What were the biggest shifts you saw in digital in 2021?
During 2021 we witnessed a real uptake in our clients wanting to leverage their web and app measurement technologies to gain a deeper understanding of how their consumers were behaving during web and mobile sessions. This type of analysis is critical for brands to understand behaviour and the friction points that their consumers face when trying to navigate various consumer journeys. This analysis is one of the prerequisites for data-driven marketing; various technologies and strategies are giving brands access to an incredible amount of consumer insights that can be used to drive a brands business and marketing strategies.
What will the most notable changes be in 2022?
The most noticeable change in 2022 will be the need for brands and advertisers to have a first-party data strategy. With the recent introduction of new data privacy measures being introduced across mobile channels (IDFA) and the disappearance of the third-party cookie we will start to see a reduction in targetable audiences. I predict that we will also start to see an uptake in the procurement of technologies such as customer data platforms, these are critical for brands who want to activate their first-party data and offer their consumers a more consistent customer experience across various channels and consumer devices.
Where are the biggest challenges this year, and how should clients overcome them?
Increasing customer expectation: due to the continued rise and dependence on mobile devices and much broader accessibility to the internet consumers have 24/7 access to the information and interactions they want, whenever they went. This means that they have very high expectations when it comes to brand interactions. They expect innovative, personalised shopping experiences, and currently only a few brands in the region are able to even come close to meeting these expectations. In order to achieve this, brands need to think holistically and remove themselves from working in silos to form an integrated technology and marketing architecture that is supported by the technology, solutions and organisational design required to deliver this ideal brand experience.
What should clients do to make the most of the biggest opportunities?
There has to be something said about brilliant basics, there is often little appreciation for the ecosystem that needs to exist to be able to deliver a worthy customer experience every time. Consumers should have a great and consistent experience every time they interact with a brand. That might be from finding a brand organically, to then being able to find what you’re looking for through a digital channel, right through to then purchasing a product or service. My advice would be to focus on getting these basics in place, along with the technology that will allow a brand to unlock their first-party data and start to offer more personalised experiences. These alone will go a long way to unlocking the biggest of opportunities.
WHAT DIGITAL NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION SHOULD PEOPLE MAKE THIS YEAR?
Ensuring that your brand has a data visualization solution that can automate the dashboarding for things like media reporting, web and app analytics data, lead gen reporting and competitive monitoring, that way you are able to make almost real-time strategic digital marketing decisions.
