MMS Blog What has changed in the marketing landscape?

What do the following have in common?

A Global Pandemic

Severe Supply Chain Issues

Labor Shortages

Privacy Issues

Technology Advancements

Answer:  They all have impacted the marketing landscape over the past two years.  Here are three of the biggest changes these issues have brought about.

Artificial Intelligence: Known by many monikers, artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning, has been embraced by marketing platforms as the amount of data collected from consumers increases exponentially as smart phones, apps, wi-fi appliances, and devices become more popular.

All the major marketing platforms incorporate AI into the algorithms they use to target people, specifically with marketing ads, and to improve the targeting and performance of that ad over time.  Let’s look at Facebook advertising, for example. 

If we set up an ad for Facebook, with the goal of driving people to purchase a product, such as pet pajamas in a Facebook catalog – we begin by establishing an audience of people interested in pets or who own pets.  The initial ads will go to anyone interested in pets.

As we begin to get people interested in pets to click on the ad, go to the catalog, and make a purchase, Facebook learns characteristics of pet people who are most likely to buy our pet pjs.  Then the targeting gets even better and starts having the ad shown to people who are most similar to people likely to buy our pet pjs.  And our ad performance improves!

Privacy Restrictions:  As AI increased in popularity…so did privacy concerns.  Led by Apple, such as in many of their new platform releases, tech companies have made it less automatic that data is collected from individuals as easily.  In 2020, marketers could automatically access data about what apps were used, if someone opened an email, if someone was shopping for pet pjs…and if you didn’t want that data tracked, you had to go into settings and turn off tracking manually.

In 2021, Apple’s upgrades made it so that consumers would have to opt-in or say – “yes, I want to be tracked”.  If you didn’t say yes, you were automatically not tracked.  In actuality, you are still tracked by Apple, but that data is no longer available to advertisers.

The impact?  The marketing targeting accuracy has been watered down, particularly to people using Apple devices.

Video: With the increase in people consuming online content, streaming platforms, and TikTok, video has become the best eye-catching way of attracting consumers in marketing advertising.  The videos need to catch attention from the opening visual and convey a message within the first three seconds.  Advertising videos have become shorter and shorter – particularly as the age of your target audience decreases.

Video can now be used in a variety of marketing platforms including pre-roll (the videos that play before content streaming), on local TV, YouTube, social media platforms, and within general internet content/articles in apps. Almost any advertisement can be in video format. Our team continuously monitors what is changing in the marketing landscape and we apply that knowledge to the campaigns we manage for our clients.  If you’d like to talk to a marketing expert about these or other changes in the marketing landscape, give us a call to schedule a conversation.