With recent advancements in blockchain technology, its use has expanded to include digital marketing, which offers greater trust and value metrics.
The role of marketing in society has been significant, and the use of blockchain in digital marketing intends to open up new development potential in this field.
In the era of the internet and mass media, marketing is more complicated than it used to be. It can be highly challenging to choose where to run a promotion or to what demographic a marketing campaign will be best targeted because people are more dispersed, inattentive, and impatient than ever.
The blockchain is viewed by many as a way to turn marketing on its head by offering better analytics for a larger audience, decreasing the influence of intermediaries that hoard data and viewership, and reimagining underutilized but potentially effective marketing tactics like loyalty programs.
What is blockchain
The blockchain is a decentralized public digital ledger that holds transaction records across numerous nodes or computers simultaneously.
Blockchain is a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) where transactions are recorded with an immutable cryptographic signature known as a hash that makes it hard or impossible to edit, hack, or cheat the system.
What is digital marketing?
The use of digital channels to promote goods and services and contact consumers is referred to as “digital marketing.”
Websites, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels with a similar function are used in this kind of marketing.
With the introduction of the internet in the 1990s, digital marketing gained popularity.
Digital marketing is frequently seen as a unique way for businesses to interact with customers and comprehend their behavior.
It shares some of the same principles as traditional marketing and it is frequently blended by businesses with traditional marketing strategies.
What is blockchain in digital marketing?
Businesses commonly rely on outside firms in traditional digital marketing to source goods or services. Depending on their resources, such as time, money, and experience, these third-party organizations may or may not be able to meet the requirements. Because of this, they are unable to assure customers of receiving excellent services. Numerous businesses lose money on these marketing campaigns as a result of such deficiencies.
Blockchain technology is causing a change in marketing paradigms, making the industry more open-source, liberal, and user-focused. Due to consumer need for trust, authenticity, and product specifics, blockchain technology aids firms in maintaining operational transparency. Because nothing can be hidden on a blockchain, real-time data aggregation is made possible as well as cost savings.
Additionally, it has the power to change how people interact with their gadgets and make online purchases. The development of fresh marketing techniques is being done by tech specialists in light of this. Security and transparency considerations are being highlighted especially. By utilizing blockchain technology, consumers may have complete control over their data. However, companies have many opportunities to grow their clientele without jeopardizing the privacy of those clients.
Marketers may similarly make use of smart contracts. Because they are virtual agreements, intermediaries are not required for their validity, inspection, or verification. When users sign up for a newsletter or rewards program or activate a smart contract, it becomes active.
Businesses can use blockchain technology to boost their marketing efforts’ innovation.
Use case of blockchain in digital marketing
As the wild rush for innovation and development continues, blockchain in digital marketing is emerging as a major actor. Here are a few ways blockchain could be applied to digital marketing.
- Influencer marketing
- Loyalty programs
- Affiliate marketing
- Anonymity in Marketing Data Collection
- Verifying engagement
- Preventing product fraud
- Validating Email Delivery
Influencer marketing
When blockchain technology’s advantages are made known, influencer marketing will improve. Smart contracts and decentralized technologies are incorporated into the central ecosystem in this method to address the transparency issue.
Payment accuracy is made easier by smart contracts. These digital contracts guarantee payments only once a predetermined task is successfully done and has been agreed upon by the participating parties. Blockchain technology makes it possible to quickly and simply verify the influencer’s trustworthiness and performance.
To prevent agreements between the parties from being broken, an Ethereum developer constructs a smart contract for the digital marketing center.
Loyalty programs
Blockchain technology will create a reliable system with a simple user interface for loyalty programs. Because blockchain is decentralized, several companies can band together to allow users to utilize their points with any brand on the network.
This proposal revolves around the notion of unifying rewards programs on the blockchain so that users might redeem their points more quickly or even exchange them with other users on the chain marketplace at their discretion.
Additionally, such a blockchain-based system may use smart contracts to distribute prizes automatically.
Affiliate marketing
Users can save money by using blockchain to prevent commission waste, interacting with dubious affiliates, and browsing sites with little to no added value. The system will be streamlined by the incorporation of cryptocurrencies, making payments easier, more viable, and safer for everyone.
When using blockchain products, the affiliate network does not delay payouts until a user meets the minimum requirement. On the other hand, smart contracts reduce the danger of ad fraud and give the participants a much-needed guarantee. The blockchain developer uses smart contracts to guarantee system transparency.
Anonymity in Marketing Data Collection
Practitioners of blockchain technology develop systems that anonymize user data.
Even while user data can be gathered, the anonymity provided by the blockchain may prevent the data from being associated with any particular person.
In addition to developing peer-to-peer networks that prohibit user data from being acquired without their consent, other businesses are working to make the internet an alternative where user data is encrypted and secured.
Verifying engagement
The potential of the blockchain to sift out bots is higher, ensuring that interactions with adverts are carried out by verified humans.
This creates the possibility for engagement to be truly verified, whether it relates to social media followers, marketing initiatives, competitions, or other factors. It also opens the door for a new paradigm in digital marketing.
Preventing product fraud
Blockchain is being used to trace a product’s provenance, giving consumers a verifiable assurance that a product is real and was manufactured the way and by whom it is stated to have been.
The legitimacy and morality of items might become a compelling selling point for firms that use the technology, and this kind of information could become a crucial component of marketing efforts.
Validating Email delivery
Better metrics for measuring the effectiveness of email campaigns would be highly helpful as long as they continue to be a significant component of the marketing world.
The framework for the collection of these metrics could be provided by the blockchain, which can gather metadata and monitor engagement. This would result in more knowledge about how campaigns can be adjusted to more effectively reach the target audience.
Impact of blockchain on digital marketing
- Data will not be sold and is more secure.
- Users could receive payment for watching adverts.
- Marketing becomes far more trustworthy and transparent.
- Companies can obtain more precise leads.
- Ads not involving a third party
Data will not be sold and is more secure
Blockchain was built on the principles of security-enhancing cryptographic techniques. Blockchain technology’s distributed and decentralized data storage could provide consumers and brands with unique advantages.
These security measures can aid in protecting the procedures for transferring, storing, and retrieving enormous amounts of customer data.
Blockchain technology presents a novel approach to the decentralization and self-organization of an economic ecosystem, enabling the efficient synchronization and integration of data on marketing across network participants.
In addition, some businesses that you provide your data to—even if it’s just your name and email address—sell that information to other businesses to generate revenue. And then, out of nowhere, you find yourself signed up for twelve brand-new company emails that you never requested.
All of that may be altered with blockchain. You don’t need to be concerned about your data being compromised because all transactions on the blockchain are kept entirely anonymous.
Critical data security is ensured by blockchain technology. With blockchain, transactions come with verification yet are still open to the public.
Users could receive payments for watching adverts
Users are being inundated with ads on almost every channel they access. There are frequent calls to action for purchases, from billboards along the highway and television commercials to social media and online marketing.
The advertising experience could, however, become much more direct with blockchain. In reality, a portion of the funding that businesses spend to fund their advertising may be redirected to offer users some kind of reward for viewing their adverts.
Since customers will proactively request to view ads rather than having them show every time they scroll down a website, this might fundamentally alter issues like ad fatigue.
Marketing becomes far more trustworthy and transparent.
The most remarkable feature of blockchain technology is the benefit of trust by design, where the trust protocol that underpins it guarantees honesty and integrity in the actions of brand and marketing professionals.
When consumers are required to disclose their personally identifiable information or PII, a trustworthy blockchain marketing company will strive to create transparency that is consumer-centric.
By enabling consumers and brands to collaborate in a secure and transparent ecosystem, blockchain can assist to foster trust and transparency in the field of online marketing.
Also, businesses can use blockchain to demonstrate their supply chain operation because it displays a variety of transactions.
Customers may now view the precise location, manufacturing facility, and materials used to make a product.
When it comes to competition, information like this will have a significant impact.
Companies can obtain more precise leads
Currently, there are several methods used for gathering data for marketing. Many marketers gather information from several sources, combine it all, and then base a campaign around that. Numerous campaigns are based on this subpar strategy, which generates inconsistent or false statistics.
Due to the decentralized nature of blockchain transactions, marketers must obtain data directly from consumers. Consumers’ data can be exchanged for money or incentives by marketers. Although the upfront cost is more, the campaign’s ROI will probably be higher as a result of using this data. Marketers will then have precise data that originates directly from their target audience.
Take into account that customers who provide their data to your brand are probably already enthusiastic about your business. Since these are already prospects prepared for nurturing, scoring leads and conversions in the funnel is made much easier as a result.
Therefore, while embracing blockchain will need more work and money up front, marketers will generate far better leads.
Because they would be obtaining precise information directly from the customers, businesses using blockchain will be able to generate leads that are a lot more accurate.
Ads not involving a third party
Running ads right now requires a third-party platform. Ad platforms have a small market, therefore they may essentially establish their prices. And for this reason, they produce $43 billion and $32 billion in ad revenue per quarter, respectively.
Brands and websites with accessible ad space can be instantly validated with blockchain technology so they can collaborate without a middleman inflating ad rates.
This implies that brands will have far more accurate data and metrics from their commercials, in addition to the possibility that future ad costs may be significantly lower and more inexpensive. Ad monitoring will be considerably more smooth since they will know exactly how many individuals saw their advertising.
Brands will also be able to know which purchases were made as a direct result of their marketing—and where those advertisements were placed—since all transactions on the blockchain are publicly available.
Conclusion
The traditional dynamics of brand marketing have been transformed by the usage of new technologies like blockchain in marketing. The blockchain offers marketers a variety of chances to expand their present markets and launch new online marketplaces.
The adoption of blockchain technology in digital marketing has significantly improved the way that organizations and individuals utilize the internet.