With the rise of ad-blocking usage as well as the prominence of ad-free channel alternatives, such as the recently launched YouTube Red, there is widespread panic across the industry. In this post, Greg Taylor, managing director at Marketo, tells us why new and strategic technology is becoming an increasingly promising avenue for marketers and advertisers scrambling to find a solution.

The use of adblocking software is not unfounded however. For too long, advertisers have been broadcasting mass messages to customers via intrusive and irrelevant means. For Australian consumers in particular, the two biggest issues were ad interruptions being too frequent and not addressing personal interests.

Simply put, the greatest problems encountered by consumers was the lack of personalisation with advertisements, with intrusive and irrelevant ads being broadcast too frequently.

Taking a holistic approach to marketing can greatly ease this revolt against marketers and advertisers. Advertisers need to become more conscious of their customer’s resentment to mass communications and adopt a strategy of individual customer engagement.

An integral part of this holistic approach is the use of technology to analyse customer data to drive more personalised interactions with businesses. As adtech and martech collide, they provide the best solutions to solving the complexities in data analysis and management and will become foundations to how advertisers and marketers conduct their communications with their customers.

Marketing technology is allowing marketers to increasingly become the drivers in the communication between business and their customers.

By using data driven processes and analysing customer interactions, marketing technology is able to create unique individual experiences and subsequently change the perspective consumers have on spam. Essentially for consumers, if it’s not personalised, it’s spam.

There are certain challenges when new solutions are used to better enhance user experiences and both marketers and advertisers should be wary of consumer sentiment. For new adtech and martech solutions, privacy remains the greatest issue. Over half of Australian consumers are worried about brands violating their data privacy.

Data privacy is therefore more important for Australian consumers than a good user interface, functionality, frequent updates or cross-channel capabilities. Just as irrelevant ads push people towards ad blocking, failing to protect privacy will produce a similar aversion to sharing their data with brands. Customers are looking for personalisation, but only in ways they have allowed.

By combining the unique capabilities of adtech and martech solutions into one platform, marketers and advertisers can best present communications which are heavily integrated, offering a more personalised experience for customers. So far however, organisations have failed to truly integrate these products.

In order for businesses to have the best chance of success, they need to take this more considered and holistic approach to communication and interaction. Only then can businesses truly understand the needs and wants of their consumers on a more personal level, ensuring the delivery of personalised user experiences and reducing the need for adblocking – hopefully extinguishing the need for ad blockers.