Driven by the increased adoption of technology, the E-commerce market in India has seen unprecedented growth in the last few years. Quite recently, Times of India reported that the number of online shoppers in India would cross 100 million by 2016.
This highlights the growth potential as well as the fast paced growth rate of the E-commerce industry in India. Now, advertising has always been the catalyst for growth in any industry; after all, you need to sell in order to make profit!
As the going gets tough with the increase in competition, most companies are willing to experiment in different ways to attract their customers and increase their online traffic. Here are some of the most common trends that have emerged in advertising for the online industry for 2016.
Audience Targeting through Personalized Advertising: As advertising is becoming more dynamic, there’s a shift from general advertisements towards more target based advertising. Consumers expect a personalized shopping experience, based on their needs or preferences. This can be done through Video Advertising, Mobile Advertising as well as Social Media Advertising. While we could consider the aforementioned methods as a part of the personalized advertising trend, they are vital enough to be considered as separate emerging trends in the world of digital advertising and thus, I have discussed them briefly below.
Video Advertising: Even though you might consider a video ad to be annoying when it pops up in the middle of something you are actually watching, you cannot disagree that it catches your attention that you tend to remember it. Sometimes, if it’s interesting enough, you may even click on it to know more. Indeed, Video Ads are proving to be a useful tool due to this. Moreover, since Google and YouTube have recently released the ‘TruView ad’ ad format, life has become easier. It allows users to skip the ads after a number of seconds, or even choose the ad they want to see; hence, paid search marketers are more likely to explore this in 2016.
Mobile Advertising: According to Gartner, 30% of traffic for E-commerce sites comes from smartphones and tablets. Enough has already been said about the increasing use of mobile devices in the current era, so it is suffice to say that mobile advertising will continue to be a strong trend in the advertising Industry.
Social Media Advertising: Social media is an easy platform to engage directly with the customers. Common social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Google plus, etc. Not only do such platforms provide a personalized experience for existing users, they can also be easily exploited for reaching out to new audiences. Furthermore, analyzing data from customer management systems and past user behavior on a website could also be utilized to provide a personalized experience for the user.
Adoption of Buy Buttons: Despite the slow adoption of ‘buy buttons’, it should be noted that they do have potential for growth, particularly in niche platforms such as clothing, shoes, and accessories where people might indulge in impulsive buying or come back to browse for more.
As companies continue to explore new methods of advertising, they might want to look at innovative methods by delving into upcoming technology such as virtual reality, chatbots, analytics, internet of things, and differentiate themselves accordingly. These tools can be exploited equally by both the advertising and E-Commerce companies for interacting with their customers.
When Life is Full of Lemons 