With the proliferation of digital media over the course of the last few years, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ now reign supreme over the traditional TV cable norm. Irina Kovalenko of SmartyAds quotes a study done by Emarketer that “YouTube is estimated to gain around 198 million US viewers” by 2023 (Kovalenko, 2020).
While commercials in the traditional sense of the word on TV is becoming more obsolete and less companies willing to spend large amounts of money on them, that doesn’t mean short video ads must go by the wayside as well. As YouTube is personalized to the user fairly well, it has the advantage of speaking to the target audience any company may want to use. YouTube offers as part of its ad package a feature called Find My Audience that assists companies in curating the right content for the right audience (YouTube, 2020). They also offer many features similar to Google Ads in metrics measurements and only charges per click.
Your Wallet Is Going Mobile
COVID 19 has shed light on a pretty dirty world. With the pandemic’s infiltration of our worldwide society, it has made the human population recognize the need for cleaner habits and safety regarding human to human physical interaction. This presents an interesting importance to how we conduct our every day business around the globe too, including with cashiers at any business. The importance of mobile commerce has grown leaps and bounds over the last few months alone, not to mention the incredible growth we have seen previously.
Ian Dodson, author of The Art of Digital Marketing, recognized the importance of the emergence of eWallets 4 years ago, and noted how this technology and its usage would only grow in the coming years. Dodson states, “These technologies might not be widely adopted just yet, but more and more companies are competing within the m-commerce space and offering new ways for consumers to pay by mobile” (Dodson, 2016). In a post-COVID world, contactless commerce will continue to trend, as people look to use COVID as a lesson learned on a global scale. Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal of Fortune magazine state, “Businesses may need to reallocate investment,” due to a world “in which human contact is minimized” (Sneader and Singhal, 2020).
Socially Interactive – The Newest Advertising
Gamers as a community love gaming for the interaction – whether it be side by side on the couch, or a world away via gaming headphones and chat. Mobile gaming is up tremendously over the last several years as a form of entertainment and social interaction. Social media usage shows consistent growth as well – According to Statista, there are 3.08 billion users in 2020 and projected 3.43 billion in 2023 (Statista, 2020). Why would this not be the same trend in our buying power? While users are already engaging on social media sites, mobile gaming map apps, and many more, what’s easier than being able to shop from right where you are, rather than even being directed several times to a different landing page?
Anything that a user can engage with is going to be a growing trend. CEO of GoMeta Dmitry Shapiro, states, “Consumers love branded games, or ‘playables,’ so much that data recently collected from Facebook and TikTok revealed remarkable increases to conversions and click through rates when comparing playable ads against video ads” (Shapiro, 2020). Engagement isn’t just an important KPI in digital marketing – it is the cornerstone of digital marketing period. The user wants that inside look, to be PART of something, something bigger than themselves and their bubble. This sort of advertising fills that need to be connected, and connects the user with the products that are best suited to them.
References:
Dodson, I. (2016). The art of digital marketing: The definitive guide to creating strategic, targeted, and measurable online campaigns. John Wiley & Sons.
Kovalenko, I. (2020, January 8). The future of digital advertising: 5 key trends for 2020. Programmatic Advertising Company – SmartyAds. https://smartyads.com/blog/the-future-of-digital-advertising/#:~:text=As%20the%20year%202020%20approaches,of%20the%20ad%20tech%20industry.&text=They%20include%20white%20labeling%2C%20new,as%20new%20video%20marketing%20trends
Shapiro, D. (2020, January 13). The future is interactive content: 5 predictions for marketers in 2020. Marketing Technology News, Trends, Strategy, Best Practices & Insights | MarTech Advisor. https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/content-marketing/the-future-is-interactive-content-5-predictions-for-marketers-in-2020/
Sneader, K., & Singhal, S. (2020, May 1). Commentary: 3 changes businesses will need to adapt to post-coronavirus. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2020/05/01/business-reopen-economy-coronavirus-new-normal/
Statista. (2020). Number of social media users worldwide 2010-2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/
YouTube. (2020). YouTube Ads. https://youtube.com/ads/
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