Let’s start off by saying that marketing is not the only place where technology has had great effects but it is rather one where it’s the most blatant at the moment. There are many places where the new technological edge provided by The Internet Of Things has made a huge impact. And it’s just the start as they say.
It’s anyone’s guess where this industry is going, in fact, it is often said there are two types of forecasts … lucky or wrong! The question is where will we go from here, when we have allocated most of our budget to digital media based on ROI and we are optimizing as best we can to get the lowest CPL or CPS? Although I believe this won’t stop, I do believe it’s going to get to the point where the machines will take over.
Software algorithms can already do much better than we ever could at logical thinking, just look at Deep Blue which showed up our best and brightest minds in 1996 already or Elon Musk’s AI (https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/11/16137388/dota-2-dendi-open-ai-elon-musk).
Today, they can do multiple times that type of processing. Being the contrarian, I believe it’s obvious, it’s back o where everyone is not looking, to the things most people overlooked, this being what above-the-line agencies are doing – TV, Radio, OOH.
There are huge opportunities here to leverage new digital tools. We have been so busy being on the cutting edge of digital advertising that most have ignored the potential of digitizing the rest of the marketing cycle. An example would be TV, although using auctions has been done before, it has not been taken nearly as far as is it possibly can go.
One can grow the value of these channels by leaps and bounds if were able to digitize it. And this is exactly what is being done, with TV advertising like Tubemogul. Another example might be radio, this is a pretty old medium ranging as far back as the 1920s but this has not changed much. Now, Jelli is using programmatic advertising on radio to enhance your advertising and your client’s ROI.
In fact, all these various platforms will be reachable via a simple interface that would allow you to advertise almost anywhere, anytime, and on any medium. What this means is that the current media buyer’s role will change from managing Internet advertising to managing the total advertising campaign.
With these advances and everything being more trackable, I believe marketing agencies might also move into a new way of working. That being said, just like digital publishers, instead of a CPM (cost per impression basis) we will move into CPL or CPS basis. We will get paid per lead we bring in or per sale we make.
Although this sounds crazy, look at the insurance market that already does this or affiliate advertising. As markets aim to be more competitive, we will be move from just advertising (CPM basis) down the funnel to a CPL basis and later on a CPS. What would you rather hear, “I will spend your money wisely” or “you will only pay me for results”? Of course, the latter. In fact, this is already happening in North Korea where TV presenters get paid based on a number of sales they make.
Some of you may say that this is nonsense but only time will prove who is right, these are all based on my own meandering experiences of course (ref Baz Luhrmann).
