The world of paid media is a fast-paced one that can be a struggle for many advertisers to keep up. What may have been relevant and trending eight to ten months ago could be long gone and a just a shadow of the past. How can you know what trend will be worth being a key adaptor of? Here are a few trends that we think is impactful and offers the most growth opportunity in the paid media channels for the months and years to come.
The Future of Video:
While video has been at the forefront of media trends for the past several years, the growth and reach capabilities of video are only going to continue to expand. As more consumers are turning off their cable and making the switch to connected TV devices, this will allow advertisers to serve personalized video ads to their consumers as they are catching up on their favorite shows.
Outside of targeting your consumer while they are watching TV, Facebook’s roll out of live stream video also brings a new aspect to the video playing field. This could be Facebook’s efforts to make instant response even more relevant to consumers of media content. How can ecommerce and direct response companies leverage the live stream video feature? While this may currently live in a grey area of finding a “micro-moment” for your brand, imagine the new capability of streaming live from Fashion Week’s runway, an announcement of a new product launch, etc. populating directly to the feed of your current and future purchasers. It’s this kind of personalization that consumers thrive off of and often is that final push to transition a regular browser into a lifetime customer.
From a social perspective, video is continuously evolving in the social landscape and will continue to do so in the future. Pinterest recently announced that they will also be adding promoted video pins to their marketing suite. The functionality is similar to the way video ads currently run on Facebook with an auto play scroll over function. According to data from Syndacast, video will make up 70% of traffic to most websites by 2017. With this in mind, it’s imperative to get in front of your audience with video ads now.
In-Store Attribution:
Tying together online behavior to in-store purchases is another component of the ecommerce arena that has been creating buzz for quite some time. The issue that typically arises with most advertisers is finding a partner that can provide the most relevant data in a cost effective way. The gaps that exist in some models are the accuracy of location-based data as well as tracking purchases made once a person shops in-store. Media vendors are now leveraging third party location verification relationships and credit card partnerships to close that final loophole.
Announced on Tuesday, May 17th, 2016, Viacom is the latest media company that will partner with American Express to leverage purchase intent for audience insights across multiple channels including; TV, display, and social display. To protect consumer privacy, Viacom will never see or touch the customer specific data provided by American Express but will be able to leverage the data on a more “hashed” audience sense.
Google is increasingly expanding efforts to tie in visitation metrics through paid search and YouTube ads. While there were initial store size qualifications to leverage Google AdWords in-store efforts, location-based data can now be traced through GPS on mobile devices to allow insights for smaller retail locations. Paid search also can promote store hours, product stock and in-store pick-up information to help drive traceable foot traffic to store and drive further audience targeting strategies. Although there is still a gap between brick and mortar sales and digital marketing efforts, the bridge between the two is clearly narrowing and will continue to do so.
Social Shopping:
Paid social media efforts will expand for a more DR focus into 2016. Shoppable social posts have been on Pinterest for some time, but Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are slowly rolling out buy button options. Before, social efforts would drive to your site where a consumer could scan through various products and determine if they would purchase or not. Moving forward, a consumer will be able to purchase directly from their phone or tablet on the ad that is being served through the click of a button.
Currently, these buy buttons and pins are available on a limited basis and will be rolled out through 2016. As of today, Pinterest is allowing advertisers to sign up for a waiting list to companies who partner with commerce platforms such as Shopify, Demandware, Magento, etc. Twitter is utilizing a similar list of platforms to add the “Buy Now” button into promoted Tweets. Facebook will expand their current offerings to more and more advertisers who are utilizing the dynamic product feed to add a buy button as their CTA within the Power Editor. The future of social shopping will help make ROAS much clearer for advertisers when it comes direct from each social media interface.
Paid media will always have many outlets for the best way to reach the right audience at the right time, but overall campaign goals will drive what trends will be the best strategy for you and your consumer. In this fast lane of paid media efforts, it’s time to buckle up and enjoy the ride!
