Trendwatch

We’re seeing a handful of trends surface in response to the growing demand for marketing results:

As mentioned in our main articles this month, the most prominent trend is the increased focus on accountability. It’s becoming less acceptable to enter into marketing initiatives with anything less than well-defined goals and it is expected that the performance of those initiatives will be measured, analyzed and reported.

Micro-targeting is a fast-growing area that has been around for a while but is gaining popularity thanks to relatively recent technological advancements. Simply put, the more granular details we know about our target, the more specific and relevant we can be in the way that we market to them. Social media sites, such as Facebook, has created an opportunity to get very focused in delivering the right message to the right people.

Geo-location technology supports micro-targeting beautifully. Popular applications of this technology include mobile apps that people volunteer to use, for example some type of game, social network or mobile shopping app. Their location, history - even the people they were with - is all valuable data to help drive decisions to serve them relevant offers and engage them deeper with brands.

Performance-based compensation models for marketing agencies are becoming more common. These can be treated a variety of ways, but the gist is that an agency receives a bonus if campaigns meet Key Performance Indicators.

Because of the increase in demand for results and the fact that digital media is naturally suited to meet that demand, it follows that more digital shops are becoming agencies of record for brands of all sizes, often beating out traditional agencies in competitive pitches.