Blockchain technology has the potential to change the way data is transferred across the globe. Blockchain technology is affecting almost every industry because of the implications of secure instant transactions, marketing is now potentially one of those. As technologists further their understanding of blockchain technology more and more applications will be discovered.
POST WRITTEN BY Kristopher Jones
Founder of LSEO, a full-service SEO Company, and APPEK Mobile Apps, a mobile app development agency. Raised $1.5M for Special Guest App.
In 10 or 20 years, the future of the internet will look vastly different then it does right now. As blockchain begins to receive wider adoption among both consumers and companies, Richard Hendricks’ dream of a truly decentralized internet may someday become reality.
When I first got into the field of e-commerce nearly 20 years ago, there was a lot of uncertainty about how viable online shopping would really become. Does this not remind you of the state of blockchain today?
Since that time, I have facilitated the growth of an affiliate marketing company, as well as my current digital marketing company, to large-scale success. From my experience as the advisor to blockchain-based startups, I’ve realized the potential of this technology to disrupt the marketplace and offer innovative solutions.
Even in its current iteration, blockchain has created new opportunities for digital marketing firms, such as marketing the launch of new initial coin offerings (ICOs) and implementing blockchain technology into existing website architectures. Even the schema community has created markup for blockchain certificates.
In this article, I’d like to focus more on the impact that blockchain will have on the industry as a whole — from content creators all the way to advertisers. Despite the confusion surrounding its technology, I believe that new blockchain applications will improve the most glaring problems that exist in digital marketing today. But reaching that point may take years.
Eliminating The Middleman
As much as digital marketing has increased competition in the e-commerce space, it has also concentrated traffic to a few select sites and advertising networks.
Under a blockchain-powered network, arbitrage would shift from an established middleman to users themselves. Users would engage in smart contracts directly with advertisers to receive targeted ads. In contrast, traditional search engines decide what ads are most relevant for users and bombard them with pop-up and display ads against their permission.
To set up a smart contract, users would need to agree on how much personal information they are willing to share. The more they engage with a decentralized search engine, the stronger their buyer persona would grow, if given permission to share by the user.
Under this model, the need to advertise over Google’s Display Network would become frivolous. Instead, advertisers could bypass the incessant fees and arbitrage agreements of networks like Facebook and Google.
Theoretically, this would allow advertisers to pay users directly for access to their personal info and approval to serve them ads. Some blockchain-based startups are even experimenting with the idea of rewarding userswho use the network with tokens that could be accepted at select retailers.
Increasing Transparency
Contrary to what you might think, blockchain ledgers are actually much more transparent than traditional ad and search engine networks. All transactions that occur over the ledger (whether it’s clicks or e-commerce purchases) are available for the public to view in the ledger and nearly impossible to erase.
Think about how little data digital marketers actually have access to when it comes to clicks and engagement with an advertisement. I believe data attribution models are faulty, and Google’s esoteric algorithms make tracking links and PageRank on third-party tools more or less just guesses. With greater transparency using the digital ledger, marketers could receive more relevant user information that would assist them in campaign management.
Of course, this comes down to user consent throwing a huge wrench at advertisers that can’t always reach the customers they need.
Providing Better Data
Consider how dynamic organic SERPs have become. Between accounting for different devices, local vs. national search and frequent algorithm changes, it’s hard to track the trajectory of keyword changes, as well as what types of searches your web pages are ranking for.
A blockchain-based tracker could be employed to track keyword positions across all devices that agree to use the service. This technology could be leveraged by everyone from advertisers to content creators and result in more accurate campaign data that would assist in testing.
Improving Cybersecurity
With this said, cybersecurity will still be a major problem for every industry, big or small. One advantage that the blockchain network provides is the idea of storing your own personal information off the network. Aside from this, hackers would literally have to hack all user devices on the network to make changes to the ledger or steal information.
Improving Privacy
As stated before, blockchain actually helps to alleviate many of the privacy concerns that are currently being thrown at Facebook and other advertising platforms.
Read more at Forbes
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