What are the implications for marketers as the Metaverse grows? What are the clear opportunities and hazards that the Metaverse bring for marketers? What is the key tool that will help marketers take full advantage of the tsunami of data that the Metaverse brings?

We all know technology evolves rapidly. We consistently see innovations that 5 years ago were perhaps unimaginable. One of these innovations is the Metaverse. Its immersive virtual environment has the potential to quickly take over the internet. To put things into perspective on how the Metaverse has the potential to rapidly grow, it is estimated that approximately 85 million users experienced AR or VR in 2021. That represents a 100% growth in the number of users in less than 4 years (source E-Marketer.)

While the Metaverse audience today is still relatively small, it has an unimaginable value as a new computer platform comes online and their audiences grow. That growth would seem to be guaranteed as digital media companies, social media companies and investment funds are investing huge amounts of capital and resources into the Metaverse.

The Metaverse is an always on, a 24/7 virtual space where individual users are represented by virtual avatars. This virtual space is continually evolving and growing as individuals join and interact with the virtual world. As it evolves different meta-verse platforms will work together where virtual avatars will be able to move from platform to platform.

As marketers, the first thing we must come to terms with is that the Metaverse is not just a trending topic, it’s a real and growing marketplace. The obvious opportunities the metaverse brings is the huge amount of highly valuable data and the nearly unlimited opportunities to offer hyper-personalized messaging through a host of different formats and forums. The downside is that it brings a fire hose of data that can lead to a company’s message being diluted or completely drowned out by brands who can better harness the rich data the Metaverse provides.

For this article, we will focus only on the key Martech tool that can unlock the potential of the data that the metaverse will deliver. That tool must combine real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP) capabilities (builds a real time 360 one-view of each avatar) with AI-driven real-time campaign automation, orchestration and real-time journey building.

Customer expectations of your brand and the experiences you deliver are already high and will only grow higher in the metaverse. Real-time merging of offline, online and Metaverse data will be key to meeting these expectations. 

A key feature that every CDP provides is that it can quickly integrate with digital data sources and other internal systems to create a data rich marketing database. Where some CDPs fall short is their ability to do this in actual real time, speeds of less than a second which are important today but will be crucial in the fast-moving Metaverse. 

There are plenty of MarTech tools that can do AI driven campaign automation or orchestration or journey building, but they are usually siloed within individual apps. For the speeds that are necessary to thrive within the Metaverse ecosystem, it’s important that all these capabilities are completely integrated into a signal solution. 

There are a few companies today that combine all or most of these capabilities in their existing solution. It is important to understand that the speed at which data is generated and the messaging it can drive will only become more complex and more dynamic. Companies need to adapt their platforms so that they can adapt to this ever-changing environment.

Author Bio

Subra Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer of Lemnisk–  Lemnisk offers a  real-time marketing automation built on a customer data platform. Lemnisk delivers superior customer experiences that result in increased conversions, retention and growth for enterprises.

Subra has over two decades experience building and scaling deep tech products and teams, including over a decade in big data, machine learning and marketing technology systems. Prior to starting Lemnisk, Subra was the CEO at Vizury, a leading ad tech company that was sold to Singapore based Affle. 

Subra has also held various product and business leadership roles at Austin based Trilogy Inc. and DaimlerChrysler Research. Subra has an undergraduate degree in Electrical & Electronics from BITS Pilani and an MBA from the Indian School of Business. Subra regularly speaks at various marketing summits and conferences across the world.