Unlock the Power of Integrated Digital Marketing Date:   Friday , November 30, 2012 Established in 2008, Vizury is a digital marketing technology provider enabling e-commerce and online travel companies maximize the value of their digital data. The company has raised over $9 million from Ojas Ventures and Inventus Capital Partners. Over the last 18 months, two trends have had a big impact in the digital marketing space. They are 'Real-time Bidding' on the media buying side and ‘Big Data’ on the customer analytics side. Real-time Bidding (RTB) Despite concerns on both the buyer and seller sides, adoption of RTB has increased across large and medium businesses and is set to become the norm. According to eMarketer, RTB spend in the U.S. alone is predicted to reach $7.1 billion by 2016 – almost a third of the display advertising market. The advent of Facebook RTB and access to mobile and video ad inventories are tipped to contribute to this growth. Big Data Companies realize the benefits of unlocking the full potential of the digital data they own aggregated across multiple properties such as their social media properties, mobile applications, purchase history data and more. They understand how valuable this data can be in analysing customer preferences and tailoring marketing messages. With the emergence of technologies that can crunch large volumes of behavioural and contextual data, big data analytics is now well and truly mainstream. The primary reason for both RTB and Big Data to become disruptive forces in the digital marketing space has a lot to do with the evolution of the digital marketing industry itself. The rapid growth of the internet, multitude of internet enabled devices has meant businesses need to reach customers wherever they are online and engage them in a marketing dialogue. RTB helps companies gain access to premium ad inventory in a cost effective manner and reach users online in real-time. Similarly, businesses are consciously moving from a segment based marketing approach to an individual/personalized based marketing approach. In order to effectively engage and sustain interactions with individual customers/prospects throughout the lifecycle, they rely on data from different sources like CRM, purchase history, click stream data, search data, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that both RTB and big data analytics are getting so much attention. Given this scenario, the next big trend we are likely to witness in digital marketing will be around an integrated digital marketing system that allows advertisers to seamlessly interact with prospects/customers through multiple channels like display, video & mobile using data insights from both online and offline sources. To date, these channels have largely worked in silos but a single platform that can enable customer engagement across channels using a combination of customer data analytics and RTB has the potential to transform the marketing landscape. This will not only ensure continuous dialogue with customers but also help businesses maximize customer lifetime value. So, how would this translate on the ground? Let’s take the example of an online shop for baby products that has just launched a new brand of baby diapers. To drive awareness for the product, a select combination of marketing channels e.g. video, display and e-mail marketing maybe employed to target visitors that have evinced interest in the product using CRM and website data. To move users further through the customer purchase funnel, discount coupon codes of appropriate value may be sent to the customers’ mobile based on purchase history data thereby encouraging conversions. Over the subsequent period of 18 months, visitors can be shown other items ranging from a swing to a stroller to an activity station and reward visitors for their loyalty with special pricing. You can also reward them for advocacy - submitting reviews and ratings on products purchased. This would go a long way in helping businesses maximize customer lifetime value, foster long term engagement and interactions with the brand.