“In order to be an expert in such an ever-changing world of digital marketing, you need to make sure that you are learning all the time.”
– Clodagh Higgins
At one point in time, using third-party data to hyper-target marketing and advertising campaigns, deliver personalized shopping experiences, and reach out to the highest-value customers was one of the hottest trends in the digital marketing industry.
But let’s fast forward a few years – and you’ll see an ever-increasing number of advertisers shifting their focus towards the use of first-party data due to Google’s gigantic third-party cookie phaseout announcement (expected to roll out in 2023).
This means – the use of third-party data – which was once one of the hottest marketing and advertising trends is slowly fading away and will soon turn obsolete once Google bans the use of third-party cookies.
The world of digital marketing and advertising is ever-changing.
Some trends last forever, whereas others don’t.
Advertisers, businesses, and publishers solely relying on the use of third-party data now have to end up building a first-party data strategy. An IAB report indicates that publishers may lose up to a whopping $10 billion when third-party cookies are disabled.
That’s insane.
In short, we can conclude that digital marketing and advertising is an ever-changing industry. And it doesn’t matter if you are a marketer, business owner, or a C-level executive looking forward to scaling your operations, it’s extremely important to keep yourself updated with the latest trends.
This will not only help you identify the soon-to-disappear trends, but you can also identify numerous opportunities which you can capitalize on to scale your operations and grow your business.
We’re about to head into 2022 – which means it’s now more important than ever to familiarize yourself with the latest marketing trends.
This blog post lists down the five hottest digital marketing trends marketers and businesses should look forward to in 2022.
5 Hot Digital Marketing Trends to Capitalize on in 2022
For ease of access, we’re listing down the five digital marketing trends we’re about to discuss in this blog post:
- The rise of voice search
- Focus on building a privacy-first web
- The era of mobile-first marketing
- The continued dominance of marketing automation
- A look at the bigger picture
Let’s touch down on each of these digital marketing trends one by one.
The Rise of Voice Search
“It’s now common for people to say, ‘I love you’
to their smart speakers.”
– Professor Trevor Cox
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, we witnessed the global smart speaker sales break their all-time high – as it crossed the 150 million units mark in 2020. And if the pace keeps up, smart speakers will reportedly hold their position as the “Top-Selling Electronics Product” by 2024. Over 55% of households worldwide have been predicted to own at least one smart speaker by 2022.
Some households talk to voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana more than they do with their family members.
Some exciting stats revolving around voice search:
- 27% of the global population now uses voice search on their smartphones.
- 65% of people in the age range 25-49 talk to their voice-enabled devices at least once a day. And about 61% of people falling in the age range of 25-64 have reported that they are more likely to increase their voice search usage in the next few years.
- About 93% of consumers feel extremely satisfied with their voice assistants.
- Over 65% of people currently using Google Home or Amazon Echo have reported that they can’t imagine going back to a time when they didn’t have a smart speaker.
- Moreover, 43% of the overall voice-enabled device owners use voice for shopping.
- Voice will reportedly be a $40 billion channel by 2022.
With an ever-increasing number of people using voice search for different purposes, it’s important for marketers and businesses to capitalize on the trend. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on this brilliant opportunity, would you?
Voice search is faster and easier. Hence, it’s critical for business owners to make sure that their website and content are voice-search friendly.
The way we use voice search is completely different from how we perform a traditional Google search. For example, if you want to check the weather:
- Traditional Google Search: weather Miami
- Voice Search: What is the weather like in Miami today?
When we type, we are used to keyword-based searches. However, while using voice search, our searches are conversational. So, the best solution here is to conduct thorough keywords research, take into consideration the long-tail conversational keywords and build a strategic roadmap to capitalize on this trend.
Focus on Building a Privacy-First Web
“Privacy is not something that we’re merely entitled to.
It’s an absolute pre-requisite.”
– Marlon Brando
86% of people based in the United States have tried to remove or decrease their digital footprint at some point in time. Over 80% of survey respondents reported that they were concerned about their data falling in the wrong hands. Moreover, 79% of internet users believe that they have completely lost control over their online data.
Most people believe online privacy to be a myth. And after the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal saw the light of day, people started feeling extremely concerned and felt that they were being monitored by the tech giants like Facebook, Google, and other platforms all the time.
However, with Apple rolling out its privacy-focused features and Google soon about to disable the use of third-party cookies in Chrome, people are now feeling more relieved.
While that’s good news for people looking forward to gaining more control over their personal data on the internet, it’s bad-bad news for advertisers, publishers, and businesses relying on third-party data.
Up until now, businesses have been using third-party data to hyper-target their campaigns, boost their personalization efforts and reach out to the right set of people at the right time on the right platform. Whereas most publishers earn their top dollars by allowing these businesses to run ads on their website.
However, with third-party cookies soon about to turn obsolete, advertisers and businesses have no other option than to build strategic campaigns revolving around the use of first-party data. Also, you need to keep in mind that we’re just getting started and taking the first step towards building a privacy-first web.
More announcements are expected in the near future – hence it’s really important to keep yourself geared up and prepared for the same.
The Era of Mobile-First Marketing
Over 5 billion people, or 2/3 of the global population, are active mobile phone users worldwide. In the last year, we witnessed a 2.3% growth in the number of active mobile phone users. And in the next few years, the number of people exploring the internet using their phones will reportedly skyrocket.
“Mobile is not the future anymore. It’s the NOW. Meet your customers in the environment of their choice rather than where it’s convenient for you.”
– Cyndie Shaffstall
People spend 2 hours 55 minutes on average using their smartphones every day. And with Covid-19 acting as a catalyst for digital transformation, the use of mobile phones has risen exponentially between 2020 and now.
Despite the rising mobile-based consumption, 91% of SMB websites aren’t mobile-optimized. In fact, you’ll be shocked to know that 24% of the top one million most popular websites are subject to the same.
Remember – most of your prospects and consumers will hop onto your website from their mobile devices. And if your website is not mobile-friendly, then they will face an extremely hard time exploring. This will in turn result in poor user experience – which will lead to increased dissatisfaction and a high bounce-off rate.
Hence, businesses should prioritize building a mobile-friendly website for their business and include features like a streamlined navigation menu, touchscreen-friendly navigation, collapsible menus, or anything that can improve mobile usage. At the same time, you need to make sure that your website speed on mobile devices is fast. And you can also integrate various features like camera use and voice detection to deliver the best possible experience to your users.
The Continued Dominance of Marketing Automation
“Marketing automation is a world-class technology that propels businesses into a new era of relationship-based marketing offering quantifiable results. Upon combining powerful tech with strategic implementation, you can take your company on a journey that leads to new heights of success.”
– Jon Miller
51% of companies currently use marketing automation. Out of the 63% of companies tapping into the power of marketing automation reported that they outperformed their competitors based on the data fetched from their ROI and sales metrics.
Over 71% of business owners reported that they witnessed a gigantic spike in their conversion rate after using a marketing automation software.
As a business owner, you don’t need to chase down every abandoned cart all by yourself or email every new subscriber. Various marketing automation platforms like Marketo, Omnisend, HubSpot, and many more allow business owners to automate their marketing and advertising efforts – like launching an email drip campaign, scheduling a release in advance, setting a trigger or more.
For example, when we sign up on a platform, we usually receive a “Welcome” or “Thanks for Joining” type of email. The thing is – business owners or marketing guys of the company don’t roll out these emails manually. That’s all automated marketing. Similarly, most eCommerce stores roll out a cart abandonment email to the people who abandoned their cart. It’s not a manual process – that’s all automated.
These are just a few basic examples of marketing automation. With the right marketing automation tool in your arsenal, you can build an entire pipeline that’ll help you conquer your goals.
Similarly, you can automate your paid ad campaigns as well, helping you not only save your time but precious advertising dollars as well.
With automation helping marketing departments save a huge chunk of their time and enhance their marketing and advertising campaigns, an ever-increasing number of businesses have been predicted to tap into this technology in the coming years.
A Look at the Bigger Picture – Building Strategic Campaigns
One of the big mistakes most business owners and marketing folks make is consider their marketing and advertising campaigns in a linear manner.
But trust me on this – it’s not an A-Z linear path.
There’s no point in running brilliantly crafted paid ad campaigns if your website sucks. And even if you have a great website design, you need to make sure that you are delivering the best possible customer experience both before and after the purchase. If not, your prospects or customers will head over to your competitors.
Businesses should think of their marketing and advertising efforts as a flywheel. You need to build strategic campaigns that will help you reach out to and attract different people at different stages of their buyers’ journey for maximum conversions and retention.
This means, if you are the VP of marketing of a B2B SaaS business, you should build strategic campaigns that not only help you attract the sales and marketing departments. But you also need to build content rock-focused on attracting project managers, product owners, and C-Level executives.
Capitalize on the 5 Hot Digital Marketing Trends Today!
We’re about to head into 2022.
And if you haven’t yet begun capitalizing on voice search, marketing automation, and other trends we’ve mentioned in this blog post, you’re already missing out on a lot.
Focusing on these trends will help you stand out and leg up on your competition.
Don’t wait around!
