The IoT itself can’t even be considered futuristic anymore. It’s here now. In fact, it’s become so big that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas dedicated a whole track to it.In December, too, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a consumer study that showed that close to two-thirds of American consumers own at least one connected device.That includes connected cars, connected/smart TVs, fitness trackers, home control systems or appliances, internet-enabled voice command devices, smart glasses, smart watches, VR headsets or some other kind of wearable.What’s even more important is that 65% of them say that they are willing to receive ads on IoT screens. This will certainly be a game-changer for display and native advertising, and it will likely lead to new ad units the industry can only starting to imagine.But the bigger win for data-driven marketers will be all the data generated by these devices.
Real-time behaviour
According to productivity consultant Lisa Froelings, IoT devices can let their manufacturers know when and how they use the device – and then create campaigns to target those use patterns. She writes: “Is a company’s product handy in an emergency or popular in the morning? Perhaps it is used alongside another product or follows a specific event. Once marketers establish use patterns for their product, they can advertise those uses to potential customers and better convert them by showcasing a product’s utility for the situations that their product is actually used in.”