At this time of year, it’s worthwhile to consider what’s likely to occur in search advertising in 2016, so you can adjust your strategy if you’re behind the curve.
I took some time to look at the trends we’re seeing at Bing Ads, where I work. Based on unprecedented access to search data, observing advertiser adoption patterns and gauging client interest, here are some predictions for 2016 and beyond.
Audience Buying Is On Everyone’s Mind
As the technology behind marketing gets stronger, advertisers are able to use real-time data to drive important decisions that have a serious impact on the ad platforms they choose to use.
While there is still a lot of opportunity in front of this industry, targeting an audience across channels is suddenly a possibility, which makes advertising more personally relevant and therefore more effective.
A great example of this is Bing Remarketing campaigns, which allow you define an audience based on certain behaviors on your site and develop customized campaigns to reach that audience on the Bing Network.
The hardest-working muscle in the audience targeting picture is data collection. First-party data is information that businesses can collect on their customers, such as an email address from an offer sign-up, or knowing what shoe model a customer is interested in based on a site visit.
Second-party data is the data a company like Bing or Google can bring to the table: audience search trends, ad clicks, paths to purchase, searcher intent and prediction modeling. We’re so good at prediction modeling that we can see what style of jacket is going to be the big seller this season, months before it makes the news.
Finally, there’s third-party data, which tends to complement other data sources to expand what we know or increase our total view on an audience: Who already owns a Toyota, where do they live, and are there any children in the home?
As the industry continues to invest in audience targeting capabilities, the convergence of these data streams will make it possible for advertisers to effectively deliver their message to a very precise audience that until now was much harder to identify.
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