3 Ways Blockchain Will Revolutionize Digital Marketing

From brand safety to transparency to data security, blockchain is all set to transform digital marketing, the way we know it

If you thought blockchain was something that’s transforming only the fintech industry, you couldn’t be more wrong! There’s a lot more to blockchain than just bitcoins – the technology is all set to disrupt every industry that deals with data transactions. A bold claim perhaps? Not at all, really, when you consider what’s at stake, what’s happening today and what is yet possible.

What is blockchain?

Eight years ago, a white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto described a peer-to-peer distributed electronic cash system that could enable direct online payments between parties without the need of financial counterparties. Put simply, Blockchain is a digital ledger that allows people to record data securely, in a way that the data is both verifiable and decentralized. Think of it as a massive spreadsheet that operates in a decentralized network format (Google sheets anyone?), you don’t need to wait for someone to finish editing a document, before making changes it to it. It can be maintained simultaneously by multiple people, without the need for the data to be stored at any single location, making it public and verifiable. This also ensures that the data on a blockchain is virtually incorruptible, since the entire network is needed to make changes.

Blockchain enthusiasts cite its reliability, its efficiency as a global network of value exchange, the fact that it has no single point of failure, its outstanding security features and its ability to generate value for its users.

But what does it mean for marketers?

For marketing and advertising professionals, Blockchain signifies a step towards transparency, brand-safety and accountability. Industry organizations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Data & Marketing Association are already exploring how Blockchain can be used by marketers and advertisers. Alanna Gombert, CRO at the Los Angeles-based Blockchain startup, MetaX says, “It is no longer the year of data — now it is the year of blockchain,”.

Blockchain: Marketing in a decentralized world

At a time when data and privacy concerns are at an all-time high, where brand-safety is the number one priority for advertisers and publishers and people are becoming more guarded about the information they share online, blockchain technology promises to deliver transparency and will provide an unprecedented level of security to all data transactions.

With blockchain technology, it will be imperative for marketers to deliver real, authentic value to consumers so that they agree to voluntarily part with their valuable personal data. Additionally, customers will get more visibility into where their data is being used. What’s more, in a decentralized world, customers will have the power to pull their data out at any time, pushing companies to constantly deliver value so that customers feel it’s worth the tradeoff of keeping their information accessible. In contrast to companies today, like Facebook, Google, and Amazon that enjoy centralized power, where consumers have no choice but to share their data with them, even in ways against their wishes.

As with any new technology, there are new ideas that come along with it. Here are a few ways in which blockchain will transform marketing:

1. Online Ad Verification
   As brands continue to pull online ad spend amid concerns over brand safety, the idea of deploying blockchain for ad verification could prove to be extremely beneficial for marketers. Blockchain could provide a mechanism for brands to know where their ads have been placed.
   The global forecast for revenue lost to ad fraud in 2017 is currently pegged at a staggering $16.4 billion. Considering how expensive ad delivery auditing is today, blockchain offers a cost-effective alternative – decentralized ad auditing. With blockchain, you could potentially take ad deliveries from an ad server and then release them to the mining machines, which would then analyze them for fraud. Simple indicators like a non-live browser supposedly seeing an ad, can help marketers figure out if the ad delivery actually took place. A step further would be, if those frauds could be identified and blacklisted in real time.
   Earlier in June this year MetaX and the Data & marketing Association launched adChain, an open protocol in Ethereum, a cryptocurrency that tags a piece of creative and follows it on the internet to ensure viewability and determines who saw the ad and what actions were taken afterward. adChain lets multiple stakeholders, from agencies to publishers to marketers, work together without dependency.
2. Data protection and regulatory compliance
   With stringent data protection regulations like the GDPR coming into effect across all major markets, marketers can also leverage the blockchain technology to store large volumes of customer data securely. The fact that, the technology benefits from being securely encrypted and decentralized, makes it an attractive alternative to traditional data storage methods.
   Additionally, regulatory compliance to GDPR that will require marketers to take consent from their customers, can also be managed through blockchain. Blockchain experts expect marketers to use this technology to negotiate consent in an era of mandatory digital consent.
3. Media Buying
   Brian Lesser, CEO at Group M predicts that “over time, all media will be digital, all digital will be addressable, and addressable media will be bought and sold programmatically.” In the digital marketing world, companies such as Facebook and Google have made windfall gains with the introduction of programmatic advertising. These companies have made their fortunes helping advertisers run their ads on websites through their display ad network. So, Google is essentially the middleman that helps advertisers and website owners build trust with each other. What if an advertiser and a website owner already trusted each other? They wouldn’t need a middleman take a cut off of their profits.
   By using blockchain technology for programmatic buying, advertisers can easily verify if a user is genuine and ensure that the website owner is only charging the advertiser for genuine clicks. Blockchain could very well disrupt Google’s display network model!

While the potential of blockchain is exciting, mass consumer understanding and large-scale business adoption of the technology is still a few years away.

Nonetheless, blockchain offers numerous advantages for marketers in terms of security, transparency, efficiency, and performance. It is for these reasons that early adoption of the technology could really make a big difference. Get those blockchain resume’s in quick!