The advancements in Internet technologies and telecommunications has turned the whole world into one global and interconnected digital village. Such interconnectivity has made it easier for people to connect with people and for businesses to connect with people or other businesses.
While interconnectivity has its obvious advantage, it also spells a deeper challenge for brands and businesses wanting to connect and engage with targeted audiences. The huge cacophony of content, both relevant and irrelevant, spread across the digital world stands as a great wall that makes it difficult for businesses to create awareness and publicity for their products or services.
That is why brands and businesses are not ignoring the importance of Digital Advertising. This is made more evident with expectations on global advertising spending, which experts predict would reach figures of up to $375 billion by the year 2021. Actual figures may vary hugely depending on the particular market a business is engaged in, but the trend is the same all throughout.
To keep up with the challenges that accompany these changes, brands and businesses need to familiarize themselves with the trends happening in the digital world, particularly in the area of Digital Advertising.
1) Programmatic Advertising Domination
The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the mainstream has penetrated more and more industries and markets, all geared towards the ultimate purpose of making things much easier through automation and optimization. This trend proves true in the area of Digital Advertising.
AI has paved the way for the rise of Programmatic Advertising, particularly in the areas of optimizing and automating bidding and buying advertising. This makes the process of ad buying faster and much more efficient, resulting in lower costs while generating better results and higher conversion rates.
- Programmatic Advertising platforms and software can automate the task of Ad Buying, Ad Placement, Customer Targeting, and Performance Tracking. Some of these platforms include SmartyAds and Adobe Marketing Cloud.
- Programmatic Advertising software goes beyond merely targeting keywords, location, and time of day, but can also take into account other targeting signals that make the advertisement more personalized. These include lifestyle signals, spending and behavioral habits, and other useful information.
- eMarketer predicts that as much as 2% of digital Ads in the United States will take the form of Programmatic Advertising within the year 2020.
2) Browser Push Notifications Are on The Rise
The popularity and greater preference of online users for mobile or hand-held gadgets and devices have also made it more convenient to send clickable advertising content directly into these user’s devices in the form of Browser Push Notifications.
The need for engaging targeted audiences through multiple channels or engagement points also gave rise to the popularity and preference of using Browser Push Notifications, particularly if these notifications were designed to be more personalized, includes attractive imagery and compelling Calls-To-Action (CTAs).
- Push Notifications can deliver up to 2X better sign-up rate performance that only up to 10% of the best digital newsletter, and email marketers can match. This is why as much as 85% of online stores prefer the use of Push Notifications over the traditional newsletter
- When Push Notifications are designed for more personalized targeting, it can generate up to a 7% open rate, resulting in as much as 54% conversion compared to the 15% rate that broadcast messages can generate.
- For Push Notifications, targeted recipients can see the content immediately, while it takes up to an average of 6.4 hours before an online user receives an email or newsletter he or she receives. This is due to the preference of younger audiences for other more convenient communication methods and alternatives, as well as the challenges posed by updates to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
3) The Continuous Growth in the Use of Geo-Fencing for Digital Advertising
For brands and businesses requiring highly targeted advertising campaigns based on their targeted audiences’ geographical location, the integration of Geo-Fencing to Digital Advertising can be a very useful advantage.
- Digital Ads integrated with Geo-Fencing makes use of targeted Push Notifications as a way to target potential customers in real-time based on their geolocation. These include the use of images or logos popping up on digital maps or text messages
- Examples of Geo-Fencing-powered Push Notifications are restaurants or gas stations that send out push notifications or text messages to a user’s device if they are within a certain distance from their operating areas.
- The use of Geo-Fencing for highly targeted and personalized Push Notifications is expected to continuously grow by as much as $2.4 billion by the year 2023.
4) Paid Advertising Becomes an Even More Trusted Force with Smart Bidding
The battle for getting higher engagements and conversions through organic reach has become much more intense, particularly in the various social media platforms. That is why the use of Paid Advertising remains an important tool in the Digital Advertising arsenal – and this is made even more effective with Smart Bidding.
- Digital Advertisers will have a more optimized and cost-effective Pay-Per-Click campaign that can maximize their ROI with the use of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms used in Google’s Smart Bidding facility.
- With Smart Bidding, Digital advertisers can make use of multiple advertising signals, or a combination of these signals, to optimize their bids to generate better results and reach more targeted customers.
5) Streaming Video-Based Advertising Still Going Strong
The use of streaming video for Digital Advertising was a great hit in 2019 and is expected to continue making waves in 2020 and beyond. The continued popularity with the use of video is coincident with the viewing habits online users exhibit, prompting digital advertisers to increase their video advertising budgets by 25% for this year.
- Streaming or Online Video is a very popular medium that as much as 74% of consumers 13 years old and above in the United States watch at least once every week. Up to 41% of these consumers watch online videos daily.
- Even when watching online education videos, these consumers will pay close attention not only to the video content they are watching but also on the video advertisements being shown. As much as 78% of these video viewers won’t mind these advertising, as long as the content they are watching is free.
- Live streaming video gets even more popularity, particularly in Social Media Networks. Live videos such as Facebook Live and Instagram Live are watched up to 3x longer than the usual non-live videos
6) The Advent of IoT Advertising
The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) is various applications for home or commercial use is steadily on the rise and growing much more in popularity. Now, these technologies are incorporating Digital Advertising features in the devices and gadgets that make use of IoT.
- Products, tools, and devices incorporated with IoT can unobtrusively collect useful user data. These data collected can then be used by digital advertisers for personalized marketing and advertising purposes
- Some brands have already incorporated such concepts of using IoT with Digital Advertising, like the built-in electronic sensors in Johnnie Walker’s Blue Label Bottles that tell the bottle’s location or if it has already been opened, and Malibu’s use of their IoT-powered bottles for promoting digital content.
The Take Away
Competition in the Digital Advertising has grown much more competitive and fiercer as brands and business vie for their targeted customers’ attention over the myriad content spread across the whole of digital space.
To keep ahead of the competition, Digital Advertisers must look towards implementing more innovative, more exciting but more effective marketing and advertising methods and alternatives, while continuously working with proven methods that continuously deliver results.
These Digital Advertising Trends for 2020 can provide an overview of what’s in store for this year in the Digital Advertising space, so brands and businesses can harness such tools and innovations to generate more relevant, highly personalized and highly targeted advertising campaigns that deliver results.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.