must progress beyond text by identifying advanced contextual tech that uses AI to move beyond keywords to consider elements such as voice, vernacular, video, and sentiment. Using the contextual tech that understands the nuances and sentiment of a page is brand-safe and ethical from a data perspective. It also reduces ad fatigue, and rather than following a user around the internet, brands can identify a relevant environment and deliver an ad within that content.

Delivering on the Promise of First-party Data

“Cookies are meant for a web environment. With the channels today, we need to replace cookie-less with identity for a better ecosystem going forward.” - Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk. How brands make the most of first-party data will redefine online marketing. The effort begins with gaining customers’ attention and their belief that the brand's content and experience are worth a piece of their privacy. Repeat customers spend 33% more with a brand than new customers. Also, 1/5th of existing customers account for 80% of future profits. The people who previously interacted and transacted with your brand give you the most precious marketing asset, which is first-party data. Brands can deploy additional technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and expand personalisation efforts to predict customer outcomes and enhance CLV. Merging profiles of a user as they engage with your brand at various touchpoints will give a single customer view, allowing you to see what inspires them to take action across different channels, devices and platforms. The future holds a mighty lot, and the marketers of today will do anything and everything to be at the pinnacle of their game. Listening to industry experts and leaders, and connecting with them over their interests helps shape our viewpoints as well. We get a glimpse of the future and it also enables us to best prepare for the road ahead!