(They probably shouldn’t switch to video entirely, though. Just in case.)
Advertising and augmented reality will merge.
Augmented reality (AR) may not have the same pop culture cachet as virtual reality, but they’re pretty similar; they can be combined.
If that sounds futuristic, it’s not. AR is already here and making waves on social media, especially on Snapchat. The app’s face-swapping (and hair-swapping) video filters have long been a mainstream form of AR, and its latest tools take that up a notch—new lenses that overlay AR effects on real-world scenery, thanks to the lidar sensors on the latest iPhones and iPads.
AR filters on Snapchat | Source: Snapchat
The AR upgrade has also impacted Snapchat’s ad products. During the coronavirus pandemic, Snap partnered with retailers like Gucci and Kohls to create a new digital shopping experience where consumers can use AR to virtually try on shoes and jackets and then buy them with a click of a “buy now” button.
We predict that more and more marketers, especially in e-commerce, will join this trend in 2021 — and we think it will extend far beyond Snapchat.
We predict that more and more marketers, especially in e-commerce, will join this trend in 2021 — and we think it will extend far beyond Snapchat.
TikTok has also made some early attempts at lidar augmented reality. This month, the app launched a confetti fall filter that allows digital confetti to realistically fall on people and objects in videos.
We predict that they will start selling AR ads soon — if they haven’t already.
Privacy is paramount…
If this comes as a surprise to you, you’ve been burying your head in the sand. The European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, and the California Consumer Privacy Act came into effect in early 2020. Around the same time, Google announced that Chrome would “phase out” support for third-party cookies by 2022.
This makes 2021 the last year for marketers to do third-party tracking — at least on web browsers, which a whopping 70% of people use.
But it hasn’t been all plain sailing this year when it comes to data collection. Marketers could be facing a major privacy move from Apple at any time — specifically, the iOS14 update that includes App Tracking Transparency (ATT). This new feature will only allow brands to collect user data with the user’s explicit consent.
Users will give their consent via a pop-up like this:
While the details of the update (and its release date) remain unclear, one thing is clear: consumer privacy will be a top priority this year, and marketers may not have access to the detailed customer data and performance metrics they’ve become accustomed to.
…marketers will turn to creative attribution workarounds.
Data difficulties across the entire customer journey can create special challenges when it comes to attribution. Which digital marketing channels are driving conversions?
Jonathan Martinez, growth marketing manager at Uber, told MarketerHire that in a privacy-oriented world, the answer may become "more and more murkier."
More likely, though, marketers will resort to creative workarounds.
For example, Martinez foresees "a rapid evolution of incremental brazil phone number format testing" for measuring channel effectiveness. In other words, he thinks marketers will increasingly A/B test every paid marketing channel against purely organic strategies to ensure they're paying for measurable lift.
(eBay did this in 2013 and found that its paid search strategy had a minimal incremental impact on its bottom line—though marketing insiders question the generalizability of those results.)
Meanwhile, Disruptive Digital head (and former Facebooker) Maurice Rahmey predicts marketers will become more reliant on first-party data—and Facebook.
Rahmey predicts that the iOS 14 update will “further solidify Facebook’s position as the de facto paid media channel.” “Other channels…cannot derive the same level of recognition from their user base as Facebook.”
He believes that Facebook’s billions of powerful user profiles will help it simulate fast, high-quality attribution solutions as the digital landscape changes.
He’s not the only one thinking this way. Paid social media consultant Savannah Sanchez recently shared a similar hypothesis on Twitter:
Despite being embroiled in antitrust litigation, this year is still a big year for Facebook