Autonomous vehicles (otherwise known as self-driving cars (or driverless cars) are beginning to make their way onto our roads and highways. These latter-day driving machines use sensory data collected from their surrounding environment to navigate the roadways sans the help of a human driver. Case in point: Uber recently ordered 24,000 fully autonomous Volvos Tesla just introduced an electric-powered long-haul tractor trailer with self-driving capabilities, and UPS has pre ordered 125 of them Google just ordered several thousand autonomous vehicles for its self-driving fleet (currently operating on the roads of Arizona) Google is expected to serve ads in their self-driving cars driverless car revenue in the US is expected to reach roughly $2.

Now that we have turned the corner onto 2019 Street, Genius Monkey will take this time to reflect on the outstanding year we’ve had, and rev up for an even bigger, better year for the constant growth and improvement of the programmatic digital ecosystem! According to recent research by Zenith Media, the boom of programmatic advertising will continue its momentum for years to come. As an example, they forecast these programmatic trends in 2019:

Any emerging technology inevitably enters the ring of advertising. Augmented and virtual reality, visual search, chatbots and voice commerce have all been on the radar of retailers as the next big possibility of marketing. Let’s take a look at one of the newest kids on the block – Voice Assistants. Smart speakers, like Amazon Echo and Google Home have exploded onto the scene with a velocity and a pervasiveness that is pretty much unprecedented in the history of consumer electronics.

Perhaps the most noticeable change in the field of data analytics is how rapidly it’s growing. Every year companies are able to gain more data from their customer interactions, and the lag time between feedback and insights continues to shrink. It’s also true that customers are often very informed, coming to your website already knowing what they want, and how much they’re prepared to spend. Data analytics is the means by which companies can better connect with those savvy customers.

Data is the reigning king of marketing, and continues to increase in power as technology continues to proliferate throughout the industry. It’s not so much the actual data that is so important, but what it is that marketers can do with it in the world of programmatic digital advertising. 75% of all marketers interviewed agree that a lack of understanding of data analytics is a big barrier to making important decisions based on data insights.

In May of this year (2018) Genius Monkey announced that we became part of an elite group of companies that had earned the TAG Registered Seal, issued by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG). We became one of the earlier companies to earn this seal, as we are hyper vigilant about the importance of trustworthiness in the advertising industry. We want our clients to feel at ease, knowing that we always take every measure we can to keep the products of their adspend free of fraudulent activity.

As a marketer in this day and age (as well as marketers from yesteryear), you will most likely agree that one of the most important elements of spreading the good word is to know your target audience well enough to determine what it is that they want and need. Once this is accomplished – deliver it! If this is done, your targeted audience members will be willing to give you what YOU need … their business.

The researchers at Google are as dedicated at watching shoppers as avid bird watchers are at tracking down the ever-so-rare Helmeted Hornbill. This year, Google is scouting out the holiday Bargain Hunters – who they are, where they shop, and how to reach out to them during this festive (and active) season. More than half of all Bargain Hunters shop using a smartphone – even when they are in the store 60% of these Bargain Hunters’ online purchases are made with a mobile device A large percentage of Bargain Hunters are millennial dads between their late 20s and 30s 96% of these millennial dads said that they had searched online for the items they were looking for 1 in 3 of these millennial dads indicates that he would prefer to do all his shopping during the four days of mad shopping … Black Friday through Cyber Monday Of these four-day Bargain Hunters, 70% said they bought because the item was on sale Who are the Bargain Hunters?

A significant landmark was formed when, just in the first half of 2018, US advertisers spent just under $50 billion, which is an all-time high for the ad industry. To put this in perspective, that figure indicates a YOY increase of 23%, and shows no signs of slowing down! This, according to the Internet Advertising Revenue Report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Last year at the same time, the figures were at $40.

Anyone who has ever done any road-traveling here in the U.S. has surely seen multiple signs for businesses that claim to have the “world’s best” coffee, or the “nation’s best” doughnuts, or the “best burgers” in the state … you get the picture. So how can one be confident that what they would get by ordering from one of these establishments that boasts of having the “best” of anything is really, truly the absolute “best?