The future of marketing is context-driven. Here are the winners and losers.

Digital marketers have always aimed to deliver the right message to the right customers at the right time. But in recent years, the bar has been raised.

Why? Customers demand more relevant content, and have more distractions and shorter attention spans than ever.

Moreover, new tools and technology improvements mean that marketers have access to additional real-time customer context, including location and in-app behavior.

The shift

As our friends at Leanplum point out, the model for effective digital marketing is shifting.

Historically, marketers target a segment of users, then batch and send messages. For example, I might purchase third-party data to target "coffee drinkers" or "frequent Starbucks visitors," then batch and send a message manually.

Today, the leading digital marketers are collecting first-party context and behavioral data, building rich customer profiles, and running automated, real-time, contextual campaigns.

Instead of targeting "frequent Starbucks visitors," I can trigger a message the moment a customer visits a Starbucks. And I can build a deep understanding of my customers over time.

The result? More relevant, personalized experiences for customers, and more engaging, successful campaigns for marketers.

The winners

Under the new model, the winners are the marketers who run these campaigns, and the app and data platforms that power them:

• Location and context platforms like Radar, which give marketers real-time context about the real-world behavior of customers
• Customer data platforms like mParticle and Segment, which help marketers unify and segment customer data
• Behavioral analytics platforms like Mixpanel and Amplitude, which help marketers understand the in-app behavior of customers
• Modern marketing automation platforms like Braze, Urban Airship, and Leanplum, which help marketers execute automated, real-time campaigns

Radar is a modern, open, flexible platform that seamlessly integrates with all of these tools.

The losers

The losers are marketers who don't adapt to the new model, as well as the companies and platforms that support the old model:

• Ad tech companies and third-party data suppliers will give marketers a stale and inaccurate picture of customers, and may not be GDPR-compliant
• Legacy analytics platforms will fail to help marketers build a complete, up-to-date understanding of customers
• Legacy marketing platforms will fail to help marketers execute modern, contextual campaigns

The bar has been raised. Are you ready? If you're interested in learning how modern apps drive results with real-time location context, drop us a line!