Blockchain is one of the most commonly used term since the second half of 2017, and it’s getting bigger and bigger in this year. Though it is a transactional process, digital marketing agencies and need to understand it to know what role it is going to play in search marketing. In this post, we take you through the basics of blockchain and how it will affect search marketing.

What is a blockchain –

In simple terms, the blockchain is a digital register using which, people can record the financial data securely. The data that is recorded is both verifiable and decentralized. That means – it allows users to make and verify the transactions without any central authority.

The blockchain does not allow any changes in the digital data once it’s written. This is because of the fact that the whole database is encrypted and distributed. You need a consensus against it to edit the data. Thus, the possibilities of security breaches are significantly reduced and hence, as a marketer or an advertiser, the blockchain technology is totally reliable when it comes to transparency, security, and efficiency.

To explain in the most basic way – In blockchain, the transactions are represented online as a block. Then this block goes out to the different parties in the network. These parties need to approve the transaction, only after which it is finalized. All the blockchain transactions are in public domain and because the middle-men are eliminated from these transactions, they are cent percent tamper-proof.

How blockchain will affect the search marketing

1. Online verification and ad buying gets easier

In the digital advertising, it hard to find the source of the clicks. I.e. you don’t know if the clicks / likes / shares coming on the ad are from the actual people / customers or just some hired clickers / bots. In short, the accuracy is a little problematic. However, with blockchain technology, an advertiser can easily know if the people viewing their ads are their actual target audience or not. With this technology for programmatic buying, it is ensured that the advertisers are charging only for the clicks those are genuine.

Another important aspect of this technology is the ad verification. Implementing Blockchain has proved highly helpful for the marketers so far because it includes a mechanism for the brands to know where the placement of their ads is. This means, it offers the cost effective alternative of decentralized ad-auditing. In this process, it simply catches the ad deliveries from the server and then releases those into the data mining machines where the fraud-analysis happens. Thanks to this, the frauds can be easily caught and black listed in real time.

2. No more middlemen

As mentioned above, the blockchain technology works on end-to- end basis and that eliminated the need of the middlemen and the users can directly interact with each other. With blockchain, the companies are allowed to pay directly to their target audience to view their ads. This gives total security to the clients and contractors. A decentralized ad system on this technology gives way to easy flow of bills / money between the parties involved. This skips the ad buying process. And that’s not it. The artists and content creators that work in this ecosystem get profited hugely form the automated royalty payments. This means, this protocol is not just for the advertisers and companies. Blockchain competes for the actual audience attention and it ensures that the spending is smartly done, by allowing connection to the potential target easily.

3. Data Protection & Regulatory Compliance

With the use of blockchain technology, the marketers can efficiently store the large amount of customer data with utmost security. Because it is encrypted and decentralized, it makes a perfect alternative for the conventional data storage methods. It guarantees you with the highest levels of privacy protection. The main focus here is on the identity and identity protection with regards to the data that is associated with that.

4. Better targeting and influencer marketing

When the blockchain is deployed, the advertisers & marketers can easily build a customer profile directly in one simple step, with help of the information directly from the customers. This facilitates building of a database of the target audience in the most efficient way. Further, the companies can advertise the products / services to the potential customers using with the help of this technology. Blockchain also assists with brand awareness. How? It helps in tracking the engagement criteria of the
influencer, that is – it can gauge the clicks / likes / comments / views certain influencer gets. This ensures high level of accuracy in the contract.

In short, blockchain builds & develops a brand while creating trust – the major things that marketers or advertisers look for. And more than that, it empowers the customers with ability to choose the markets they want to hear from.

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