The commercial adoption of the internet began in the early 1990s, and only a few anticipated how it would totally transform the marketing industry over the next 20 years. There are plenty of resourceful search engines that navigate a plethora of websites, and alongside the first online showcase and search ads, denoted a radical turn of marketing dynamics as people's dynamic search request behavior allowed for considerably more pertinent and effective ad delivery.
The rise of social media represented a similarly progressive achievement, whereby wide-ranging data on user socioeconomics, inclinations and interests offered advertisers extraordinary targeting options. Advertising is the basis on which tech companies, for example, Google or Facebook are relied upon. It has enabled them to claim a major piece of all ad spending and generate revenues outperforming the overall GDPs of whole nations.
In a similar sense, organizations that figure out how to formulate the most adaptable marketing environments upon the arrival of society-altering technology, alongside business with consumption intent more viably, will encounter drastic development and probably become corporate superpowers–or further imprint their supremacy.
Early adopters who make use of those breakthrough technologies and unsaturated channels will acquire competitive advantages, and organizations and startups will develop that build out their own technologies and business models to supplement the most significant future advertising technologies.
Internet of Things
Already, the smart devices we own such as smartphones, laptops, and few business machines and sensors contain most of the gateways to the internet. Notwithstanding, this is quickly changing as the physical and digital domains progressively (and to some degree, startlingly) meet. And it has been estimated that around 41.6 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices be responsible for generating 79.4 zettabytes of data by 2025–which is certainly a very big figure bursting with potential.
Beacon technology, 5G, smart wearables IoT sensors, autonomous vehicles, and smart homes all simply mark the beginning of an era where nearly anything fueled by electricity might be associated with one another and with the widespread reach of the internet, open up lucrative opportunities for marketers.
CTRs of almost 100 percent will never again be an unlikelihood, wherein organizations and offices will strive for hyper-relevance and focus on wiping out the interruptive commercial dependent on demographic and behavioral data from a limited few devices. Refrigerators, vending machines, shop plates, even displays; each "object" may fill in as a touchpoint to go with the shopper along a lot more extravagant, inferable and predictable journey in the mission to serve the correct sales message at the right time.
To completely understand the potential, marketing professionals will face the monumental technical challenge of executing comprehensive, multi-device platforms that can integrate and deal with all these extremely diverse and intertwined devices and their related data. Without a doubt, this will bring forth numerous new startups that will provide solutions for another, hyperconnected universe.
Big Data, AI and Quantum Computing
Why these three trendy terms are apparently just put together? Since their development is unequivocally related, and together they'll come up with the most significant technological advancements. The bringing together of AI and big data is already firmly established in the core marketing activities of both SMEs and large enterprises: Recommendation motors represent a whopping 35 percent of Amazon's overall sales, whereas companies like Samsung build brand strategies by implementing multi-channel sentiment analysis, and each minor e-commerce retailer can already leverage the efficiency of chatbots.
AI depends on a large volume of data to fuel its learning mechanisms, and once implemented by the large processing speeds of quantum computers to tap the constantly growing sources of big data, its ability to provide significant insights, automate everything, and even take over different decision-making aspects from people will flood entirely.
Software companies such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft are investing heavily into quantum computing, with Google has already demonstrated quantum neural networks to develop the first stable and industrially feasible quantum computer, a power of (artificial) nature that would allow for the outset of a sheer unending number of potential AI-based applications, some which haven’t explored the opportunities yet.
In any case, we can assume that the first business applications to develop from the present research scenario will serve the core functions of the organizations at the bleeding edge of their development. Accordingly, the foundations of online marketing like SEO, digital marketing, and price matching will be put through massive transformations as they become increasingly proficient and autonomous.
It likewise implies that many jobs will get old. Different custom services that data analytics companies provide, will definitely get commoditized through respective AI tools. The technological wave driven by the penetration of cutting-edge technologies such as big data, AI, and quantum computing will present a universe of lucrative opportunities for online advertisers in the form of novel applications to reach and economically profit customers. This progress will further enhance the current digital marketing ecosystems. Similarly, the individuals who do not quite succeed in adapting these technological reaps will end up overhauled by the progress.
Voice and Virtual Assistants
In the U.S., around 61 million individuals already own some kind of digital assistant and already 20 percent of mobile searches are being conducted orally, which has denoted the importance of adding voice in future marketing strategies. Just like smartphones and social media have made a permanent mark in the digital world, voice technology will soon be a must-have in everyday aspects of life. Businesses who want to gain a competitive advantage and remain visible to the customers will have to find a way to integrate voice technology into their digital marketing strategies.
Search engine giant Google has already incorporated voice technology into its Search Console and introduced Google Actions–a software that allows the interaction between a Google Assistant and a website’s content–and soon enough virtual assistants will become a necessity in this competitive world. What’s more, Google Assistant is currently focusing on adding featured snippets when answering users’ queries, and this indicates that businesses of all shapes and sizes will have to incorporate these best practices in their overall digital marketing plan.
Along with entirely changing the SEO campaigns, voice technology is also providing an opportunity to improve the overall customer experience. At present, marketing professionals should understand the significance of voice search in SEO. In the coming years, once IoT becomes widespread, a totally different world opens up in which marketers can devise completely better approaches to reach their target audience, leveraging stronger emotional connections through voice and exploring the huge volumes of big data.