This is the 2019 review letter that Javier Burón, our founder and CEO, sent to our users earlier this week.
Hi,
Without fail, every time the end of the year approaches, everything takes a rhythm that gives vertigo! But that is precisely the time to stop and take a step back to see the picture in its entirety. And so, I did that this weekend and I would like to share with you how we have lived through this 2019 and what panorama is presented to us by the oncoming 2020 ...
In general, it can be said that this has been a good year for the MarTech and Digital Marketing industry. Although there have been twelve months in which we have witnessed numerous mergers and acquisitions (M&A) (as you can read in the report “State of Digital Marketing 2019” published by Luma), this has only increased the industry in size, and strengthened the sector in quality, thanks to the transformation of all these businesses offering more added value thanks to these unions.
The convergence between digital and traditional in all aspects of marketing has given way to a more strategic and holistic vision of business activity. This, together with a better understanding and use of the available data, are turning businesses to a paradigm in which data and insights are a fundamental pillar of the development of their activity to become insights-driven companies. This has been the year in which organizations gained awareness that by staying in a solely data-driven mindset they lose perspective. In an evolution of the initial digital transformation of the companies that was talked about so much in recent years, we see how now the insights-driven organizations grow at a faster rate, taking advantage of the insights to make the decisions that will give them better results. As we say here in Audiense "Data, Insights, Action!". I recommend you read the Forrester report “The Four Essential Steps To Transform Into An Insights-Driven Business”.
An example of this fusion between traditional methodologies and innovations that foster digital environments is the trend in market research, thanks to innovative technological developments, which, as Edward Bass explained in this post, allow, for example, to identify vital insights of the human being by combining social data and of surveys.
Personalization has been another theme of the year, right?! Well... Surprise! Another topic that makes us focus on audiences! In the David Boyle's article included in The Most Contagious Report 2019, it is presented how clustering the individuals of an audience allows you to reveal hidden patterns and provides the kind of knowledge you need to optimize the customization of both your products and your communication.
And I could continue sharing ideas of everything that has happened this year in the sector, but I think it is better that you go through this compilation that Econsultancy has made with the best articles of 2019.
To talk a little about ourselves... What a year! We have grown and scaled our product to exceed all our expectations. Our friends and partners, Pulsar, have included Communities (our integration of Audiense Insights with their TRAC platform) in the number one spot in their list of 2019 innovations.
We have organized and participated in numerous events. And the best of all has been to discover the best friends and partners along the way: leading professionals in the sector who shared all their knowledge and experience with us! We were in London and New York to talk about the #AudienceFirst approach. We gathered the best ideas and most innovative trends in #MostContagious ... And internally, we enjoyed one of our best "AllHands"!
And how is 2020 looking? Well, for us, it offers a really exciting panorama!
The first thing I can say of 2020 is that our team will be going fully remote. This is a great challenge, but it is also an opportunity and a boost to our culture and values! For now, those of us who are joining the remote lifestyle in the near future are studying these 11 good practices in depth.
And speaking of the industry: we bet that 2020 will be the year of the audiences!
A few months ago our friend Michael Brito already suggested three reasons why intelligence on audiences should be a priority this new year, and with every month that has passed since, we only seem to reaffirm that in the coming world without cookies the Audience-First approach will be at the core of the succeeding business strategies. Audience intelligence will allow the creativity and audience-first approach to be at the forefront, so that companies will come to know their audiences better, and to optimize the relevance of their brands.
The fusion between the world of Customer Data (1st party data) and the world of Audience Data (2nd and 3rd party data), will make CDP’s (Customer Data Platforms) play an essential role in this transformation.
Also in this regard, the changes within social platforms to eliminate vanity metrics will reinforce the tendency of influencer marketing to make a more exhaustive selection of micro and nanoinfluencers. Consolidating the agencies that have valuable and reliable data on the audiences of these influencers and brands will demand new and more reliable performance metrics. Another argument in favour of the Audience-First trend!
Little else remains to be said...what was going to be a few lines has gotten out of hand 😅 but I don't want to say goodbye without wishing you a happy holiday season!
See you in 2020!
Best,
Javier Burón
Founder & CEO
Audiense
Original picture by Avi Richards on Unsplash.
