Companies are collecting more data than ever before, and are making significant business decisions based on it. Of the 4 Vs of Big Data (Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Veracity), we have now seen ample evidence of the impact and importance of the first three. A higher “Volume” of data has led to more efficient decision-making in numerous instances, such as in programmatic marketing and in banking. Research has shown how leveraging high “Velocity” data — such as data from mobile devices — has unearthed knowledge that has helped firms better understand their customers. The significant potential of high “Variety” data — data that is unstructured in the form of text, images, videos, and so on — to make better predictions has been documented in numerous academic studies. But what about issues related to the accuracy, reliability, and transparency of the data itself, which basically comprises the fourth V, “Veracity”? In the field of data-driven marketing, an answer to addressing this limitation lies in blockchain technology.
What Blockchain Could Mean for Marketing
In recent years, a major pain point for brands and advertisers has been the lack of transparency and accountability in being able to ascertain how their ad dollars have been spent. Digital advertising is complex, because ensuring that the media that was purchased was actually delivered as it was intended, is non-trival today. Ad fraud is pervasive, and costs marketers and publishers significant amount of money. Blockchain can make data-driven marketing more transparent by validating and analyzing every consumer’s journey through verified ad delivery, confirming that a real person saw the ad as per the specifics of a media contract. Marketers will able to control how their assets are delivered by monitoring exactly where their ads are being placed, alleviating ad fraud from automated bots by ensuring that real followers and consumers are engaging with their ads, and ensuring proper ad engagement tracking that will lead to more precise digital attribution. Blockchain’s inherent ledger-based transparency can help companies build trust with consumers, giving rise to markets for consumer data that will not only give users a transparent look at how their data has been used by advertisers, but will also give them more control over how their data should be used.
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