Six industry predictions for 2014

In case you missed it view the seven things your delivery elves need to know.

1. Companies need to have a multi-screen strategy, not a mobile strategy

The explosion in the number of consumers engaging with brands on mobile and tablets will force advertisers to become significantly more “mobile aware” and device agnostic. Advertisers will need to think more strategically about behaviour, usage patterns and multiscreen activity in a mobile world. Looking ahead, the challenge will be around multi-screen, not mobile. The critical element will be around having the right data to be able to recognise the same consumer despite flipping between devices.

Not only this, but companies then need to be able to draw patterns and better understand how to target them with the right message. Companies should recognise that it’s not about having a mobile strategy; it’s about having a multi-screen strategy. In regard to the travel industry, the big shift is going to be when consumers actually start booking on mobile rather than just researching. Mobile travel purchase is a long way behind Web travel purchase but in 2014 we will see this gap narrowing.

2. Real-time data will result in the verticalisation of companies

Intent and browsing habits will continue to influence the content on the Web page and will change for each consumer. It all centres on personalised content and companies who don’t lean on big data to individually target their consumers will not prosper in 2014 and beyond. However personalisation and targeting has been a trend for the past 30 years. Companies should now be seeking to take this data and use it in real-time to influence what messages consumers are seeing and when. Most companies can only see their own data, which provides them with a snapshot on the world. Advertising will centre around not only the use of company data but also the addition of external vertical data to build knowledge and refine targeting. Companies will increasingly specialise in key verticals because that’s the only way you can amass the right quantity of the right data and understand what the behaviours and patterns mean.

3. 2014 will see programmatic buying dominate

Programmatic buying will become the dominant method of purchase across all media channels and will be emerging rapidly in TV. If you see that as the future then data becomes very important to you. Brands must ensure they have smart data strategies in place to reap the benefits. The people who will win in data strategy are those who bring together the combination of historical, intent and other profile data in real-time. Advertisers will need to seek to buy the right user at the right moment in time. We’ve seen the move to programmatic advertising technologies with display, it is currently happening with mobile and video and it will start to happen with TV. To succeed in this space, advertisers will need to capitalize on real-time behavior data in order to make smart targeting decisions.

4. Creative attribution strategies will hit their stride

In a connected world with an abundance of channels, measuring ROI is both complex and critical to success. The path to purchase online can involve a number of touch-points along the way, and the location of the last click before the customer buys, which has historically been the criteria by which affiliates are judged and paid, may be changing. It’s time that the industry recognised that there are many elements influencing the consumer and multiple touch points on the path to purchasing therefore companies must come up with more creative attribution strategies. The massive growth of mobile will drive companies towards a more holistic attribution model and we will see a more balanced approach by this time next year.

5. Forget ad re-targeting, it’s all about smart re-targeting

It isn’t enough to simply retarget; advertisers must also make the move to smart retargeting. The best approach is to combine core retargeting data – the data from the portion of your audience that was cookied as they browsed products or services – with other key data you own, such as product yield and availability, as well as loyalty status and past behaviour. Mixing this with data that is derived from outside your website, such as data that has been generated as the same visitor browsed other sites, allows for your messaging to be based on their intent, other actions they may have undertaken and critically, your ability to fulfil their desire. Advertisers need to, and now can, go beyond just the fact the someone has visited their site. Only with this model will the true value of retargeting and its place in the purchase funnel be realised.

6. The data geeks are going to be our future CEO’s

We are facing a skills shortage right now when it comes to the huge amounts of data companies are amassing. There is an ongoing shift from when data was passed to the IT department to the growing need for everyone throughout the company to be data savvy. Some people within the industry predict that data will be outsourced and employees will get back to being creative. I would argue that regardless of how creative you are, data is too important to be disregarded by anyone within an organisation.

Data and analytics are proving to demonstrate their worth to brands and gaining a better understanding of customers preferences, behaviours and needs in a non-intrusive way is becoming paramount. The voice of the customer is really starting to drive strategy and operations. The most successful business leaders are now taking an analytical approach towards customer centricity and business in general and those are the people who will prosper in this modern world.

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