Commentary

Real-Time Marketing Redefined; Publishers Will Offer Choice Of Compensation Models

Real-time marketing remains confusing, but it will be redefined in 2017, according to ShareThis.

Plus, we’ll see a flight to ad quality this year as the value exchange between consumers and publishers becomes more transparent, according to Sourcepoint.

Real-time marketing will be redefined: Real-time marketing remains an overused buzzword, with a lack of consensus on how to define it. The goal of real-time marketing has always been to enable marketers to increase the speed with which they can execute across channels, so they can respond to customers in actual real time.

The technical limitations that deter marketers from responding to a customer’s action almost immediately are disappearing. The market is finally moving toward real time that’s measured by hours instead of weeks. 

Without a persistent identifier, brands and advertisers have been relying on third-party tracking cookies which often expire or are manually removed, limiting the amount of actionable user and behavioral data that can be gathered. 

We’re going to see a shift in 2017 where real-time marketing will be  redefined as a response to brand marketers that need to gather, process, distribute, match, and make data available far more effectively and efficiently. It will be a year defined by actionable insights, and winners are going to have fresh data that they can push to brands more quickly to enable responses in genuine real time. 

--Kurt Abrahamson, CEO, ShareThis, a provider of real-time sharing and engagement tools for publishers

Ad quality improves: Media giants Google and Facebook have joined the fight to improve ad quality, which will continue to be a focus for all involved in the digital advertising and publishing industries. For consumers who ‘opt in’ to ad-supported experiences, increased quality and an improved user experience are key. 

Transparency conversation continues: Advertisers and publishers must work together to lay the foundations to create a sustainable digital industry. Communicating with audiences in a transparent manner about the previously implicit ‘value exchange’ of viewing ads in return for accessing content will be a priority.

By ‘value exchange,’ I mean the understanding that publishers provide high quality content for ‘free’ and in return, consumers view ads that fund the production of publishers’ content. To date this understanding has been implicit. I believe the value exchange must be transparently communicated to everyone so that audiences understand how content is funded. Messaging about this value exchange will be used to directly engage with a publisher’s broad audience. 

Publishers will offer choice of compensation methods: Rather than relying on the traditional ad-funded experiences, publishers can test and analyze the impact of other types of compensation strategies, including customizable ad experiences, micro payments, and macro payments. This testing and understanding of consumer preferences, not just consumers who use ad blockers, will ultimately allow publishers to maximize revenue opportunities in 2017 and beyond. 

--Ben Barokas, Founder and CEO, Sourcepoint, a content compensation platform for publishers and content providers

Next story loading loading..