The Early Days
From the time that social media advertising and digital advertising became a “thing”, companies that started using these methods were a step ahead of all the other companies. After these early adopters, companies that saw the impact of online advertising were more keen on trying this method out, making it a trend. After online advertising gained more popularity, companies had to do something to avoid the intense competition, but also to become more efficient. In comes targeting!
Targeting allowed companies to narrow down their audience in order for their advertisements to reach only people that were truly interested in their products, making their advertising campaigns more cost-effective than ever.
Now let's see what is the trend of online advertising today.
The Effects of COVID
In the past 2 years, the world was shaken by a global pandemic that tested the financial endurance of companies all around the world. Many companies closed down but others survived.
Can you guess what was the saving grace for many of these companies?
The answer, of course, is digitalization.
As the world was shutting down and people were trapped in their homes, they turned to their phones and their laptops. Being active on social media platforms, scrolling through news sites to learn what is COVID-19, and making impulsive buys on online stores just to pass the time, seemed to be a way to cope with multiple lockdowns.
The Aftermath
After several lockdowns, it seems that consumers are more prone to impulsive buys, due to the savings they had during global shutdowns. In fact, Bloomberg estimates that US consumers saved up to $1.5tn last year.
In a report from Smartly.io, that surveyed 1,000 US-based consumers, found out that 87% of them is planning on spending money on online purchases in the following categories:- apparel/retail (59%)
- food/beverage (44%)
- travel/hospitality (39%)
- entertainment (39%)
- home improvement/décor (38%)
- automotive (17%).
The better way to sell online of course is to advertise online, but it seems that companies need to focus on other factors too. Privacy and data protection seem to be a priority for the consumers surveyed by Smartly.io. In detail, the report identifies that 91% of US consumers are more likely to purchase online if they feel that the brand is trustworthy and has transparent data practices, and 74% are more receptive to digital ads from brands when it is clear how their data is being used.
A New Era
So how can companies make the consumers feel safer but also deliver to them their personalized message? How can a company gain the consumers’ trust and build a strong relationship with them?
Riikka Söderlund, director of marketing at Smartly.io, answers:
“Brands need to rely more on relevant, personalized creative delivered in the right place at the right time, with privacy-friendly contextual targeting. The best-performing target audiences can’t be the sole focus anymore as they’ve become more opaque. There is also a need to be more iterative, scaling creative production in a faster, more agile way to ensure there’s enough creativity to find the ‘one’ that resonates. By uniting design and performance from start to finish, advertisers are empowered with the speed and agility to iterate and scale creative production, breaking down creative and data silos, while at the same time providing deep insights to test what’s resonating in the market and optimize campaigns, both in-flight and future, to drive engagement,”
So we can identify that the digital world is once again changing with new challenges and priorities. It is clear that targeting and even personalized targeting will not cut it anymore. Companies need to get creative, they need to have character, they need to gain the trust of the consumers and stand out of their competition which is continuously growing. The best way for a company to achieve this is by testing different creatives, making them “smarter” and easier to grab attention, but also they need to try out different audiences as they are becoming less transparent.
What’s the time to do that?
RIGHT NOW!!!
The appetite of consumers is high and they are also more keen on making purchases online. Thus, to the companies that are able to sell online, the time to take action is now!
Want help with that or do you want to be able to sell online?
Just contact us and we will do the rest!
Sources:
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/10/18/more-half-consumers-will-turn-social-media-holiday-shopping-year