Digital Transformation

How will Blockchain technology revolutionize Digital Marketing?


Hina Mittal | Date: May 13, 2022

As the Internet revolutionized communication, Blockchain has started revolutionizing digital transactions. Further, Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize government, finance, insurance and personal identity security fields. Many top companies like Microsoft, Amazon, PayPal have live blockchain operations.

Blockchain is a shared, decentralized ledger that records digital transactions and tracks digital assets in a business network. The most important aspect of Blockchain is that the data stored in it is immutable, thus making it credible for the industries. Its distributed database allows secure & transparent transactions. The security and transparency that blockchain technology provides, will change how companies would do business online.

In this article, I would want to share my thoughts on the possible implications of blockchain technology on digital marketing and will discuss how businesses can adapt to these changes.

1. Enhance data security & privacy

Blockchain is considered to be one of the most secure data protection technologies. As the data is stored on a decentralized distributed network and is encrypted, it is very difficult to blemish the data. Thus, the businesses can be rest assured that the customer data is safe and secured from cyber-attacks or theft & cannot be used for malicious practices.

Blockchain technology use asymmetric encryption to secure transactions between the users. Each user has a unique private key to access the encrypted data. Private keys are random strings of numbers and are encoded. Thus, they protect user identity. It allows the users to control who has the access to their data, thus enhancing data security.

For example, BitClave, is an open public decentralised system that allows uses to own and selectively share their personal data. End users control their identity, and decide who can access their data. Participating companies can offer uniquely targeted promotions based on personal data that users willingly share.

2. Display social and environmental responsibility

Businesses can also use blockchain technology to express their social and environmental responsibility. They will be able to track the supply chain from product manufacture to delivery. So the customers will know where each item comes from and how it was manufactured. Thus, giving them more choice while they shop as they will choose items based on the source of the products or supplies rather than being influenced by the marketing tactics of the brands. Customers want transparent and responsible companies, so this could be a great way for businesses to let customers know that they source their products or supplies through environmentally friendly or socially responsible avenues.

Thus, blockchain will help these companies stand out and build their credibility in the eyes of the customers.

For e.g. Walmart is using IBM’s supply chain technology – Hyperledger Fabric platform to back up their supply chain process. Moreover, they plan to use blockchain technology extensively to let customers know the source of their food items. Hyperledger is the most preferred distributed ledger technology.

3. Reinforces Content Monetization

Content is one of the most important components of a business when it comes to marketing. Blockchain allows customers, bloggers and streamers who create content regularly to get rewarded directly rather than through the third party content platforms. Non-fungible tokens(NFTs) create equitable, transparent reward systems for content creators and community-led control for content creators.

NFTs represent the digital rights to assets such as audio, video, photos, and more. For e.g. if a user buys an NFT for a JPEG on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, he buys the token, which includes the rights to the artwork or the information inside it. And the user receives a certificate of ownership that can be verified publicly on the blockchain.

Millions listen each week to Tom Bilyeu’s motivational Impact Theory podcast. He created three NFTs, offering different levels of access. For example, one can purchase the Heroic NFT to get insider access to partnership deals, early access to new projects, discounts on training and merchandise, and tickets to live and virtual events. While some content creators could mint an NFT for every separate deliverable (event ticket, merchandise discount, insider access, etc.). Tom bundled them into NFT memberships and minted many for each level.

So a podcaster could sell an NFT that created access to exclusive shows. An author could sell an NFT for a book or audiobook. A YouTuber could sell a membership package. A writer could theoretically sell the rights to their articles.

4. Nurture Transparency

Blockchain technology provides consumers unparalleled transparency. They would know who has their data and how the companies gathered it. Blockchain platform has a set of perceivable tracker tools to measure the performance of ad campaigns. The performance metrics include the total expenditure, number of impressions, clicks, conversions and engagement rates that ensure ad safety and accuracy of targeting right audiences.

Digital marketers can benefit from this scenario since they would have access to more precise data to conduct campaigns with better targeting, thus would get higher conversion rates.

For e.g. New web browser market entrant like Brave allows users to control ad content, ad frequency, duration and thus prevent ad frauds. With close advertising controls, users are incentivized with loyalty rewards to click/view the ads.

5. Improving customer experience

Blockchain is helping businesses in certain sectors to reduce costs and improve customer experience.

For e.g. Webjet travel system(Australia) enhances the customer experience through blockchain technology by recording all entries on the blockchain’s immutable ledger, which reduces the possibility of incorrect or lost bookings and reduces the layers between hotels, agents and customers. Apart from building greater supply chain efficiency and reduced hotel costs, travellers ultimately benefit from lower-cost bookings with more transparency and greater accountability.

Conclusion

There is no denying the fact that Blockchain is a disruptive technology that has real potential to transform industries across every economic sector.

As blockchain technology has the potential to return data control to data owners targeting digital advertising, eventually individuals would be able to control their own online profiles and social media graphs.

On the other hand, Blockchain has the potential to bring credibility to advertisers claims and create new models of efficiency to their advertising. The advertisers can make better decisions about ad spend and can give customers a superior experience tailored specifically to them.