Virtual and augmented reality
MarTech is your source for virtual and augmented reality marketing content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team of editors and research professionals, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
Why we care:
While the marketing applications of both are still emerging, these experiences are being tested in a host of ways that customers are beginning to have exposure to. For example, online shopping experiences are becoming more augmented through smartphone apps. Though this is emerging, accessibility and interoperability with other more traditional experiences is important for marketers to ensure. As concepts like Web3 and the “metaverse” start to materialize, these technologies will play a greater role.
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Report: Amazon internal data suggest ‘voice-commerce’ virtually nonexistent
Contradicting consumer surveys, article claims only 2% of device owners have made purchases through smart speakers this year.
When should marketers use AR and when VR?
A marketing tech exec offers some rules of thumb.
Finding synergy between talent & technology in the martech machine age
What can artificial intelligence bring to your marketing organization, and how can you best utilize this increasingly ubiquitous technology? Columnist Andy Betts shares 5 benefits.
How social networks usurp Google’s local search dominance
Google may dominate most results, but not local search. Contributor Wesley Young looks at how Facebook and other social networks take a significant share of local search away from Google.
Report: 52% of millennials want retailers to mirror their values
Survey from Euclid shows components that fuel favorable brand perception.
Apple’s latest ARKit preps augmented reality to become pervasive reality
Multiplayer and persistent experiences mean that marketers will now have a permanent interactive layer on everything.
Tobii Pro releases analytics for its eye-tracking + VR
A year ago, the eye-tracking firm released an integration with the HTC Vive VR headset, but data analytics required a programmer.
Human-computer interaction and digital advertising
Columnist Peter Minnium explains the increasingly important field of HCI and its effect on the marketing environment.
Shoppables are just getting started
All-in-one-screen shoppable content could evolve in ways that dramatically change ecommerce and marketing.
Solving for cross-device complexity with multi-touch attribution
Multi-touch attribution isn't new, but technological advances have brought it within reach and made it more important than ever, says contributor Chuck Moran.
Adverty launches ‘first programmatic platform’ for AR/VR in-app ads
The company is out with a SSP offering inventory for 2D AR/VR ads mapped inside a 3D environment.
Smart marketing still hinges on humanity, not technology
As exciting as technological developments may be, contributor Mike Sands urges marketers to keep their eyes on their customers.
DatavizVR rebrands as 3Data, adds new features to its VR data visualization tool
The new platform provides a way to show stakeholders and C-level execs data in an immersive environment.
MarTech Landscape: What is XR?
If you’re getting dizzy categorizing all the reality-transforming technologies, here’s an increasingly popular term that covers the entire channel.
How Intel uses real-life stories to build campaigns around its B2B technology solutions
As VP of global marketing and communications for Intel's B2B marketing strategy, Alyson Griffin is taking technology-focused marketing to a new level.
Everything a CMO needs to know about video marketing in 2018
Contributor Allen Martinez provides an overview of the why and how of video marketing, including an important primer on how you can get started.
Walmart buys a VR company on its way to invent ‘contextual commerce’
The purchase establishes the third ‘portfolio company’ through the giant retailer’s tech incubator, Store No 8.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Are your marketing campaigns tired and predictable? Contributor Mike Sands discusses ways to advance customer relationships to create better marketing and outcomes.
From breaking down walled gardens to augmented reality adoption: Five predictions for social in 2018
What's in store for social media marketers in the new year? From Instagram's dominance to growth in AR, columnist Laura Collins predicts the trends that will shape 2018.
Snapchat’s Lens Studio app opens augmented-reality format to everyone, including self-serve advertisers
Anyone can use Lens Studio to create Snapchat’s World Lenses, which can then be distributed via Snapcodes and deep links and attached to Snap Ads.
Google’s new Daydream View: Another step on the long road toward VR adoption
Virtual reality, which is battling general consumer indifference, is also competing with augmented reality for the hearts and minds of marketers.
How marketers are wrestling with virtual reality’s adoption issue
VR alone may not yet offer brands the scale they seek, but thanks to location-based VR, VR-based filmmaking and AR, VR can still be valuable.
Live from Facebook-owned Oculus’s annual VR conference: Day 1
All the news from the opening keynote at the virtual reality company's annual developer conference.
Apple’s ARKit launches a new channel: The hidden layers of reality
With similar new tech from Google, Microsoft and Facebook, advertising and marketing now have new dimensions.
Live Blog: Google talks AR & VR at Google I/O 2017
What's new with augmented and virtual reality with Google? Our live blog has the news.
Facebook Spaces & the risky virtualization of retail
As Facebook pushes into VR with Spaces, columnist and Bitly senior content strategist Blaise Lucey takes a look at how will virtual reality will affect ecommerce and the retail experience.
Watch: Facebook previews its first social VR product, Facebook Spaces
Facebook demoed its first, full-fledged virtual reality product at its annual developer conference, F8.
Cutting-edge martech? 65% of brands have no plans to invest this year
In a new survey, marketers say technologies like virtual reality and machine learning will have a huge impact in coming years, but they don't plan to invest in them just yet.
Forrester: Virtual Reality is not yet ready for marketers
The research firm says it’s at least five years from being a mass consumer medium, although augmented reality, 360-degree video and mixed reality are acting as stepping stones.
Report: Consumers feel positive about immersive technologies
Video ad firm YuMe found most survey respondents have heard about virtual reality, augmented reality, or 360-degree video -- and they pay more attention to ads in those formats.
Report: Apple working on augmented reality glasses for potential 2018 release
Apple CEO Tim Cook believes augmented reality has greater market potential than virtual reality.
Google’s virtual game changer: Leveraging 360 VR video & image optimization for SEO
Contributor Brian Ussery notes that as global search interest in VR skyrockets, Google has quietly made 360-degree VR videos and images accessible across devices and optimizable for organic search.
Google’s Assistant, Home announcements preview a new kind of ‘augmented reality’
With the launch of this new ecosystem, the physical world adds more digital layers.
Pokémon Go, augmented reality and the future of local marketing
What might the popular new mobile game mean for local marketers? Columnist Brian Smith explores.
Twitter peeks at 360-degree video with Samsung campaign for NBA Finals
As Twitter gets closer to supporting 360-degree video, the NBA will tweet virtual reality-lite videos shot during the NBA Finals using a Samsung camera.
Adobe takes the first steps to bring its Marketing Cloud into virtual reality
The company adds support for analytics, several VR formats and various ad types.
VR is coming to the Google Play store this fall with Daydream
Google's new Daydream platform is set to deliver virtual reality to Photos, YouTube, Street View, apps and movies.
Marketing Day: Virtual reality digital ads, PPC skeptics & Twitter news
Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.
Can virtual reality save digital advertising from itself? These companies are betting on it.
With virtual and augmented reality advertising taking shape, the industry is poised for a huge transition and opportunity to reshape digital advertising experiences.
Watch Facebook’s CTO take a selfie in virtual reality
At Facebook's developer conference, F8, CTO Mike Schroepfer showed what Facebook could look like in virtual reality, including how to share a VR selfie.