Advanced data analytics, latest technology and digital marketing driving profitable growth of the organisation

Digital marketing is becoming vital for brands due to the fact that an average Indian consumer is looking at the smartphone at least 150-170 times in a day.

Digital marketing is more than the buzzword today, as it has proven to be the clear driving force behind the online success of many leading brands. More and more organisations today have a dedicated digital marketing budget as an integral part of the overall marketing expenditure.

Among the latest trends in digital marketing and the constant need to align with the newer IT technologies, data has become the core driver for marketers to transfer the digital business for today’s organisation.

There is a greater need than ever before for a marketer to align advanced data analytics, other latest IT technologies with the digital marketing not only to improve the consumer experience but also to understand his overall buying journey.

Digital marketing is becoming vital for brands due to the fact that an average Indian consumer is looking at the smartphone at least 150-170 times in a day. Moreover, the number of smartphone users in the country are also increasing each month.  Smartphone market for the Q3 2017 is approximately 42 million units up 24 percent since same quarter last year in India.

Today’s intelligent and empowered consumer is forcing the marketers to realign their marketing strategies as they are demanding fast and immediate responses and relevant messaging in the respective channel of choice while interacting with the brand.

The following trends have necessitated the above alignment:

Big data churning: Consumer is exposed to more and more data every minute and the overall digital universe is also expanding at a much faster rate, expected to reach more than 50 trillion gigabytes by 2020. There is greater need for the technology to make this big data more actionable for driving overall digital and marketing strategy and solving complex business-related issues.

Convergence: There are multiple consumer touch points that exist today with significant traction for marketer to attract. Technology becomes imperative to create digital content with target rich data and also to converge the search, content, mobile and the local market for effective digital marketing campaigns.

Automation for the right content: Due to non-linear consumer journey nowadays, there are multiple consumer touch points, and there is greater need for the right technology and data science to capture the consumer imagination at the right time at the right touchpoint for creating the precise intelligent content.

Some of the newest technologies embraced by many organisations such as machine learning, big data science, predictive analysis, cloud technology, blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data analytics etc.

All these technologies are fundamentally changing the way the marketer is interacting with the consumers and viewing the data related with it. Apart from covering new consumer Insights, organizations are also targeting new consumer base, approach the existing consumers with specific solutions for the pain points and also optimising the spending by effectively collaborating with traditional marketing practices.

These technologies are also helping the marketer make sense of the large chunk of digital data available to them from various touch points.

They are able to create a single quantified view of the consumer that is unique and personalised by integrating the information and data coming from various touchpoints and also turning this consumer insight into relevant business action.

Marketers are now using omni-channel strategy to target new-age consumers as consumer reception to different channels also include mobile platform videos (18-20 percent), and online (38 percent), which are catching up with a traditional medium such as TV (42 percent) and direct mailers (18 percent) etc.

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Apart from this, the modern-age marketer is also leveraging technology to overcome challenges due to the proliferation of real-time consumer data coming from various connected digital devices the consumer uses. Brands are using technology tools such as artificial intelligence and machine tools constantly to connect customer insights to swift business actions in real time. This, despite the non-linearity of the modern-age customer, as his journey consists of various combinations of channels and touchpoints before he or she makes the actual purchase.

The new-age technologies as mentioned above are also helping organisations effectively leverage internal data such as CRM, web data etc., rather than being overdependent on third-party data, which is more syndicate in nature and does not give specific deep-dive insight on a particular brand performance.

The organisations across various sectors in India are continuously investing and retaining the digital marketing talent and also improving collaboration between various other divisions within the organisations to make them technology-ready, so that alignment and usage of technology results in superior customer experiences.

Social media analytics by technology giants such as YouTube analytics, Klout, Facebook Audience Insights, Social Mention, Google Analytics are constantly evolving to help track the customer insights, which also complements the new-age technology.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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Cryptocurrency malware will pop up in ‘most unexpected places’ in 2018, researchers say

One of the more unfortunate trends that shaped up as a result of the massive blockchain boom last year was the sudden proliferation of crypto-jacking scripts – malware designed to steal your CPU power to surreptitiously mine cryptocurrency. And new research suggests the trend is here to stay in 2018.

A study conducted by ad-blocking service AdGuard indicates that so-called crypto-jacking threats will likely continue “to be found in the most unexpected places” over the course of this year.

Previous AdGuard research had discovered that there are over 33,000 infected websites on the internet, accumulating a total of one billion visits and over $150,000 in mining rewards.

The study further notes this new epidemic partially has to do with the dwindling effectiveness of ad monetization.

“The code of mining scripts was being found on websites, in apps, games, browser extensions, and of course in advertising banners and other elements,” the researchers write. “Ads often get infected with malware or mining scripts by hackers that break into ad networks, so even ads of well-known and reliable advertisers can be dangerous.”

While cryptocurrency mining scripts have often been leveraged with unethical intentions in mind, some legitimate websites appear to be also considering adapting their business models to capitalize on this new trend. Indeed, popular publisher Salon is currently experimenting with this approach.

Unlike Salon though, some other websites – like The Pirate Bay and CBS’s Showtime – were caught secretly running scripts to lend visitors’ computing cycles to mine crypto.

It is disappointing to know that crypto-jacking will only spread more over 2018, but the good thing is that there are measures you can take to thwart such attempts before they’ve happened – you can find more about that here.

Alternatively, you can just download the latest version of Opera, which comes with built-in protection against crypto-jacking.

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New tracker prevents your luggage from getting lost

London: A new innovative technology has come out that can prevent your luggage from getting lost on flights.

The tracking device is designed by Delta Airlines and allows people to keep a check on their items on their mobile phone.

The concept of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is used in tags to track their items. These tags are then tracked by various antennas along the route.

Touted to prevent a lot of hassle, it can help customers to monitor their bags at any given time. The passengers can keep a track on Fly Delta app and opt to receive push notifications.

According to Daily Star, the product testing has been positive so far. It has come out with 99.9 percent success rate, ensuring accurate loading and routing.

Currently, the tracking device is being used on the routes from Heathrow to the US. However, it is expected to be rolled out across more hubs in the future.

Tags: Tracker, Luggage, Flights, Technology, Radio Frequency Identification

Google integrates payments offerings under Pay; will bring to India through Tez app

Tez is likely to be strengthened with additional Google Pay functionalities for merchants and customers Google has integrated its peer-to-peer (P2P) payments app (Google Wallet) and its mobile payments and loyalty solution (Android Pay) under one single brand — Google Pay. Now onward, all payment information saved in customers’ Google accounts would be stored across Google products and auto-filled during Chrome or web purchases, Android in-app purchases, YouTube subscriptions, and offline point-of-sale, and more. “With Google Pay, it’ll be easier for you to use the payment information saved to your Google Account, so you can speed through checkout with peace of mind. Over the coming weeks, you’ll see Google Pay online, in-store, and across Google products, as well as when you’re paying friends,” Pali Bhat, VP of Product Management, Payments, Google stated in an official blog post.

Google also announced popular consumer services like Airbnb, Dice, Fandango, HungryHouse, and Instacart already support Google Pay, and more sites and stores in the US are set to roll out Google Pay in the coming weeks. What it means for India While Google Pay is largely focused on Western markets — neither Android Pay nor Google Wallet was made available in India — its features are likely to come to India via Google’s made-for-India product, Tez. “Tez was built for India first, as the payment needs and environment are different. Tez is not affected by today’s announcement, but we will be bringing all the additional Google Pay functionality to India’s users, developers, and businesses through Tez,” a Google spokesperson told YourStory. Tez launched in September, and has recorded 140 million transactions since. It has an active user base of 12 million and is supported by over 5.25 lakh merchants in the country. The UPI-led app started with allowing P2P payments only.At the Google for India event in December, Google announced that Tez was rolling out support for utility bill payments. Tez wallets can now be linked with mobile and broadband carriers, electricity boards, water and gas suppliers, DTH providers, etc. Google also roped in Xiaomi for Tez integration. Now, customers can pay on Xiaomi’s e-commerce platform, Mi.com, via Tez. More such partnerships are likely. If Tez is further beefed up with Google Pay functionalities, it’ll expand the overall payments ecosystem and generate multiple use cases for customers. “Tez is a wallet and it draws users from the UPI ecosystem. Google Pay, on the other hand, is a PoS product. It can offer a loyalty programme, discount coupons, merchant benefits and more. Google Pay will pull users from a larger universe,” Pavel Naiya, payments analyst at Counterpoint Research, told YourStory. Thus, a Google-Pay-cum-Google-Tez offering would possibly create the most holistic digital payments solution in India.