Customers today expect an individualized experience, especially in the mobile arena. Across channels and devices, consumers are more likely to act, buy, and recommend when marketers serve up messaging that’s tailored to their wants and needs. The past year saw a greater focus on smarter segmentation and look-alike, or predictive modeling, which have resulted in a boost in overall programmatic ad performance. In addition, personalized emails, product-specific ads and cross-device technology all play a role in reaching the right audience with the right message at the right time. These have become especially critical with the emergence of micro-moments – those instances where people reflexively turn to a device to act on a need to learn/do/discover/watch/shop.
The latest development in personalization, especially one that has an immense potential to change the data-mining game, is chat bots. These digital “personal assistants” provide answers to questions, products to searches, recommendations to queries and so forth. Beyond a response-based system, however, chat bots are now able to push personalized suggestions to consumers at the right moments, based on event timing, geo-location or recent activity. In 2017, expect to see further development in chat bot utilization, especially for insight development and early-funnel decision influencing. 
Moreover, in the next year, keep an eye out for the expansion of beacon implementation, as more event venues and retailers integrate this technology into the customer experience. Beacons can both collect valuable data as well as push notifications and interact with apps already installed on the user’s device. As these developments continue, advertising personalization will no longer be a cool feature but rather a requirement. Keep reading our Digital State of the Union series to learn more about what’s happening in the digital industry. Next up? Leveraging content and influencer marketing strategies to increase brand awareness and favorability. Digital State of the Union Series Digital State of the Union: The Rising Threat of Ad Blockers Digital State of the Union: Content Marketing Digital State of the Union: Streaming Digital Digital State of the Union: Digital Advertising Costs