At the start of 2013, the ad industry was charging forward at a rapid pace, and I believed only companies that continued to innovate would survive. In 2012, we had witnessed the launch of Facebook Exchange (FBX), the introduction of real-time hashtag targeting, and multiple acquisitions. Brands and agencies were trying to determine how to use those new delivery channels and ad platforms.
These were the six trends I predicted for 2013:
Companies Providing ROI Will Become Frontrunners in the Sector
With the abundance of unstructured data across the open Web, brands have been assiduously looking to measure social metrics in an accurate way. While tweets, likes, comments and mentions, determine the general engagement a consumer has with an advertiser, brands and agencies have yet to evaluate how these interactions ultimately drive a company’s bottom line growth, failing to convert existing social metrics into actual campaign ROI. In the next year, the companies that can create technologies to connect the dots between engagement and customer acquisition will become the leaders in the advertising sector.
Vertical Social Networks on the Rise
With the massive number of users on Facebook’s platform, I expected the company might begin charging for some access to newsfeed information as the noise-to-signal ratio widened. If that happened, I expected vertical social networks with a more niche focus to gain tremendous popularity in 2013. We’ve already seen this with sites like Pinterest for digital collections and Tumblr for picture blogging.
Increased Consolidation Is Coming
By early 2013, the online advertising industry had become overcrowded, and I believed consolidation was inevitable. I expected strategic acquirers to differentiate their offerings through acquisitions: some would enhance ad-tech products they already had, while others would buy their way into the sector instead of building from scratch.
Richer Mobile Interface will Increase Online Experience
The rise of the smartphone had already made mobile a more usable way to consume content, and advertisers were beginning to follow that attention. In 2013, I expected the next generation of mobile networks to support richer, more creative experiences for consumers and create more opportunities for advertisers.
The Concept of Multichannel Advertising Becomes a Reality
Toward the end of 2012, a Google study cited in the original article found that consumers spread their time across four primary devices: TVs, computers, tablets, and smartphones. Some of this time is combined as 77 percent of respondents use another device while watching TV, and 90 percent use multiple screens sequentially to complete one task. I saw that behavior as an opportunity for brands to build cross-channel campaigns and predicted that those campaigns would become commonplace during 2013.
Apple Introduces the Rumored AppleTV
Reports at the time said Apple was testing television designs with major Asian component suppliers. I predicted that a new Apple television product could create a full-screen ecosystem for developers and content creators and disrupt Hollywood.
These were forecasts made at the beginning of 2013, not guarantees. The common thread was clear: mobile, consolidation, social networks, and better measurement were forcing advertising technology companies to keep innovating and prove that their tools could improve business results.
