Are we witnessing the end of Facebook and Google Advertising?
How to prepare for the future of digital marketing
Are we witnessing the end of social media and pixel marketing? An analysis of current trends in the digital landscape and a look at the future of marketing trends. I offer some straight-forward tips on what marketers, entrepreneurs and others can do to prepare for that future – with an emphasis on integration, personalization and decentralization.
‘Whoops. Over the last summer our online metrics have plummeted.’
This is not something you want to hear during a marketing team meeting. Of course, if you’re active in a market that has anything to do with GDPR legislation, you were bound to see dips in your metrics for registered website visitors and opt-in form data. And of course, if you’re in B2B like me, traffic to your website — along with anything else in your company — is traditionally slow during the summer.
However, there’s definitely something more at play here. The GDPR is but a blip in a cloud of data, that shows trends that will make pixel marketing and social media advertising — foundational aspects of most digital marketing strategies nowadays — less and less effective.
What if pixel marketing and social media marketing are indeed dying? What is the future of (online) marketing?
Of course there are still marketers and businesses out there that are seeing positive results from Google and social advertising. And I am among them. But there are some unmistakeable trends that will have an effect on our marketing effectivity, sooner or later.
Here’s what those trends are, what the future holds, and what we can do to prepare for it today.
Current trends in the digital landscape
There are three interdependent trends emerging over the last few years that all have to do with more widespread consciousness about digital personal data and what happens to it. It’s no coincidence that the GDPR aligns with these trends pretty squarely. These are the trends that will have an effect on our marketing in the next few years, like it or not;
The Facebooxodus
In the West, we are witnessing an exodus from Facebook – one that could well be illustrative of a balancing wave after the last decade of very heavy use of social media.
In a recent study, 34 % of Gen Z’ers reported they are leaving social media alltogether, while another 64% are ‘taking a break’. SnapChat seems to be the only (Western) social media app that is holding on to their user base, while one study last year found that Twitter use was down 23%, Instagram use down 23% and Facebook down 8%.
Why are people ditching Facebook and co.?
The awakening: a call for more control of personal data & attention
It seems to be an undercurrent of — for lack of a better term — ‘wokeness’.
Young people are waking up to the fact that social media apps take up too much of their time, and make them sadder, across the board. Also, recent events such as the Trump-Cruz-Brexit-Facebook scandals (the Cambridge Analytica scandal), make people wary of the influence that fake and/or negative news can have on their lives.
Even in China, fears concerning privacy are driving at least some people away from WeChat.
Decentralized social media and the rise of cookie-blocking
The undercurrent of people getting wiser to pixel marketing and data harvesting & monetization by large — mainly Silicon Valley based — companies and people wanting to take control of their own online identities and data is gaining steam.
The booming of decentralized social media platforms such as Synereo (now Hyperspace) and Steemit are a testament to that. So is the rise in penetration of ad blockers we are seeing — up to 30% in the U.S. and 11% of connected devices worldwide — often also impacting the effectiveness of cookies.
Interesting in this space is the combined cookie-blocking browser Brave and its BAT blockchain network for serving ads while respecting the viewer’s identity and privacy.
This trend is a very serious problem if SEA and social advertising are or have been important parts of our marketing over the last few years.
How to get people involved and stop throwing money away?
As marketing professionals, we see the effects of this undercurrent not only in our social engagement metrics but also in the effectivity of ad programs like Google’s.
A part of this problem seems to be exacerbated by the continued problems with inflated metrics from the analytics these kinds of Ad programs offer users. At this point, it seems like we’re basically throwing money away when we invest in Google or Facebook (and Instagram) advertising — as Michael K. Spencer writes, here.
So … What to do, what to do? How are we gonna get people involved in what we do as entrepreneurs, marketers, even artists, after social media, online advertising and pixel marketing? How are we going to be able to track what works and how are we going to avoid missing leads and sales?
A look at the future of marketing tech
In my view, to have a glimpse of our technological and marketing future, there are at this point in time two places to look that may serve as an indication or at least as an inspiration. Those two places are the East — specifically China — and the sphere or wave of decentralized technology associated with blockchain.
Is China really that much ahead of the West? Why, yes.
Let’s have a look at online marketing in China:
So what’s happening with pixel marketing and social media in China? Tracking via pixels works pretty much the same as in the West, with the main difference seemingly being that Baidu is the Chinese’ version of the West’ Google.
The social media landscape meanwhile is barely recognizable for a westerner: No Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, but WeChat (basically; Facebook + Instagram + WhatsApp had a prodigal lovechild and put it on steroids), Weibo (Twitter, only Chinese; better and faster to innovate) and Tencent QQ.
The social media and online ecosystem is much more advanced and offers much more frictionless capabilities for brands and consumers alike. In the below talk Steven van Belleghem illustrates just how far ahead the Chinese are to a frictionless customer experience via mobile apps:
What can we learn from China’s digital marketing ecosystem?
If it’s true that China is a good indication of the future of digital marketing, then we can glean two things from what’s happening there right now:
- Personalization is key. And not in the sense that we make smaller and smaller segments in our marketing automation, or use chatbots to have ‘personal’ interactions with prospects. Real personalization has two aspects: firstly we need to make sure we engage with our potential customers or clients in the modality that they prefer, and secondly — and this is much more the case in B2B — getting closer and closer to a close, we need to literally invest a bit of personal time and attention. The hand-off between marketing and sales needs to be as personal and as smooth as possible.
- Integration is key. Have any and all offers, information, or whatever else your prospected customer might be interested in available within the app/interface that they are communicating with you in. If it’s not possible to offer in-app or in-platform, then make them easy to get to — with as little clicks as possible. And make interactions as effortless as possible.
Frictionless is the key word here. Personal in the latter sense (.2) means that as a user I can do anything I want with whatever device I wish to use, including the one I carry on my body all of the time.
Now let’s have a look at decentralization for social media and for online identity. Identity, because that’s what we’re trading when we deal with placing cookies on someones devices, or rely on cookies accepted by our online audience for our marketing. And social media because, well … because social media.
Decentralized social media
Social media platforms make money off of the content you create, and grow their profits and their power with every post that you like, share, or even scroll over. They make money with every minute of attention you devote to them. And they may very well be damaging your psychological wellbeing while they’re at it.
Decentralized social media platforms see it as their mission to change all of this and turn it around: to make it possible for individuals such as you and I to control and monetize our own data, social network, and attention.
If you want to read more about some of the various platforms out there, or the growth and background of bigger players such as Steemit and Synereo (Recently rebranded as ‘HyperSpace’), check out the article below:
Also, if you want to know what the future of digital advertising might look like, have a look at Brave and BAT. Check out this great article by Jon Wood :
Decentralized identity
Your and my identities are stored in hundreds of centralized databases across the world. From your local and state government, your country’s medical systems and tax office to any and all companies you have ever dealt with, to Facebook, Google, WeChat, Tencent QQ and any and all other places you’ve ever left your name, number, etc.
According to many people, this is a problem for multiple reasons.
Firstly, your identity and information are not under your control. They can be used, shared, sold without your being aware of it. Also, as many databases are linked to each other through extremely complex webs spanning the entire internet, people with ill intentions can obtain much more of your personal information than you could ever imagine, by succesfully breaching any one of the databases you have chosen to trust at some point in time.
How can we solve for trusted identity?
Blockchain could very well be a practical solution to the trusted identity problem, and numerous initiatives have set out to use blockchain technology to make the process of managing ones identity much more easy, secure, and autonomous from the individual’s perspective.
If there’s one thing that blockchain solves for, it’s decentralized, anonymous trust.
Blockchain technology could make it possible to create a sort of personal black box of identity, which automatically shares parts of your complex complete identity to trusted third parties — giving the individual full control of who receives what part of their data, for what purposes and under what conditions. uPort, Civic, Brave and MongoDB are among the most noted platforms in this sphere.
Blockchain/decentralized initiatives to personal identity online, and toward decentralized social media have one thing in common: to get the user more control, and to take away control and power from large, monolithic and profit-driven corporations, and at the same time from governments.
*Edit march 2019: Facebook’s recently announced it’s going to integrate its three messaging platforms FB messenger, Instagram messenger and WhatsApp. Combined with the possibility of Facebook introducing a cryptocurrency or blockchain payment system means it would possibly rival WeChat’s fully integrated functionality for, or even form a threat to blockchain/decentralized social media platforms.
Governments meanwhile, in a broad and global movement, seem to be creating a blocked world consisting of walled-garden political-block-demarcated internetS. But that’s a story for another time.
Brief summary of the effects of online marketing trends
So what is the likely future of online marketing, and specifically pixel marketing and social media? If the developments in China and in the space of Decentralization are any indication, here’s what to expect:
- Less and less personal data (i.e. cookie and other data from digital interactions) on prospects and customers freely and effectively useable.
- Less and less engagement on traditional social media posts, partly due to less usage of social media platforms alltogether. *Edit march 2019: social media messaging might show a different trend in the near future.
- Less and less effective search engine and social media advertising.
How to prepare for the future of digital marketing
And the solution? Well, frankly, I don’t have it 100% figured out just yet. However, here are four things marketers, brands, creatives and entrepreneurs can do right now to get ready for the future of marketing:
1. Grab hold of the wave of rising data consciousness and decentralization
- And toward more balanced use of digital technology. Literally communicate about it and help your customer to have to engage with technology less, in order to benefit from whatever it is you offer, more and more efficiently.
This also borders on making interactions with you as frictionless as possible. But what I’m pointing at here, goes beyond that notion: I want you to think about ways to make your customer engage with your digital products, services and channels less.
And I advise you to talk about it; literally make it an aspect of your communication to remind customers and help them get more balanced and deliberate in their consumption and/or use of digital media, products and services.
Now, if you’re in the business of tech or in digital marketing this might sound self-defeating, but I promise you it’s the exact opposite: this will help both the customer and your business, whatever its aim.
2. More integration across the board
Even if you’re not in the Chinese ecosystem. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all offer fairly advanced ways to interact with your audience within the platform itself. LinkedIn and Twitter both, for instance, offer ways to offer downloads (such as whitepapers if you’re in b2b) or other opt-ins within the app. Instagram offers in-app shopping, and has for quite some time.
But also think about using a service like IFTTT to automate and integrate in-platform distribution of a video through Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc., instantly. Or something like bit.ly or Getsocial to gain greater insights in shares of your content, including the ones via dark social.
Lastly, make sure your insight in a customer’s relationship with you on Facebook corresponds to your insight about their buying history in CRM, their billing history in whatever finance system you have and their latest service questions as well. This adds up to more personalized communication and less friction; a more efficient way for you and your customer to interact.
Integration also pertains to the hand-off or collaboration between marketing and sales.
Integrate, and make interactions more personal every step of the way — from a social post, to a messenger note, to an email; a text message, a phone call and a meetup at an event or a sales pitch if you’re in B2B. Smooth, personal and effortless;
Why should online marketing be that much different from online dating?
3. More collaboration and integration with partners, even competitors
This one does not follow directly from the trends we have identified above. But they do follow indirectly from point 1. of our ‘How-to’ list:
The market is asking for less hassle. People are searching for ways to have more control of their personal data, and of their time and attention. Point 2. in this list shows you how to integrate more so as to make your customers’ and your adience’ lives more frictionless.
But that integration and frictionlessness don’t have to stop at your personal communication with your target groups.
Stop the war for attention. Start collaborating with partners across the digital supply chain to work for the customer. Share data, information and offerings more efficiently;
Why should a car seller and a tire seller be bidding against each other for the same ad slot on the same webpage, vying for the same attention from the same customer with the same, single problem? In stead, work together to serve the customers mobility.
4. More personalized, two-way communication and co-creation of content
Last but not least: have more personal conversations. It really is time to swing the pendulum back on this one.
Chatbots are great. Especially if they free up time for customer facing employees or busy artists or entrepreneurs – and make it possible to invest more time in answering more challenging questions.
But let’s try to keep it more real. Let’s make it as personal as possible, by making the customer part of the creation of your message. Literally; find out what they like. What they need and what messaging works for them.
I once assisted a keynote by people from one of the most succesful content creators in the world, LifeHunters – who claimed to have a formula for viral content and who seemed to be able to prove that they do.
The main thing that this video creation company do differently from 99% of content creators and marketing teams out there? They check their messaging with their target group at every step in the way: from idea to rough concept; to finished video; through to finished and polished version of the video. It’s baffling to me how the industry hasn’t copied this strategy en masse, yet. Including myself.
Please: validate your offerings, your prices, your propositions along with your content. And you know what? When you’re doing all of this checking and validating with your customers; you’re having a meaningful interaction with them, where you can match what they need to reach the next level, with what you can offer.
Why, that almost sounds like the essence of marketing, doesn’t it? Just talking to people!
Closing thoughts
The last thing I’d like to say is: think very seriously about what the trend towards more control of personal data means for you and your business.
What are the chances that your target audience will be one of those groups who will soon migrate to online platforms and solutions such as search tools and browsers that offer them more control of and more security over their identity and data?
How could decentralized identity protocols and social media benefit your relationships with your current and future customers? Or, what are other solutions you see to the problems I adress in this piece? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I greatly value and thank you for your attention. That’s why I try to bring value. I mainly write about conscious and balanced use of technology at Life Beyond. I’d love it if you would let me know how you valued this article.
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