Technology companies have made huge strides in advancing marketing trends.
Apple has launched its email security feature in iOS, and OS X. Google's search engines use it to incorporate web vitality into their search algorithm.
Google wants to get rid of third-party cookies by 2023. And companies like HubSpot, Salesforce, and others are vying for dominance in the mar-tech sector, offering new ways to market, manage and communicate.
What does this all mean for marketers?
These changes could require a new strategic approach for planning in the years ahead for anyone responsible for digital advertising, email marketing, or website optimization.
Here are some trends you should be paying attention to:
Contextual Marketing will win
Click-based advertising is no longer relevant. Marketing teams must comprehend the buyer's journey to create the best content and communicate it intelligently.
Digital marketing required only a basic knowledge of the platform on which they were placing ads. It was sufficient to understand retargeting, how to add a tracking code or pixel to a website, and how to set up a program setting for an ad.
Marketers need to understand better where buyers are travelling as they search for and confirm online purchases. They'll need to be able to use the contextual marketing tools on these platforms to make informed content and advertising placement decisions.
Digital advertising will be more similar to traditional advertising techniques. A marketer might have selected a magazine based on its content and audience to place their ad.
This digital advertising concept can be illustrated by simple examples, such as food brand ads on a recipe page.
Marketers must also consider categories of keywords and not synonyms when creating contextual advertising. It is important to increase the buyer's understanding of the journey.
To properly execute contextual marketing, a marketer must clearly understand the buyer's financial, social and emotional needs at specific stages. This is in addition to their enjoyment of life outside the buyer's journey.
Creativity reigns supreme
Marketing is all about creativity. However, creativity will be the new norm as we move away from relying on algorithms and towards a more competitive landscape that uses contextual marketing.
One of the most lucrative opportunities is creative placement. For example, a recipe website is a channel, not a food brand. What if a marketer for a take-out or food delivery company advertises on the recipe website?
Digital ads can be placed in new and exciting ways if the buyer understands the problem they are trying to solve (hunger, in this instance).
The trend toward more video-based content is shifting away from captions and photos to become more interactive experiences.
Facebook claims they witnessed a 200% increase at SXSW 2022 in adopting advanced technology features such as live shopping and product tagging.
According to the same report, the hard shift in the buyer journey has been almost entirely digital since the pandemic outbreak. This means more competition for attention as more brands invest in digital transformation.
Measure intent, not small actions or vanity statistics
We need to measure actions related to intent in marketing data, not the standard metrics we use to measure success like followers, emails opened or click-through rates.
Click-through rates do not always indicate intent.
Marketers with more experience now have much more data in their first-data systems.
More intentional actions, such as downloads or engagements aligned with the buyer's journey, and the campaign goals, are better data.
The creative display ad for the recipe website is unlikely to get many clicks (unless it did inadvertently). However, if the ad gets a lot of impressions and traffic, and time spent on the site is increasing, then you can attribute ‘brand impact’ to this campaign.
Seeking exceptional digital marketing solutions? Look no further than EWM. Contact our digital experts today.
Related articles.
