Out With The Old Programmatic And In With The New AR/VR

Woman with glasses of virtual reality. Future technology concept. Modern imaging technology.

Marketers will spend less on programmatic and more on emerging technologies like AR/VR and the Internet of Things (IoT), as the shift to make advertising more personal continues.

The Future 40 report by global consultancy R3 looks at how innovative technologies are changing the world of marketing.

It suggests we are seeing somewhat of a ‘changing of the guard’ between dominant technologies in the space, with programmatic still a dominant force, but slowing as other technologies emerge.

In 2019 65 per cent of all money spent on advertising in digital media will be traded programmatically, however, R3 expects this to slow “as the market matures”.

It cites low click-through rates and audience saturation as the main challenges for programmatic.

So if programmatic is set to fall out of favour, where will marketers be spending their money instead?

The report cites research which suggests 51 per cent of marketers think that customer behaviour in the next 12 – 18 months will be driven by technological developments in AI, augmented reality, virtual reality and IoT.

“Today’s data-driven marketers are using AI to help them measure their progress, grow revenue and reach customer goals while taking into consideration the multiple variables that affect business today,” says R3.

AI can be potentially used for truly targeted lead generation, smaller sales cycles, auto-streamlined operations and optimised user experience.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are both drawing an increasing proportion of marketer’s spend, due to the ability of the technologies to take customers ‘closer’ to products.

AR marketing specifically is tipped to grow to $US117.4bn ($AU166.6bn) by 2022.

With so many different technologies now available to marketers, the question then becomes which ones are worth investing in.

R3 suggests businesses take a ‘horses for courses’ approach.

“Which technology category will receive the most investment is dependent on the type of company and the level of implementation required,” the company says in the report.

“Some technologies require minimal integration with legacy systems, while others demand extensive integration.

“However, the investment is justified by the amount of revenue these technologies are anticipated to bring in for companies.

“Greater digital interactions will generate more data sets, which will allow retailers to better customise promotions, prices and products for each customer, dynamically in real-time.”

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