A 2018 Bracket Buster - Digital Final 4

A recent Wall Street Journal article reports, "Rivals Chip Away at Google’s and Facebook’s U.S. Digital Ad Dominance," and the hashtag #GoogleFacebookDominate is trending on LinkedIn. Odds maker eMarketer predicts obvious and well known companies that are poised to steal market share from the 2 big kahunas. Twitter, Snapchat, Amazon and Microsoft are their easy bets for the March Digital Mayhem.

Sure. Those teams could get to the Sweet 16, but do they have the chops to make it to the Final 4? We all know that anything can happen when you lay out your picks. Here's my scenario that could ruin everyone's brackets.

I am putting my my money on 2 lesser known ad plays in the digital space to make it to the Digital Final 4: Apple and Yext. And in my scenario, Yext beats Apple with a buzzer beater 3 point shot by true freshman Howard Lehrman in the final seconds of the game and then takes on the goliath Google for the championship. It will be an historic rise by this newly upstarted team, and they'll cement their place in the record books.

What you say? Apple? They're not in the ad business. They're in the hardware, music and smartphone business. Wrong! Ever heard of Apple's "Search Ads"? Search Ads by Apple is a new way for developers to promote discovery of Apps on the App store. 65 - 80 percent of all app installs happen after a search through the Apple App Store. Being discovered through searches in the app store is a big deal for app developers. Earlier this year Digicapital reported that they forecast for the AR/VR apps segment could hit $150B revenue by 2020, with AR taking the lion’s share around $120 billion and VR at $30 billion. Who's better than Apple to take a lion share of the spending to promote those Apps?

And then there's Yext, a scrappy team new to the dance this year.

Yext is in the business of Digital Knowledge Management--a fundamental building block of today's online experience, and a key principle upon which every single major online outlet relies. Yext is quickly becoming the single source aggregator of the truth in business names, addresses, phone numbers, images, links, bios, menus and other data points that feed into the world's most authoritative publishers. Google, Facebook, Bing, Yelp, Mapquest, Waze, and so many more rely on the Yext's data to power their services. The next time you ask Siri or Google for directions to your favorite store, consider that you have to start with a correct address. That's how important Digital Knowledge Management is. In a meaningful way Google and Bing are standing on Yext's shoulders for basic, accurate business data.

In my Digital Final 4 scenario, the deep reliance on Yext truth in knowledge and business data positions them to make it all the way to the Final 4 and take on Google in the Championship Game. Admittedly, they may be a long shot, but I'm betting they'll will be back to the dance in next year and could win it all in 2020 when Lehrman enters his Junior year.

--Gary Steel consults clients on Online Marketing and Advertising, and is Google Search, Display, Video Analytics, Yext, and Acquisio Certified. If your business could use some improved online visibility, and would like to talk more about Digital Knowledge Management drop me a line. I hope you will 'like' and 'share' this post, and follow me on LinkedIn. #googlefacebookdominat