The digital trends of tomorrow

What trends will determine digital marketing and e-business in the future? What should advertisers be prepared for? Visitors to the Swiss Online Marketing trade fair on April 9 and 10 at Messe Zürich will receive answers to these questions. In a press release issued on Tuesday, the participants in a panel discussion (which will take place on the second day of the trade fair) describe the most exciting developments in their markets of India, Turkey, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and Switzerland - and take a look into the crystal ball.

E-commerce boom in India

Online shopping and marketing via social networks is booming in India, reports Aswin Kandasamy, social media expert at the software company Enqos in Chennai, India. "People in India have discovered e-commerce for themselves and taken it to a whole new level. All the top brands are jumping on this trend." There are also some successful start-ups whose marketing is completely based on the online channel and social media, says Kandasamy. His forecast for the near future: "In a few years, people will spend as much time shopping online as they do on social networks today. In-store shopping will decrease dramatically."

Data in marketing from the perspective of a Quizduell maker

"Although people now spend more time online with their mobile devices than with desktop computers, mobile advertising has not yet found its place in the advertising ecosystem," explains Swedish entrepreneur and online marketer Anders Willstedt. One of his topics at #SOM14 will be the question of what needs to be done to reach the ever-increasing number of users with mobile advertising, says Willstedt, who co-developed the Quizduell app together with his brothers and some friends. In his view, data and knowledge about users will play such an important role in digital marketing in five years' time that media or agencies that are financed by revenue from online advertising and have not adapted to these new realities will disappear from the market.

Performance marketing grows in Turkey

"For us, the performance marketing mentality is currently growing quite aggressively," reports Yunus Güvenen, founder and managing partner of Istanbul-based Digitouch Performance Media Group. "We are seeing industries that were previously active in branding now in lead tracking and analyzing online ROI - these are exciting times," says Güvenen, whose companies currently include Turkey's leading affiliate network, an RTB/audience network and a digital media agency. "I firmly believe that digital CRM, business intelligence and advertising will merge," is his outlook for the future. "We are already seeing the beginnings of this in retargeting, but the possibilities and scope go far beyond that."

Multi-touch attribution will prevail

Lara Kelly, Atlas Head of International Sales at Facebook, is also concerned with the measurability of online advertising campaigns. She predicts far-reaching changes in conversion attribution. "The current model is 'last click wins', i.e. the purchase decision is attributed to the last banner that the user clicked on." However, this model only represents part of the path to conversion. This is because users have already come into contact with various product messages before this last click. "Multi-touch attribution, on the other hand, costs more time, but provides clarity as to which banners, campaigns, publishers and media generate the highest added value." In the coming years, more solutions will be developed to measure the effectiveness of advertising spend across all the different devices and channels so that marketers know where they are spending their budgets with the greatest success, says Kelly, who has worked in various roles in online display, affiliate marketing, search and data analytics for 15 years.

Market shakeout in Switzerland

In his opinion, the next (r)evolution will be comprehensive device recognition; potential customers can be addressed ever more directly thanks to cross-device profiles, confirms Andi Nigg, founder of Adwebster. He is also observing a market shakeout in the digital advertising industry in Switzerland. "Many middlemen and marketers who used to trade in advertising inventory are being replaced by automated systems that publishers and advertising customers can access directly," says Nigg.

Automation of campaigns

Michael Ossendrijver also believes that digital marketing campaigns will be almost completely automated in the future. "This means that real-time data will play a central role in buying and selling media. We are facing a 'battle of the machines' in which the aim is to buy target groups and individual users - each time with an individual price, message and KPI," says Ossendrijver, co-owner and Business Development Director of the DQNA Media Group in the Netherlands. Real Time Bidding is the first step; video, audio and TV advertising will follow suit with similar models. "Technology is the future" attribution across different channels and devices will take center stage and contracts with publishers or other advertising partners will look radically different than they do today. "There needs to be a completely new way of thinking about online marketing: data will become a kind of religion and the driving force behind every creative and business decision."

Market knowledge from international experts 

"We are bringing together experts with different backgrounds and from different markets for this panel discussion in order to paint a multi-layered picture of developments in digital marketing," explains Catrin Rubenson, CEO of Admazin, who is organizing and moderating this keynote panel discussion. It will open the second day of the Swiss Online Marketing trade fair on April 10 at 9.30 am.

Further information on Swiss Online Marketing, its program and exhibitors can be found at Swiss-online-marketing.ch to find.