What Will Programmatic Advertising Look Like in the Metaverse?
As we spend more and more of our lives online, the opportunities to reach customers digitally have only expanded dramatically. One of those ways getting plenty of attention right now is the concept of the “metaverse”, a word that’s commonly being used today to describe the concept of a digital life online.
Brands and marketers have already started exploring the world offering exclusive opportunities to their consumers. For example, Nike has offered customized avatars and shoes in the game Roblox, Coke launched its first virtual drink within Fortnight, and McDonalds plans on launching a virtual restaurant that will enable food to be delivered to your “real-life” house.
Even as a small business, now’s the time to start understanding this technology and aligning your marketing strategy around the trends of the future.
What Exactly Is the Metaverse?
The metaverse is just the latest word to describe a “digital universe,” where we interact digitally the same ways we do in the physical world. This can include everything from holding office meetings via VR headset, buying billboards in a digital space, or displaying art (like NFTs) in a digital gallery.
How Will Programmatic Advertising Fit In the Metaverse?
While brands are still in the early days of experimenting with the metaverse, programmatic advertising—the ability to reach a targeted group of consumers based on their interests—will no doubt follow soon. Brands already are using programmatic technology to display in-game advertising. For instance, in some online sports games, ads can be dynamically placed on digital billboards based on a consumer’s interest. Ads in the metaverse will likely work in a similar way. As you walk down a digital block in the future, say in VR or with augmented glasses, the ads you see will likely be tailored just for you.
Challenges Facing Advertising in the Metaverse
Despite technology enabling this hyper-personalization in new digital realms, the same concerns that currently face the industry will persist in the metaverse. A few of the challenges include:
- Standardized Technology. Despite the hype around the metaverse, there’s not a single “standardized” metaverse yet. This makes implementing programmatic technology as every solution must be customized. As people start to gravitate toward certain platforms or digital spaces, standardization will follow, and it will become easier to implement broadly.
- Brand Safety. As a business, you still want to ensure your ads are appearing next to the types of content you want your products associated with. The metaverse will need controls to ensure that you have oversight into where your message lives.
- Data Privacy and Security. Just as people are rightfully concerned about their digital privacy today, these concerns only proliferate in a space like the metaverse. Consumers will want control over what they share and who they share it with in order to be comfortable with these kinds of ads. The deprecation of the third-party cookie has also led to a proliferation of possible solutions to market to consumers based on their identity, so this problem will need to be solved before programmatic goes mass market in the metaverse.
What Should I be Doing Now to Prepare for the Metaverse?
Having a strong programmatic advertising plan and addressing today’s current concerns will put you in the ideal position to be ready for the metaverse when it becomes mainstream. In the end, just like native, display, or video advertising, the metaverse will simply be another channel and medium where you can reach your customers. By starting to pay attention now, you can ensure you can stay ahead of the competition far into the future.
Looking to learn more about how we’re envisioning the metaverse? Schedule a call with one of our programmatic experts to find out how you can start putting plans in place today for tomorrow’s technology.
