Mar­ket­ing tech­nol­o­gy is pro­vid­ing more diverse and var­ied oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect with cus­tomers and allow­ing for increas­ing lev­els of per­son­al­iza­tion and inno­va­tion. While these new oppor­tu­ni­ties can make mar­ket­ing more com­plex, using tech­nol­o­gy to also har­ness data, mea­sure dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing per­for­mance and quan­ti­fy results will allow mar­keters to thrive in this dynam­ic envi­ron­ment.

The com­ing 12 months are des­tined to be a very excit­ing time for dig­i­tal mar­keters.

Regard­less of what we mar­ket, and to whom, 2015 is sure­ly going to be dri­ven by tech­nol­o­gy. This is the year that the mar­ket­ing tech­nol­o­gist will emerge as one of the most impor­tant mem­bers of the mar­ket­ing team.

Gone are the days when shot­gun approach­es to any­thing in mar­ket­ing will be con­sid­ered an accept­able strat­e­gy. With emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, mar­keters are going to be held high­ly account­able for their spend, dri­ving rev­enue, expand­ing mar­kets, and most of all, con­tribut­ing con­cise­ly to the bot­tom-line.

Tech­nol­o­gy is pro­vid­ing mar­keters with more diverse and var­ied oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect with cus­tomers and allow­ing for increas­ing lev­els of per­son­al­iza­tion and inno­va­tion. While these new oppor­tu­ni­ties can make mar­ket­ing more com­plex, using tech­nol­o­gy to also har­ness data, mea­sure dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing per­for­mance, and quan­ti­fy results will allow mar­keters to thrive in this dynam­ic envi­ron­ment.

One of the biggest chal­lenges for dig­i­tal mar­keters when it comes to tech­nol­o­gy is stay­ing ahead of the curve. Like a wave that is threat­en­ing to come crash­ing down, tech­nol­o­gy can swamp even the best mar­keters. Here’s what you should watch out for this year.

1. Embrace Tracking

The val­ue of track­ing dig­i­tal ads is appar­ent to mar­keters, adver­tis­ers, and net­works. Cam­paign per­for­mance data gives them insight into where to invest their mar­ket­ing dol­lars to get the best results. In 2015, dig­i­tal pub­lish­ers will get in on the action, too.

Like their coun­ter­parts, pub­lish­ers will adopt track­ing solu­tions to more accu­rate­ly mon­e­tize their audi­ences. Pub­lish­ers invest a lot of time and mon­ey to get eyes on their sites and by using tech­nol­o­gy to ana­lyze con­sumer habits, they will eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy the val­ue of traf­fic and more prof­itably match buy­ers and audi­ences.

2. Harness Big Data

At a time when mar­keters are being held more account­able, con­sumer behav­ior is more dif­fi­cult than ever to pin down.

In 2015, peo­ple will move effort­less­ly between devices. Effec­tive mar­ket­ing will have to reach audi­ences at the right time, with the right mes­sage, in the right place. Busi­ness­es can only accom­plish this if they not only cap­ture data, but also actu­al­ly find ways to use it.

Data alone can be just inde­ci­pher­able noise, but action­able, real-time, easy-to-inter­pret mar­ket­ing intel­li­gence derived from that data is ulti­mate­ly what dri­ves faster, smarter deci­sions.

3. Extract & Share Your Data

Don’t leave all of that gath­ered big data just sit­ting there. More than 85 per­cent of mar­keters believe “cus­tomer data stuck in silos pre­vents them from run­ning mul­ti-chan­nel cam­paigns that use data to per­son­al­ize the expe­ri­ence,” accord­ing to a CMO Club study.

Dig­i­tal mar­keters invest a lot of mon­ey in a wide vari­ety of tech­nolo­gies that help them run dig­i­tal cam­paigns. In order for them to track per­for­mance across the mul­ti-chan­nel cus­tomer jour­ney, though, mar­keters’ ana­lyt­ics need to be “agnos­tic” and lever­age data that is gen­er­at­ed by a host of dif­fer­ent tech­nolo­gies, devices, and sys­tems.

Solu­tions that only look at one piece of the pie will quick­ly die out. Today’s dig­i­tal mar­keters need to effec­tive­ly allo­cate spend across mul­ti­ple chan­nels like mobile, desk­top, video, social, and more.

4. Optimize Sooner Rather Than Later

The end goal of all of the track­ing we do is to opti­mize every aspect of our mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. The quick­er we can opti­mize a cam­paign, the more mon­ey we can save, the more tar­get­ed our mes­sag­ing can be, and the more effec­tive our cam­paign can be in dri­ving con­ver­sions.

As tech­nol­o­gy evolves, the best solu­tions will not only mea­sure actions and con­ver­sions while a cam­paign is run­ning, but also actu­al­ly opti­mize cam­paign plan­ning, exe­cu­tion, and bud­get­ing strate­gies before cam­paigns are even launched.

In 2015, we’ll see advanced data visu­al­iza­tions and ana­lyt­ics being used to iden­ti­fy impor­tant pat­terns and trends. This insight will pro­vide the mar­ket­ing intel­li­gence need­ed to con­tin­u­al­ly refine and improve cam­paign strate­gies and pre­dict the life­time val­ue of dig­i­tal cus­tomers.

5. Show ROI

Every year, we are not only asked to improve ROI, but to pro­vide an even clear­er view into how we deter­mine it. 2015 will be no dif­fer­ent.

Fig­ur­ing out the best way to opti­mize dig­i­tal spend and then report the results is crit­i­cal to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of dig­i­tal mar­keters. Cap­tur­ing eye­balls is no longer going to be enough.

Dig­i­tal mar­keters will be expect­ed to con­tribute to the bot­tom line in the form of con­ver­sions and sales. This will require track­ing of every touch­point along the end-to-end cus­tomer jour­ney to under­stand what is and isn’t work­ing, and why. Mar­keters who are using the lat­est track­ing tech­nol­o­gy have the best chance of prop­er­ly report­ing the ROI of their efforts.

Summary

In 2015, mar­keters, adver­tis­ers, net­works and pub­lish­ers alike will need to step up their game. With all of the mar­ket­ing tech­nol­o­gy tools avail­able, we are increas­ing­ly being asked to prove our val­ue.

In the com­ing year, we will see the uti­liza­tion of sophis­ti­cat­ed mar­ket­ing tech­nolo­gies that empow­er users to trans­form big data into smart mar­ket­ing intel­li­gence so that they can opti­mize adver­tis­ing per­for­mance, audi­ence qual­i­ty, and ongo­ing cam­paign strat­e­gy in real-time. If we don’t stay ahead of the com­ing tech­nol­o­gy wave, we might end up hav­ing a pret­ty bad year.

What oth­er tech­nol­o­gy chal­lenges or oppor­tu­ni­ties will see this year?