Against this backdrop then, it’s not surprising that companies turn to new technologies and protocols like blockchain to simplify the landscape, improve consumer trust, and bring down advertising costs.

This article assumes that you know a little about blockchain and are interested in how it might be used in digital marketing. If they materialize, the following three possibilities can certainly prove transformative. They can potentially usher in new revenue and operating models for advertisers and publishers, and perhaps rekindle the interest of consumers who turned indifferent to online advertising.

1. Creating Better Buyer Personas

Buyer personas can be pretty accurate these days, but they are still like composites constructed from snippets of data gleaned from disparate sources. Furthermore, the methods of gathering data for persona creation are questionable, since centralized data storages can be compromised, whether through hacking or unintentional data leakage.

Blockchain removes the need for data-collection intermediaries between brand owners and consumers by holding the data encrypted in a distributed ledger. This way, it eliminates all the major security and privacy concerns that are currently troubling marketers and consumers.

Buyer Data Straight from the Source

With security worries minimized, marketers will be free to incentivize consumers to provide personal details directly. Meanwhile, consumers will have control over how much or how little data they provide. With these incentives creating a win-win process of data collection, many consumers will be happy to provide detailed information about their buying habits and preferences.

Once that data is gathered, marketers will be able to create truly accurate buyer personas based on the data collected directly from the source, while consumers will have complete visibility of the process. It’s a perfect formula for laser-targeted marketing, considering that the cost of consumer incentives will be offset, at least to some extent, by removing the need to buy data from vendors.

2. Reducing the Intermediaries in Digital Advertising

Does your company run pay-per-action digital advertising? If so, you probably know there are a number of intermediaries between your ad publishers and consumers. Of course, you can’t remove publishers from the equation, but by establishing blockchain consortium networks and using smart contracts to manage transactions, it will be possible to remove intermediaries that currently sit between your company and the publishers.

For example, the typical role of organizations like Google is to build trust between advertisers and publishers. In return for “service”, these organizations take a slice of the revenue from every ad you serve through their networks.

Who Needs Trust When You Have Consensus?

A blockchain network enables trust between ad buying participants without any intermediaries. For instance, smart contracts can be implemented to ensure publishers will serve an agreed number of impressions, and that you as the advertiser pay the appropriate sum when the obligations are met.

A further advantage of blockchain-based advertising systems is the absence of vulnerability to fraud. About 20% of all digital advertising expenditure is lost to fraudulently represented results. Given this fact, security will surely be a major contributor to ROI for companies implementing decentralized digital marketing.

3. Making Advertising More Buyer-friendly

If digital advertising is so ineffective as some reports suggest, it can only be because ads are unnoticed, or ignored, or even actively avoided by consumers. In fact, it appears to be a combination of all these factors.

As marketers joke bitterly, consumers are more likely to climb Mount Everest or be accepted to Harvard rather than to click on a banner ad. Though not really serious, such statements do reflect some consumers’ distaste for digital advertising. However, blockchain can change that.

Encouraging Consumers to Click

The truth is that digital ads are unpopular with many consumers. According to the research by HubSpot, almost 50% of people who click on ads do so by mistake or claim that the advertiser tricked them into clicking. Consumers often use blocking software to try to avoid exposure to digital advertising, a situation that has prompted advertisers to respond with digital ad-blocking countermeasures.

Blockchain and associated concepts, like basic attention tokens (BAT), can solve many of these problems. Instead of trying to circumvent ad-blocking software, brand owners will have the option to incentivize consumers to view their advertisements and to share their personal data based on blockchain-supported trust.

This way, consumers will have a reason to view ads again, and with better-quality profiling brand owners will be able to shift from the “carpet bomb” ad-serving approach towards precise targeting. This means consumers will only see ads that are most relevant to them, at the point when they are most receptive to advertising messages.

Increasing Engagement throughout Customer Journey

Consumers are no longer over-served with advertising with blockchain. This will make them more willing to share data—both as a result of incentives and improved data security—and will prompt them to click on ads to receive meaningful incentives. With tokenization creating the scarcity factor, the value of incentives will only be increasing.

As a result, consumers will become more engaged with brands and their offerings, and higher ad exposure will also raise conversion probability. Additionally, if your brand uses blockchain to highlight the sourcing ethics and provenance of your products, you can increase trust in your brand, as well as enthusiasm for your advertising even further.

Start Looking Beyond Blockchain Challenges

While this article presents an optimistic view of blockchain as a disruptive force in digital marketing, the consultants and blockchain developers from transition make a point that these solutions are still a work in progress.

Beyond cryptocurrencies and some other financial applications, blockchain protocols are still at the embryonic stage. Therefore, take the ideas outlined above as what may be possible, not as a certainty. There are still challenges inherent in bringing blockchain to digital marketing, like interoperability across platforms and networks.

As we have seen in other digital innovations though, breakthroughs can come quicker than expected. So if your brand is to benefit from being an early mover, you will be wise to look beyond the challenges and start considering what your blockchain-driven digital marketing strategy might look like.

The post 3 Ways Blockchain Can Shake Up Digital Marketing appeared first on Relevance.

Augmented reality comes in various shapes and sizes: from funny puppy dog filters on Snapchat to state-of-the-art apps for smart glasses that change the way you experience your day-to-day life. While augmented reality—or AR—has the potential to affect various part of our lives, it’s already transforming the consumer experience in a myriad of ways. Read on to see how augmented reality marketing is changing the way customers and businesses interact.

3D experience: Trying before buying

Experiencing a product prior to purchase is the backbone of augmented reality marketing. It’s become particularly popular in creative fields, where consumers and businesses alike have to pay for goods and services beforehand.

The big ticket

The architecture field was once revolutionized by the introduction of 3D graphics, which allowed architects to design real-life renderings of their future creations. Now, augmented reality is taking the industry one step further, by allowing consumers to walk through a building before even breaking ground.

Greg Lynn is a Los Angeles-based architect who used Microsoft HoloLens—an augmented reality headset—to design his contribution to the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The HoloLens allowed him to create a presentation that was far more complex and experiential than traditional techniques would have—including animating people, automobiles, and drones into the final model.

“[Architects] build an enormous amount of physical models, and having the ability to both animate them with the simulated flow of equipment and people, as well as calling up more detailed digital content on the actual model in space, is amazing,” said Lynn in an interview with Dezeen.

Augmented reality also allows architects to show at the early stages of construction how a building would function with people in it, as well as the engineering details that will facilitate building the structure at a later date.

That means consumers and investors are getting to see exactly what the building would be like, prior breaking ground. If you’re about to spend millions on a new skyscraper, luxury hotel or superyacht, it seems reasonable that you should be able to see how it will look before commissioning a build. Augmented reality is making that sort of interaction between the consumer and the creator possible.

Home design

Augmented reality marketing isn’t just for big ticket items however. Consumer brands are discovering the possibilities that AR offers—especially when it comes to trying before you buy.

Now, designers can 3D render a piece of furniture and put it virtually into a client’s home prior to purchase. Interior designers can even project their work onto a space and take clients on virtual walkthroughs giving them the opportunity to approve designs before any money is spent.

Even the non-professionals can try out new designs in their homes. Augmented reality apps such as Ikea Place allow consumers to ‘try out’ Ikea furniture in their home via the app. Do-it-yourselfers can virtually re-paint their walls with Home Depot’s paint color app, then take their favorite shade down to the store for purchase.

Virtual fitting rooms

Another example of “trying before buying” with AR is a virtual fitting room. With this technology, the clothing brand Timberland allowed customers to try on new styles without having to get undressed.

The virtual fitting room works by projecting a digital image on the scene recorded by the camera. For the customer, this looks like a virtual mirror in which they can “try on” clothes, accessories or make-up styles.

While their original campaign appeared at a physical store, the virtual fitting room idea can improve the online shopping experience. It makes trying on products easier and more time-efficient, decreasing the number of returns and subsequently, processing costs.

Advertising & consumer info

One of the biggest changes brought about by augmented reality is the way that customers receive information, which, unsurprisingly, was quickly followed by a change in the ways that advertisers present their products. Many consumers are turned off by traditional advertising techniques, so reaching them in a seamless way is difficult.

The aforementioned Snapchat lenses—those cute filters on the Snapchat app that give you bunny ears or snowflake eyeballs, morphed into a massive revenue generator for the company, thanks to the capability for brands to sponsor them. Brands like Taco Bell paid Snapchat to create a filter that turned the user’s head into a giant taco on Cinco de Mayo—a move that quickly went viral.

According to a Snapchat representative, the “TacoHead” lens was viewed a staggering 224 million times, and nearly half of the snapchatters who played with the lens shared snaps of their taco selves with their friends on the app.

This was a huge step in the world of augmented reality marketing, as it meant brands could reach potential consumers through direct recommendations from their friends – something that was virtually impossible in traditional advertising efforts.

The future reality

AR is set to change the way we interact with our day-to-day lives. AR designer Raffael Dickreuter, who created special effects for “Iron Man,” sees it as a more efficient way to provide information. “We still scroll through many pages of Google and ‘flat’ information, whereas certain topics would be much better presented or explained in a three-dimensional, spatial environment,” says Dickreuter.

Others think we’ll be hitting the grocery store with augmented reality eyewear on, and that pricing and nutritional information will be displayed without even picking up the packaging.

There are an infinite number of use cases for augmented reality technology in the field of marketing, but all of them are making customers less of spectators and turning them into vital participants in the B2B and B2C marketing games alike.

The post Augmented Reality: What Marketers Need to Know appeared first on Relevance.