“Anything that can conceive of as a supply chain, Blockchain can vastly improve its efficiency- it doesn’t matter if its people, numbers, data, money.”

Ginni Rometty

(CEO IBM)

 

The internet allows marketers to intensely penetrate the existing markets and find the scope of new markets to amplify demand further. New technologies act as a game-changer in this process because they facilitate effective consumer targeting. Blockchain technology holds a strong potential to disrupt the execution of digital marketing. By any means, this does not imply that the Blockchain revolution will not make things difficult for businesses. It is a change that will eventually happen. Ultimately, marketers with clear foresight would lucratively accommodate it.

 

Marketing is a dynamic function. Its evolution is subject to the vision of marketers and the perception of consumers. The internet explosion was a breakthrough for marketing because of the swiftness and ease it added to communication. By phenomenally transforming the concept of Customer Relationship Management, social media bridges the gap between prospective customers and loyal customers. The rapid growth of leading-edge e-commerce channels and mobile apps reshaped the conventional ways of business. It reshaped value creation and paved the way for personalized marketing based upon trust and customer loyalty. The mechanism of recording information in any Blockchain database follows end to end information verification and authentication. The scope of these characteristics for furthering transparency to digital marketing is limitless. 

 

 

What is Blockchain technology?

 

Blockchain is a disruptive database technology that circulates similar copies of databases across a network, eliminating the scope of hacking or fraudulent activities. It is a commonly shared unmodifiable ledger that helps to keep a record of transactions and tracking assets across a business network. 

 

These assets can be tangible- car, house, cash, etc. and intangible; patents, copyrights, branding, etc. Anything of value can be transacted and tracked through a Blockchain network, reducing risk and costs for all parties involved. Unlike conventional databases, Blockchain technology decentralizes data storage. Instead of managing the data through a centralized administrator, at one location, it stores similar copies of the database across a network of individual computers called nodes.

 

What makes Blockchain technology so secure?

 

Blockchain derives its name from its characteristic of being a chain like digital ledger which comprises individual blocks of data. Each time new data is submitted, it creates a new block that is added to the chain. For maintaining uniformity, all nodes update their respective Blockchain ledgers. The mechanism based on which the new blocks are added to the Blockchain is the critical factor that makes Blockchain technology immensely secure. A bulk of nodes have to verify and ensure the authenticity of every new information before linking a new block to the digital ledger. 

 

Implications of Blockchain technology for Digital Marketing 

 

Blockchain can empower customers

 

The magnitude of the influx and efflux of information on the internet is so intense that deciphering relevant information out of the bulk has become quite a challenge for consumers. Consumers are handing out their data to businesses without getting any value in return. Blockchain gives a solution to this problem.

 

The prevalence of AI and analytics have created milestones in the context of digital marketing. Helping businesses understand the tastes, preferences, needs, conversations of consumers, the degree of knowledge AI, and analytics do not leave much to the imagination for businesses. Blockchain helps surpass the third-party verification for a transaction and hands the data back to the customers.

 

The Blockchain technology-based Brave Browser helps users avoid ads they are not interested in indulging in. By choosing the option to view and receive Basic Attention Tokens for the ads they wish to engage, users get freedom from being bombarded with advertisements they are not interested in viewing. 

 

By doing this, instead of just trading a place to promote ad sales, Brave Browser is exchanging value for user attention. Another example is Blockstack. It is building a network of something similar to a network of decentralized mobile apps. It helps mobile app users to lock the emission of their data once they stop using the particular app.

 

Instilling transparency to avoid ad fraud

 

According to a forecast by the WFA, by 2025, ad fraud will become the largest organised crime market worth $50 billion[i]. According to a report by Traffic Guard/ Juniper, advertisers running unprotected ad campaigns lose about 26% of their investment to ad fraud [ii]. Fraudsters imitate human behaviour for accessing social media, filling forms and cursor movements. They sneak away from getting caught by concealing their geolocation. 

 

 

The most infamous Russian cybercriminals conducted one of the biggest frauds of recent times called Methbot, costing $6 million to the ad industry by faking clicks on video ads. They built more than 6,000 domains and 20,267 unique URL’s that depicted the name of affluent publishers such as Vogue and ESPN [iii]. 

 

Blockchain offers a solution to combat these ad tech frauds that can help to infuse transparency and efficiency in online markets. Executing a well-distributed system and a decentralized ledger can help advertisers audit each ad impression to avoid getting deceived at the hands of fraudsters. One of the prime examples of Blockchain technology to combat ad fraud is the New York Interactive Ad Exchange- the Blockchain-based exchange of NASDAQ. It merges Blockchain technology with Financial Matching Engine? (an essential component of NASDAQ Financial Framework) and gives a platform to advertisers and publishers to transact and re-trade premium advertising contracts [iv]. 

 

Making social media marketing authentic and reliable 

 

According to research published in the International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, fraudulent traffic on social media costs marketers an estimated $16 billion [v]. People constantly looking for avenues on social media to make easy money often get tangled in the gimmicks of the nefarious multi-level marketing companies like gifting schemes. As an end to end process, Blockchain technology adds transparency to activities like booking, buying, placement and advertising on social media as it allows verification of information through a common consensus. It eliminates the probability of social media fraud, ultimately enhancing consumer trust in the social media ads and helping digital marketers advertise profitably. The following elements of Blockchain technology can help make social media marketing more secure [vi]:

    -  An open-source code to help inspect data algorithms.

    -  A decentralized network to inhibit any business or government entity from becoming liable to take action.

    -  Incorporating relevant Artificial Intelligence can help in the digital transformation of social media as the AI-enabled system can explain the reasons behind every action and choice made on social media platforms.

 

Enhancing the performance efficiency of digital marketing campaigns 

 

Blockchain technology helps in infusing transparency to customer information. It ensures that all employees and team members access and share similar client databases across different departments and units. It provides precise, prompt and up to date information about the tastes & preferences of customers to design and showcase advertisements. It helps marketers to advertise relevantly to existing and prospective customers.

 

Blockchain facilitates data accuracy. Accurate data helps marketers to offer a proposition valued by customers. It help in prompt delivery of advertisements instead of spamming customers with extraneous information. This degree of precision holds implications for exemplary brand performance.

 

Information technology is the fastest growing industry globally and has led to Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Keeping in view the rapid pace at which technology is evolving, more industrial revolutions are likely to follow. It is imperative for marketers to lucratively accommodate avant-garde technologies like Blockchain technology and offer immaculate propositions to customers. Transparency is one of the most appealing features of Blockchain technology. Marketers can devise extraordinary core competencies around it. As for the challenges that Blockchain technology poses, a disruptive and creative thought process could transform them into opportunities- it’s what trail-blazing marketers do.

 

 

 

Information sources-

 

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[i] https://www.businessinsider.com/wfa-report-ad-fraud-will-cost-advertisers-50-billion-by-2025-2016-6 

[ii] https://www.businessofapps.com/ads/ad-fraud/research/ad-fraud-statistics/

[iii] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/12/20/methbot-biggest-ad-fraud-busted/?sh=2a2ba6b14899

[iv] https://www.nyiax.com/reuters-nasdaq-provides-blockchain-tech-to-new-advertising-exchange/

[v] https://www.ijrte.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/v8i1s4/A10150681S419.pdf

[vi] https://www.blockchain-council.org/blockchain/blockchain-a-new-generation-of-decentralized-social-media-platforms/