Beyond the Episode: Is the Metaverse the Future of Digital Advertising?
The June episode of The Marketing Insider | A Claritas Podcast went live on June 15th. Listen to our episode all about the metaverse, here. During the recording, I spoke with Claritas’ own VP of Marketing, Cort Irish. I also had the opportunity to sit down with Joel LaMontagne, CEO of Trivver, the premiere advertising exchange for Extended Reality (XR) environments.
In the podcast, Cort and Joel do a great job of breaking down what the metaverse is. They also explain why advertisers need to pay attention to the opportunity it offers. From which consumers are engaging with it today, to the KPIs that help determine success and more, they share everything you need to know to get started with a go-to-market approach that centers around the metaverse. But, while you’ll hear all about this and more when you listen to the podcast, 25-minutes just wasn’t enough time to discuss everything. Because of this, we took some of the conversation offline and put it in this blog.
What role does an identity graph play in the metaverse?
An identity graph has the potential to play a critical role in the metaverse. Cort sees them being leveraged to help marketers connect specific behaviors and insights. These will indicate if consumers are engaging in the metaverse today or are most likely to engage in the future. Identity graphs take disparate data and unify that into something that a marketer can act against. This action connects dots by building profiles of audiences.
He gives the example of opening a retail store inside the metaverse to sell goods and services. You want to communicate to a consumer who is most likely to shop at your virtual store. An identity graph is what allows the connection of those dots to happen and turn into an actionable audience that a marketer can engage with. As the metaverse evolves, so will the amount of data we can collect on individuals and their engagement here. That additional data will only continue to help feed identity graphs. In turn, this will continue to give marketers a more granular understanding of the right consumers that they should engage.
Will the metaverse be around for the long term?
A big reason Cort says the metaverse will be around for the long term goes back to its broad definition. The metaverse has positioned itself in a way where it straddles both digital and physical worlds, meaning it can evolve alongside either ecosystem. Think of it this way. The ability to engage with the metaverse is easily accessible by the majority of consumers. If it were solely defined as a virtual world accessible through a VR headset, that puts limitations on those without the financial means to afford the equipment or those without the technology access. But, because the definition is so broad, anybody with a smartphone, VR headset, or a computer can engage.
Which aspects of campaign delivery in the metaverse prove the most challenging?
In his work, Joel has found one of the biggest challenges with brands or agencies working on behalf of brands wanting to advertise in the metaverse is getting around the fact that it’s a 3D environment. Depending on who you work with to deploy your campaign, you may have to create multiple asset files and deploy each one independently if you want your virtual product to be in multiple locations within the metaverse. While Trivver has found a solution to this issue, it’s still a question that comes up quite frequently for them.
Another challenge Joel has seen come up has to do with NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Unfortunately, there has been a big problem with fraudulent NFTs making their rounds and individual consumers or even bigger brands being scammed by a knockoff. Joel says an NFT registered on a blockchain using cryptocurrencies leaves a paper trail that can help with determining authenticity and validating ownership, but too many people are buying them off the open sea of the internet. While this too can easily be avoided, it’s just another learning curve of a new channel that consumers will need to overcome in time.
What can be tracked with campaigns delivered in the metaverse?
Trivver has been working closely with the IAB on finding standardized ways to track campaigns deployed in the metaverse. They’ve even gone as far as undergoing MRC accreditation for their data analytics. That said, once you deploy a 3D asset, there is a multitude of ways to lose that asset on a user’s screen. That’s why data analytics, like viewability metrics and engagement are so important. Did a consumer click on your asset before it was potentially “lost” on screen? Was your advertised product purchased by them? Did they share content with their friends or on social media? Etc.
While certain companies will approach measurement differently, Joel has three main criteria he looks for:
– The asset must be 5% of the user screen size.
– It has to be at least 70% in frame.
– The brand logo has to be visible.
If those criteria aren’t met, to him, your campaign missed the mark. Assuming all three of those criteria were met, Joel then factors in additional analytics, which they make available in real time. Similar to how Claritas emphasizes to our clients that they need a partner who will optimize a campaign in-flight to help them achieve the greatest ROI, so too does Trivver place value on this differentiator. For example, if there are data anomalies such as object viewability metrics reading at .01%, that’s a red flag to them. It should be to an advertiser as well! Catching things while a campaign is still running allows for course corrections before budget and time are wasted, something no brand – big or small – wants to do.
Keep the metaverse conversation going
We hope listening to this episode of the podcast and reading the blog was able to teach you something you didn’t know about advertising in the metaverse. If anything resonated with you, we encourage you to share with a friend or college. If you want to meet better prospects, market more precisely and improve your ROI, contact us by visiting www.claritas.com/contact/.