With the growth of mobile, we also expect to see the growth of video in marketing practices. Marketers need to show their products quickly and effectively so that purchase decisions can take place in real time.

Another trend we expect to see is the implementation of AI (Artificial Intelligence). AI will give marketers the ability to target consumers with ads that address their specific interests and needs. AI technology, such as Watson, is making its way into the marketing eco-system.

Greater focus on user experiences will result in the transformation of stores into warehouses. These will allow for experiential marketing, designed to trigger online orders by letting customers see, touch and try products in the warehouse and will result in customers simply going to stores to pickup their purchases.

There will be twice as many channels in the future that marketers need to manage with technologies such as IOT, Chatbots, AR/VR etc. disrupting the retail space. One example is beacons; these are small wireless devices that allow retailers to automatically send notifications and discounts directly to shoppers’ smart phones as soon as they enter a store. Another is the smart mirror, which will enable customers to virtually try on clothes.

87% of people use multiple screens and with the greater use of video across digital retail platforms, this offers retailers the opportunity to provide an enhanced visual experience of their brand and product for customers through activities such as live streaming, and Twitter and Facebook live video.

Apps will do the searching for you. Search behaviour will be stored in the apps. This will save consumers time as the app will know exactly what they want through the use of predictive data, in order to quickly produce information and results.

As a result of the above trends and changing retail landscape, marketers will have to expand attribution models to measure customer engagement and retention, in addition to transactions.