Marketing has evolved like nothing else over the years and is a very dynamic field. In the current era of digital marketing, the latest trend having an enormous impact is Blockchain technology. While Blockchain technology has always been associated with finance and cryptocurrencies, it will impact the digital marketing industry to a great extent in the coming years. 

What exactly is Blockchain, and how is this linked digital marketing?

“Anything that you can conceive of as a supply chain, Blockchain can vastly improve its efficiency – it doesn’t matter if it’s people, numbers, data, money.” – Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM

Blockchain is something similar to a record system or a shared ledger that is open to all in that network and transparent. So blockchain is a transaction record that is dispersed amongst a network of users. These users can be around the world and are secured and connected through encryption. Blocks segment each of these transactions, which is where it gets its name. These blocks are open to the users and get verified by them within the system. These blocks cannot be altered after the users verify them. These blocks get added to the chain of blocks that have already been verified.

Users are all the time buying and selling products and services on the web, and Blockchain maintains a record of all these transactions. The records are safely stored in different decentralised systems which are interconnected. Blockchain does not have a central safety point or trusted intermediary and hence is safe and less vulnerable. In the digital marketing world, this technology is changing the connection between consumers and businesses. As information is stored in the digital form, Blockchain increases transparency across all sectors, data is safe and cannot be tampered with. Companies benefit as they can understand how and where their funds are going and whether the audience receives them. 

User data is something that gets well protected with the advent of Blockchain. Data breaches are becoming increasingly common and getting bigger as more information is stored. With Blockchain being decentralised, to hack into the user data, a hacker would have to hack into several places where the data is stored. Decentralisation makes it difficult to crack an individual account. It also makes almost impossible to bring down an entire network. 

This article is a small glimpse into what Blockchain is all about. Big companies such as Microsoft, Walmart, IBM etc are investing in it. Blockchain is bound to revolutionise the way digital marketers interact with their customers. So the brands who begin to take advantage of this technology will stand to gain the most over the years.