#2015marketing
2015 Marketing
Trends and Predictions
What to look out for in 2015?
Written by Bruno Berthezene, Solocal Group UK Country Manager

About Solocal Group
As the market specialist in cost effective multichannel marketing, Solocal Group supports businesses with the online to in-store customer
journey by connecting customers with brands. With annual revenues exceeding £800 million, Solocal Group is among the leading European
digital marketing groups. Its portfolio of solutions help over 650,000 clients – SMEs and larger companies - engage with customers and drive
online traffic in-store through solutions such as display advertising, web-to-store platform, real-time online appointment booking.
About the author
Bruno is Solocal Group UK’ Country Manager and also Solocal Group’s global Partnerships and Business Development Senior Manager. As
such, he develops partnerships between Solocal Group and digital companies, large groups or start-ups. Bruno has been part of Solocal
Group (since 2001. He has successively worked on Strategic Planning, Strategic Research and Intelligence, M&A, General Management for
123deal (a Solocal Group service) before moving to Business Development and Partnerships functions in 2011. Bruno graduated in
Marketing and Strategy at Paris Dauphine University and Grenoble Political Studies Institute.
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4 predictions on marketing trends for 2015
#1 From multiscreen to ubiquitous internet devices
#2 Content and social meets advertising
#3 Taking the multichannel customer journey seriously
#4 The rise of the seamless transaction
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TREND #1 – From multiscreen to ubiquitous Internet devices
The recent years have seen the rise of the multiscreen / multi-
device trend: from desktop through laptop, console, mobile,
tablet to phablet, each UK consumer uses an increasing
number of devices sometimes simultaneously (second
screen, third screen). Mobile and tablet have become the
dominating source of traffic for many internet brands but the
customer experience provided on these devices is still not
always adapted to the form factor. Additionally, the
fragmented usage of devices has been an issue for
businesses to have a single view of the user and therefore
makes it difficult to attribute conversion to a specific
interaction.
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TREND #1 – From multiscreen to ubiquitous Internet devices
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2015 will be the year where brands move to provide the same
experience on mobile devices that consumers receive on PCs and in
store.
In 2015, we will begin to see mobile payment take off as a result of m-
payment service launches such as Apple Pay.
2015 will see progress on multi-device tracking through the
development of emerging cross-device monitoring techniques,
including ultrasonic contactless technology.
There will be a booming wave of smart devices, such as wearables
including connected glasses, smart watches and Internet of Things
enabling devices. Whether all of these emerging connected devices will
prove to be successful in 2015 is not certain, but those that are will
considerably enrich our lives and make the internet even more
ubiquitous in our lives due to the relative simplicity of smart devices.
1.1 MOBILE USER EXPERIENCE
1.2 M-PAYMENT
1.3 CROSS-DEVICE TRACKING
1.4 SMART DEVICES

TREND #2 – Content and social meets advertising
Growth in display advertising will be mostly driven by the growth of
mobile devices, especially tablets, and by the explosion of video as an
online advertising form.
Ads will be more relevant than ever given the targeting possibilities
provided by data that allow advertisers to push messages only for what
the consumer is most likely to be interested in. However, at the same
time, advertising will face the emergence of ad blockers, browser
extensions downloaded by users and disabling display ads. As a result,
2015 will be the year where even more relevancy should be look for,
allowing advertisers and marketers to better use the untapped data to
its full potential which will therefore make users happy that they are
being reached with relevant content.
After retargeting, the new wave of data use in display and search
advertising will be pre-targeting, which can be defined as pushing ads
with messages based on a customer higher propensity to purchase a
product/service, this being based on behaviour data cross-analysis. 6
2.1 MOBILE DISPLAY ADVERTISING
2.2 VIDEO ADVERTISING
2.3 RELEVANCY
2.4 PRE-TARGETING

TREND #2 – Content and social meets advertising
While 2015 will see advertising attribution improving (see above),
advertisers and publishers are both looking for a better evaluation of
the engagement of users generated by display advertising. More
relevant than the cost per click, more universal than the cost per action,
time-based display offerings (by which the advertiser will only need to
pay if the user has been exposed to the ad or has stayed on the
landing website for a minimum amount of time) will see a great traction.
While advertising is transitioning towards more relevancy, content
appears as a natural alternative to reach users. Native advertising and
branded content, which can be defined as inserting commercially
oriented content in an editorial environment, are emerging and will
develop in 2015. A risk might be a commercial content overload for the
users, resulting in the same rejection from a part of the users as for
internet advertising. However, Facebook has already shown that
significant revenue can be driven out of paid content amplification in a
social media environment, warranting visibility of sponsored content
within organic content, and Twitter seems to be going the same way. 7
2.5 TIME-BASED DISPLAY
OFFERINGS
2.6 NATIVE ADVERTISING –
BRANDED CONTENT

TREND #3 – Taking the multichannel customer journey seriously
The purchase funnel is being
increasingly looked after. In the past
decades, with the rise of digital, it has
become more much complex with the
rise of multiple touch points, from
‘discovery’ through ‘research’ and
‘engagement’ to ‘conversion’ into
purchase and post-purchase actions.
This means that taking the customer
right through from the start of the
journey to the purchase is more
challenging than ever and when that
happens, there is another challenge for
marketers and that is the attribution of
the purchase between the different
touch points.
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TREND #3 – Taking the multichannel customer journey seriously
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2015 will see the development of marketing automation techniques that
bring more sophistication in the optimisation of the conversion. The
increasing capacity to exploit the potential of data is obviously at the
core of this evolution towards real-time, behavioural, marketing.
Most of the purchases do not happen online but in-store so the
challenge of optimisation, attribution and marketing automation go
beyond the online activity. There is still much work to do on web-to-
store journey optimisation as many brands still don’t provide some of
the basics that customers have begun to expect. The most striking gap
relies on the disparity between customers’ expectations of store and
product location tools and the poor level of store locators on many
brand websites, not to mention the lack of mobile optimisation or the
scarce existence of a product locator. 2015 will be the year when a large
number of brands still lagging behind on mobile will catch up to finally
propose a mobile customer experience that will boost conversion,
online (m-commerce) and most importantly offline (mobile-to-store)
3.1 MARKETING AUTOMATION
3.2 WEB-TO-STORE

TREND #3 – Taking the multichannel customer journey seriously
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Personalisation and optimisation of in-site search and navigation will
also be growing trends, thanks to the increased use of consumer data.
Once the customer has arrived in-store, technologies like beacons or
ultrasonic tracking will help with attribution and marketing automation.
Stores, whether independent or part of a chain, will provide an
increasingly innovative in-store customer experience, with digital tools
(virtual trial, advice, queueing…) being used more and more, a trend
called phygital merging another trend called storytailing (examples of
recent innovations in retail can be found on the Local Ideas blog).
3.3 PERSONALISATION
3.4 WEB-TO-STORE TRACKING
3.5 PHYGITAL - STORYTAILING

TREND #4 – The rise of the seamless transaction
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The sharing economy, illustrated by companies such as AirBnB and
Uber, has paved the way for a world when buyers and sellers,
professionals or individuals, can connect and transact in a seamless,
real-time way. Car and house sharing, food, professional and local
services, there are no limits to what this model can apply to. And this is
only the beginning as an overwhelming number of new services are
following the trend, positioning themselves across all possible niches
you could imagine.
Hotel and restaurant booking has been around for a long time but other
service sectors are now realising the potential that they can also tap into
through online appointment booking too. 2014 has been the year of
acceleration for online appointment booking and 2015 should been the
year where this service really explodes into the mainstream. This is true
for a diverse range of sectors, such as health and beauty, car
maintenance, banking and finance and insurance, but also for the
fashion and luxury sectors due to the rise of personal shopping.
4.1 SHARING ECONOMY
4.2 APPOINTMENT BOOKING

TREND #4 – The rise of the seamless transaction
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Making the delivery quick and easy will be another growing focus of
pure online plays or bricks and clicks. Click & collect has shown to be
very popular and players such as Amazon, Google, eBay are already
testing and beginning to implement quick delivery services.
4.3 CLICK & COLLECT
4.4 EXPRESS DELIVERY

#2015marketing
Marketing Lexicon
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Marketing lexicon (1/4)
 ADVERTISING ATTRIBUTION
Or attribution modeling, identifies the key events on the
customer’s journey that influenced him in its final
decision. A value is then allocated to each events. These
events can be ads but many other “touchpoints” can
impact the customer’s decision: articles, social networks
content, e-mails, sponsored/natural links… Attribution is
therefore a global customer comprehension and a
strategic tool. Within digital marketing, attribution is
particularly important as it allows marketers to value the
specific contribution and return of each investment.
 APPOINTMENT BOOKING
Online appointment booking (also called appointment
scheduling) tools are softwares offering a diary and
scheduling features and hosted on a website or an app.
They allow a much better customer experience (ability to
find easily real-time availabilities and to book 24/7 on all
kind of devices) and a better management for the
business (less time spent by the staff answering
appointment-related calls, lower no-show rates because
of reminders sent to the registered users).
Learn more about Solocal Group’s appointment booking /
scheduling software
 BRANDED CONTENT
Branded content is an editorial content produced by a
company to promote its offer in a likeable way. It blurs
the lines between editorial and advertising content. This
form generally provides a stronger customer experience
and is adapted to social network communication .
 CLICK & COLLECT
Click & collect is an online shopping facility enabling
customers to reserve or buy a product online and plan its
delivery to the point of sale of their choice where the
customer will come and collect it. Click & collect enhances
both the customer experience and the company’s
logistics optimization. It is also a strong lever to a website’s
sales performances. Click & collect is an increasingly
popular Web-to-store service and represents a significant
part of online sales.
 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Customer experience is the entirety of all feelings and
interactions that a customer has with a company, before,
during and after his purchase. Its direct result is obviously
the overall satisfaction of the customer toward the service.
For that reason, it is crucial to any company to
understand, analyze and manage its customers’
experiences.
 CUSTOMER JOURNEY
The customer journey is the path that follows a
customer from touchpoint” to touchpoint, that’s to say the
succession of steps leading the customer to a final
decision (whether online or offline). All the contents and
events met by the customer will construct his experience.
That is why the customer journey is essential to any
business.
The typical customer journey is comprised of six stages:
• Discovery and consideration (through word of
mouth, content or advertising)
• Research and evaluation (both online and offline)
• Purchase (both online and offline)
• Fulfillment
• Product returns, exchanges or maintenance
• Customer feedback, which fuels the discovery and
research stages of the journey of another
 CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINT
A touchpoint is any place or event where an interaction
between the customer and a company arises. It can take
many forms, online or offline, and occur at any time
during the customer journey. Common touchpoints are:
the website, an ad on any media, the store, a
salesperson…
More specifically, in marketing, knowing your touchpoints
allows you to manage the customer experience at every
step of the purchasing process and optimize satisfaction
and conversion ultimately.
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Marketing lexicon (2/4)
 DATA: (data marketing).
Data is the set of all values either quantitative or
qualitative that could be exploited for marketing purpose.
Internet has facilitated the dissemination of an
exponential amount of data, and businesses quickly
realized the potential of this resource. This growing
awareness has spawned a number of disciplines: data
acquisition, data mining, data analysis… Data is
increasingly used in digital marketing to improve
relevancy and targeting.
 DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Often referred to as banners , display advertising is a
major type of digital advertising that can include text,
logos, pictures, video or rich media.
Display advertising can be attributed to a 90’s company
called AT&T that launched the first banner on the web
magazine hotwired.com, now known as “WIRED”.
Display advertising main business models are CPM (cost
per thousand impression) and CPC (cost per click) but can
also be CPL (cost per lead) and CPA (cost per action). An
emerging business model relies in time-based offerings.
Learn more about Solocal Group’s display advertising
offering
 EXPRESS DELIVERY
More and more, customers have growing expectations
concerning the delivery options of an online seller.
Delivery price, time or location (including lockers) have
become critical marketing issues. Express delivery is one
of the trends among the dynamic delivery solutions
emerging recently. It will concern the fastest delivery
option offered by a website. Google, eBay, Amazon, Asos
and other online retailers are launched into a pursuit of
the quickest delivery solution, increasingly same-day
delivery and down to one-hour delivery.
 GAP (customer journey gaps)
By opposition to the “seamless experience” concept,
the customer journey gaps are all the flaws and
imperfections in the service that hurt the experience of a
customer. They generate dissatisfaction and could be
due to a lack in the company’s offer.
Learn more on this topic with the following blog post:
Bridging the gaps on Customer journey
 MARKETING AUTOMATION
Marketing technique based on softwares and
webservices allowing to program campaigns
automatically. It often includes personalization features to
adapt to each individual. Marketing automation is
frequently used in direct marketing, social network
advertising, website workflows…
Trigger Marketing is a good example of automation
processes. A marketing lever (an emailing for example) is
automatically sent to the customer after he has realized a
certain action (purchasing, visiting the website…)
 MOBILE-TO-STORE
Mobile-to-store is a consumer behavior belonging to the
web-to-store phenomena. It is any web-to-store actions
performed from a mobile device: display advertising,
push messages, search engine research, use of a store
locator, consulting a website or a map, appointment
booking…
Learn more about Solocal Group’s mobile-to-store
platform
 MOBILE PAYMENT
Mobile payment or m-payment, are all the solutions
enabling to transfer money to a third party thanks to a
portable electronic device. They can be performed either
online or in-store. Existing m-payments are numerous:
text messages, money transfers through digital wallets,
contactless payments on smartphones, credit card
payments…
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Marketing lexicon (3/4)
 NATIVE ADVERTISING
Is a form of online advertising that emphasizes a content
consistent with the organic (non paid) content of the web
page in which it is displayed. The aim is to display an ad
that will be less intrusive for the viewer and, thanks to it,
make it more efficient.
 PERSONAL SHOPPING
Personal shopping is a tailor-made experience for
customers. The idea of such a service is to propose
personalized advices to each individual. A good example
of this technique is Oasis’ “My personal stylist” service
Learn more on this topic with the following blog post: How
to use personal shopping to drive footfall to your stores
and provide an exceptional customer experience
 PERSONALIZATION
Personalization marketing lies in the fact of tailoring the
content of a website to the profile of a viewer (its known
characteristics and preferences). It is a form of data
marketing involving customer understanding and data
management. It is mainly used to enhance customer
services and conversion.
 PHYGITAL
Contraction of “physical” and “digital”, the Phygital
concept defines the business initiatives aiming to rethink
the in-store experience by enriching the customer’s
experience thanks to digital devices, tools and data. Even
if the Phygital Marketing concept is still emerging, the
consumer’s in-store behavior has already substantially
changed with new connected devices. Thus, the
digitalization of the physical stores has already begun.
Discover phygital initiatives on Local Ideas
 PRE-TARGETING
Pretargeting can be defined as pushing ads with
messages based on a customer higher propensity to
purchase a product/service, this being based on
behaviour data cross-analysis. Pretargeting is therefore
the opposite technique of retargeting, based on
anticipation instead of reaction.
 PRODUCT LOCATOR
A product locator, in a very comparable manner to the
store locator, enables a consumer to know if a product is
available in a particular store. It is a great challenge for the
web-to-store process and answers to a major customer
concern which is to know where to find the product he is
looking for nearby.
 RETARGETING
Retargeting is the process of submitting personalized
marketing levers (banners, e-mails, etc) to a customer
after its visit on the website of an advertiser. This
personalization is based on behavioral criteria. Broadly,
this process has been democratized by companies like
Criteo.
 SEAMLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Talking about seamless customer experience is talking
about a goal to achieve a perfectly fluid customer
experience. Customers naturally expect a service
available at any time and on any device (ATAWAD) with
the most intuitive experience. Thus the “seamless
standard” encompasses all marketing solutions that can
facilitate a fluid customer journey: responsive design,
easy access to the needed information, easiness of use
of transactional tools/online payments, real-time
customer support…
Learn more on this topic with the following blog post:
Bridging the gaps on Customer journey
 MULTISCREEN / MULTI-DEVICE
Applies to any information available on different types of
devices and the subsequent use: computers, tablets,
smartphones, game consoles, TV.
We often speak of a multi-screen advertising campaign:
the same campaign is disclosed on different channels to
maximize the audience. But these terms may apply to
any multiple-media customer experience. The trend of
'responsive' websites (compatible with PC, tablet,
smartphone) is also an illustration.
Because of the differences in the tracking methods
depending on the device, multiscreen use makes it
difficult for marketers to have a single view of the overall
behavior of a consumer.
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Marketing lexicon (4/4)
 STORYTAILING
Contraction of “storytelling” and “retailing”, this concept
describes an underlying trend in large retailers’
marketing strategies. With the shift to multi-channel
communication and e-commerce, retailers have to
rethink their former model of marketing, supply chain
and footprints. Instead of communicating through
physical media, they tend to create their own content
and, sometimes, even their own media. Doing so, they
are able to include a storytelling in all the steps of their
customers’ journey.
 TIME-BASED DISPLAY OFFERINGS
Display advertising are most commonly sold per
impression (CPM), click (CPC) or action (CPA). However,
time-based display offerings gather any pricing schemes
that relie on time spent on the ad’s page or on the
destination website after clicking on the ad.
 WEB-TO-STORE
Web-to-store designates the phenomenon in which a
consumer gathers information online before visiting a
store. This consumer behavior is also referred to as ROPO
for “Research Online, Purchase Offline” or webrooming. It
represents a major challenge for marketers and the
interest for Web-to-store is even growing with the rise of
mobile. Some major triggers of the Web-to-store are store
locators, product locators, click & collect, online
appointment booking…
Learn more about Solocal Group’s web-to-store platform
 TRACKING
Tracking is a dynamic analysis of the efficiency of a
company’s communication over customers. Tracking is
the process of observing the behavior and
responsiveness of prospects to understand how the
company’s marketing actions impact its business and
ultimately optimize conversion.
 STORE LOCATOR
A store locator is an online service allowing the customer
to localize a point of sales and find all relevant information
and transactional functionalities he is looking for about
this point of sales.
Store locators are crucial tools to the web-to-store
process. They can be accessible either from the
company’s website or app. The impact of a store locator
on conversion can vary significantly depending on the
visibility (search engine optimization), engagement and
conversion tools (product locator, store promotions/news,
click&collect, calls-to-action).
Related words are store finder, branch locator, dealer
locator, stockist locator, branch finder, dealer finder,
stockist finder.
Learn more about Solocal Group’s store locator software
 SHARING ECONOMY
Sharing economy can be defined as the set of all
business models fostering a collaborative consumption of
goods and services. There is no consensus over a
common definition of sharing economy and, therefore, it
is also referred to as peer economy or collaborative
economy. Nevertheless, the common point of all the
recent initiatives is the sharing of resources, either human
or physical. For a sharing economy business the network
size is the most critical factor as most of them rely on
communities. Some of the most popular collaborative
communities are certainly covering room-sharing
(Airbnb), product-creation (Quirky), car-sharing (BlaBlaCar,
Uber’s UberPop), e-learning…
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