Top Digital Marketing Trends to watch – Digital Marketing Predictions

Top Digital Marketing Trends

Top Emerging Digital Marketing Trends : There is ample evidence to suggest that more than 50 million devices will be connected to the internet by the year 2023. I’m talking about global figures here. With this proliferation of online growth, the opportunities for digital marketing will grow exponentially, as is quite obvious. Check the digital marketing statistics in India. Also check growth of digital marketing in India.

So if you are a professional digital marketer or an aspiring one, these top digital marketing trends you need to watch out and plan your digital marketing strategies accordingly. Even for business owners or professionals in marketing, sales or brand management field, they should learn about these upcoming digital marketing trends.

As we move forward into 2023, digital marketing is set to take on a whole new level of importance in the modern business landscape. With technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Voice Search Optimization, and Automated Content Creation being widely used, competition for visibility across the internet is fierce.

Firms will have to invest heavily in understanding the latest trends and staying ahead of their competitors, but those that do are sure to reap massive rewards from these advancements. New methods such as AR-initiated targeting, micro-influencers, chatbots and geo-location based retargeting are just a few of the key elements to success for any company marketing in this digital age. To remain successful and beat out competitors in 2023 there’s no question that businesses must stay on top of digital marketing trends!

Most important digital marketing trends & predictions

1. Voice search will continue to grow in popularity, with more people using voice-activated devices to find information online.
2. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be used more extensively in marketing, with chatbots and other forms of AI being used to provide customer service and recommend products. AR-initiated targeting, micro-influencers, chatbots and geo-location based retargeting.
3. Content marketing will remain popular, with marketers creating more long-form content that is designed to engage and educate readers.
4. Social media marketing will continue to grow in importance, with businesses using social platforms to reach new customers and build brand awareness.
5. Mobile marketing will become even more important, as more people use their smartphones to browse the internet and make purchases online. Short Video content, interactive stories, short mobile content will be popular.

Related reading: Why digital marketing is the future of marketing?

Keep yourself updated with the latest digital marketing trends.

Top 40 digital marketing trends [2023-2025]

These 40 hot digital marketing trends to watch out and make your digital marketing campaigns future-proof.

1. Live Videos & Live Streaming
2. Digital Storytelling
3. AI, AR, VR, MR
4. Personalized Content
5. Digital Assistants
6. User Generated Content
7. More Focus on user retention
8. Voice Search
9. ChatBot
10. Automated Lead Funnel & Email Marketing
11. Interactive Content & Dynamic Content
12. Long form of Content (content and context will be the key feature of digital marketing campaign. Google is refining its process to co-relate content and context. Accordingly in-depth content and long tail content will get preference in content marketing. This will happen as longer and more value enriched content, will help companies to upgrade their digital ranking and user search potential.)
13. Clear to the point answers to user’s search query
14. Mobile Marketing
15. Image SEO
16. Podcast Production
17. Content Focus
18. Influencer Marketing
19. Multichannel presence
20. Programmatic Advertising
21. Local / Hyper Local SEO
22. Short Reels (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook)
23. Shoppable Content
24. Geo Fencing
25. Quora Marketing
26. WhatsApp Marketing
27. QR Code Marketing
28. Progressive Web Apps
29. Smart Bidding in Google Ads
30. Lead Funnel & Lead Magnet
31. Marketing Automation
32. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
33. Extensive emphasize on customer experience technology
34. Cross-platform marketing will become more important as consumers move between different devices and platforms. marketers will need to be able to reach their target audience no matter where they are.
35. Visual Content
36. NFT
37. Blockchain
38. Digital Asset Management (DAM)
39. Customer Experience & Customer Journey Management
40. Binge Marketing

Digital Marketing Trends (PDF Download)

Live Videos & Live Streaming

Brands are already picking up the latest digital marketing trends in advertising and taking their big bucks online. For example, a growing number of youngsters don’t watch TV anymore. Instead, they watch their favourite shows on online networks like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Brands catering to youngsters are taking their advertising to these digital platforms in the age-old theory: follow the target demographic.

So, if all these increased numbers of people are tuned to the internet by 2021, brands will look the online way to sell their products and services. In these couple of years, the scenario will change a lot, if not a total sea-change as some pundits are predicting.

AI, AR, VR, Personalized Content

Their predictions are primarily based on the assumption that the advent of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will completely change the way we look at digital marketing. Data to language by NLP engines (Natural Language Processing), Personalized Content Delivery, Programmatic Marketing or Refined Ad Targeting, Various Sophisticated Digital Marketing Tools, Marketing Automation are few of the tasks to be done by using AI. Artificial intelligence and marketing automation will be the most important digital marketing trends to watch out.

Related reading: AI powered content automation tools

Digital Assistants

Another prediction is that the arrival of digital assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Cortana will cut down on the processes now handled by human beings. While there is no denying these factors, I don’t feel that they will make the waves that they are being expected to so soon. After all, 2025 isn’t that far away! This is one of the recent digital marketing trends to watch out.

User Generated Content

Instead, there are more chances of some fundamental changes happening in a quiet, understated way. Like the prominence of user-generated content. The machines of farming content are now silent for some time.

In the months to come, users writing content in the form of reviews, recommendations or simply their thoughts about products and services on social media networks and the like will hold centre stage. Users are into checking peer reviews anyway before they buy something. By 2025, brands will actively encourage satisfied users to share their views on official channels.

More Focus on user retention

A major shift that I see happening in digital marketing by 2025 is the focus on retaining customers more than getting new ones. This is a drive which will find more attention simply because the use of tech tools like the ones I mentioned earlier will give more information and data about existing customers to a brand. As a result, brands will have enough ammunition to target existing customers so that they can retain them. This is one of the top digital marketing trends.

Related reading: Brand building guide

Voice Search, ChatBot & more

Trends are also going in the direction where Voice Search & instant messaging will play a bigger role in customer engagement. It isn’t going to be just mass messages delivered through email or social networks. Personal, instant messaging will probably rule the communication game in 2020.

Long form of Content

3000-4000 words very informative and readable / scan-able content production would be of importance. Extensively researched and statistics rich content will get attention from Google. Clean presentation with hybrid form of content ( mixture of Video, Podcast, Text, PDF in a clean font and shorter paragraphs) by authority publishers / writers will get importance.

These are my two cents on the face of digital marketing trends in 2020. What are your thoughts?     

Related reading: Digital marketing strategies during and after Corona

Mobile Marketing & Mobile Content

Read about Mobile marketing guide

Emerging Digital Marketing Trends [2018 onwards]

In this booming age of dynamic change in technology marketers are relying more on the digital structured approach over being traditional. The greatest advantage of digital marketing is reaching to the target customers in real time.

In this ‘smart age’ of smartphones and tablets the objectives of digital marketing also needs to be SMART(Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). This trend of E-business is most happening concept in marketing at present. The traditional method of ‘impersonalised’ marketing is gradually replaced by ‘personalised’ and ‘filtered’ approach towards marketing.

With every passing day conjugated with the advent of new technology marketers are relying on the social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat etc etc. The concept of behavioural marketing and AI(Artificial Intelligence) came into the forefront. The sites have the browsing history stored and this history is being used by marketers to sell a product to a potential customer.

Along with this growth in digital trends, privacy protection of the customers will be one of the prime objectives of marketers. It is more of a customer-centric approach rather than being traditional in which both marketers and customers have more or less equal hold.

The digital marketing trends that will dominate 2018 can be formulated assessing the market scenario of 2017 and by analysing customer buying behaviour and how much tech-savvy they are. Some of them can be notable as follows:

1. AI and behavioural marketing would take strides together and these two aspects would be the prime focus of the marketers. Mobile & Voice search will be the new buzz.
2. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat has made more easy for the marketers to study the customer preferences and to reach out to a larger audience.
3. The concept of Influencer Marketing supported with identifying, researching and engaging the people who create the conversations impacting the brand, products or services.
4. The ad blocking software is being increasingly used by customers to feel free from something unnecessary. No need to say, it is obviously a setback to the marketers. While Facebook, Google, Instagram have filtered ad blocking technology; Youtube is a good platform for marketers to launch new products since it has less of such an issue. The AI driven approach can be a solution to this problem for marketers. The stored browsing history helps to analyse the customer preferences and set in line the list of products that a customer may wish to buy in future.
5. Since, both marketers and customers are relying on the digital media more; it would be mandatory from the side of the customers to protect the privacy of the customer. The application from which a customer is willing to shop may have access to different media files and his personal information but it is upto the marketers to protect this issue.

The emerging trends in digital marketing will be more dependent on new and rapid changes in technology, platform evolution and improvements. The analytics of marketing in 2018 will be having a more filtered approach focusing heavily on organic search and Artificial Intelligence(AI).

Top 3 Evergreen Digital Marketing Trends

With more than half of the year gone by, it’s that time of the year when you start to notice some emerging trends. When the year draws to a close, there will be scores of predictions online about what’s in store for digital marketers in 2019. But as of now, there are some trends in digital marketing that have made a mark in 2018. Yes, the trends may not be something that you heard about only in 2018, but they are surely among trends that were duly noted and followed by almost every brand on the planet.

Going Mobile

This is definitely a trend that sounds so much like yesteryear but this is surely something that has stood out and got noticed. You will be amazed to note how many multi-national brands were still toying with the idea of taking their business online. After all, many of them jumped to an online business scenario only recently, so you couldn’t really blame them for being reluctant about adding another dimension to the marketing of their business! But, look around you! Everyone has their faces buried in a mobile phone or tablet. That’s the potential, so get cracking!

Rise of Chatbots

You cannot let your customers, potential or existing, stew in their cauldron of problems, whatever may be the time on the clock. You let them unattended and they are likely to think about switching to another brand! You need to solve their problems right then and there. Chatbots have become wonderfully popular to serve this purpose. You can have chatbots to take care of customer issues in real time. If you sync the chatbots well, the experience is near perfect, right next to having an actual person chatting over texts.

Invest on Digital Media

What digital marketers like us had to repeatedly ask brand owners to do is something that they are willingly doing now: invest on digital media, marketing and promotions. The world of the internet is constantly talking and sharing their views with a global audience.

News cycles may have become shorter due to the expanded entry roads of more news into the online stream, but while they are around, they are sucking in more people to discuss and offer opinions. News items control conversation and you need to have a handle on this conversation in your own circle. Using podcasts, blogs and other media means more investment and brands are waking up to this requirement. 

Other than these major trends, there are minor ones like videos and podcasts taking over the written word because they are more engaging, thanks to their audio-visual nature. However, whatever trend you may wish to follow, you have to be invested and engaged to see it through in a thorough manner. That, alone, can bring success.

Related reading: Video Marketing Guide

Important SEO Trends

Gone are the days when you waited for the year-end to predict trends for the upcoming year. Some still do it but it’s quite futile really! Technology is rapidly changing every single day and it makes little sense to talk about trends for so many months ahead. Yet, there are some writings on the wall that you cannot ignore. These SEO factors are some of those writings on the wall for 2019.

Emerging SEO Factors / Google ranking factors.

Image SEO: 

Many are still floundering with it but that’s something that you have to nail this year. A picture tells a thousand stories and that’s what people want: a lot in a single glance. Images can do that. Leverage the power of images through active image SEO. It includes optimizing the images on your website or blog and providing more of them as often as you can. An image at the top of a post often enables the reader to decide if they want to read it or not.

Podcast Production:

Embark on a survey to find out if your customers prefer to listen to podcasts instead of reading stuff. Many online platforms are taking the podcast way because that’s where things seem to be headed. With so many online channels available to showcase your podcasts, this is one area which has a lot of potential. If you start off now, you can get some first-mover’s advantage.

Content Focus: 

According to the updates and tweaks made to Google’s algorithms in 2018, one thing is clear: keywords are not enough to get you ranking. Do you know that in 2018, more than 30% of Google’s search results were delivered by using Google’s Artificial Intelligence and Voice Search? That’s where things are going and this year, you can expect things to be more about AI. Use of relevant keywords doesn’t really matter. Answering the query posed by the user in the search box is all that Google cares about. Content focus should be precise.

With these factors in mind, hopefully you will make better use of SEO

Top Social Media Trends of 2018-2019 that still rule

Live Videos, Instagram Stories & Influencer Marketing!

Industry experts are looking back and ahead at the same time. In the last year, there were so many technological innovations that defined the face of digital marketing. In this new, nascent year, we are all looking ahead to see some definitive and path-breaking innovations and technical tuning that will change the industry as it stands now, and set the course for the future.

In the arena of social media, the most dynamic domains of them all, there are quite a few trends that I believe will catch wind in 2018. I’m outlining the top 3 here. The list varies with perspective and context but these 3 will surely feature on many such lists.

Live Videos & Video Shorts or Reels

First up is the trend of using live videos. Brands are broadcasting live videos of events through Facebook Live or Periscope on Twitter. Such videos are finding their own set of viewers. According to stats, people are 3 times more likely to watch a live video than the usual one, with live videos providing 10 times more engagement value. Certainly engaging for social media marketers!

Instagram Stories & Reels

Next up is the use of Instagram Stories. Instagram came to the party much later in this segment but its easy-to-use Stories feature has gained a lot of popularity in a short time. In 2018, the majority of 200 million Instagram users will pick Stories in some form or other.

Influencer Marketing

The rear is brought up by the trend of Influencer marketing. The combined marketing budget on using influencers on social media for branding is already slated to touch $24 million by 2018. Using industry experts to influence the opinion of potential customers is a trend that gets you sales and keeps positive brand credibility. More of this social media trend will come to the party in 2018.

Past social media trends [2012 Onwards]

Multichannel presence

The latest report on “State of Social Media” by Awareness forecasts that 2012 will see an increased of used of various social marketing platforms. And it will go beyond the big social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Other social channels including Youtube, Flickr, Blogs, SlideShare, Foursquare and Tumblr are likely to experience a major growth in this year.

As a marketer, you are already aware of the necessity to reach out through various social channels and networks for engaging and enticing buyers. In 2012, you need to navigate a progressively more fragmented social media market. As a result, it is essential to find tools to reach out to the different social channels.

Social Media Monitoring tools

In addition, you need to keep your eyes open for some social media marketing trends. And monitoring is one of them. Businesses often invest a good amount of time and money on digital marketing campaigns and social media. However, they fail to realize the necessity to monitor the various social channels like Twitter and Facebook. They also overlook the necessity to hire the right person for creating content for such social channels. If you are one of them, it’s time to pull up your socks.

The year 2012 is likely to see the explosion of social media monitoring tools and software. Third party monitoring software and content tools will fill up the market to help businesses stay on top of media feeds at once. This, in turn, will enhance the ability of the businesses to respond instantly. In addition, such monitoring tool will help businesses to measure the radius of influence of their social media marketing campaigns. As a result, marketers can focus on the core prospects.

Social Media ROI Tracking

Another trend to lookout for is the advancement of ROI measurement. Measuring social media ROI are based upon the statistics of social presence including the number of followers, mentions (share) likes and comments. However, you are likely to see the evolution of other methods to measure the success of social media campaigns.

For example, Google Analytics and similar tools can help you to identify content that is creating the social buzz and highest amount of engagement. In addition, they can help you to pinpoint where your visitors are dropping off. This will help marketers to determine a wide range of social activities including the value of a comment, share or like as well as the role played by social contests and giveaways in terms of lead generation.

Focus on Social Content Creation

Finally, this year is likely to see the progress of content creation. Every social channel needs great content to reach out to the people. Besides, they need the right message launched at the right time to attract the users. Marketers now need to use content to encourage positive word-of-mouth marketing on the social channels. And what could be better than testimonials, positive reviews, community stories, photos, and videos on their social channels. This, however, is a difficult concept to master.

Infographic – Social Media Trends [2012 onwards]

Source: 43Forty

Past SEO trends from 2012- 2013 onwards that are still important today

Some of the hottest SEO trends that we will see coming up in 2013 is a build-up of what they were in the last year. You cannot say that a particular trend among these has suddenly become hot property! It is just that these trends will gather more steam this year and probably make a legend out of your website if you can follow them well. Let us look at these SEO trends of 2013 and how you can use them to leverage your website.

High Quality Content Production

The first one is the way you look at content marketing. For years, start-ups and mid-level businesses hankering after SEO abused the use of content. They churned out articles and blog posts by the dozens every single day and injected them into the search engine stream.

Their purpose: to grab the top ranks of SERPs on the keywords of their target. That trend is heading out completely in 2013. Quality is in! Your write-up must have quality and be a good article to read. Search engine crawlers are much more sophisticated now and can detect write-ups that are a result of content farming. You need unique, nicely written content to woo the readers as well as the search engines.

Social media networking & communicating online with real people

Social media networking, trending for the last couple of years, is another SEO tool that was used in the wrong way. You have to get it right this time around! No more of pushing web links to your social media contacts or unrestrained self-promotion on Twitter and Facebook. Those are sure-fire ways of getting blocked or ‘unfriended’.

Instead, depend upon your content and positive engagement and interaction to get social media people to visit your website and web pages. You have to encourage your existing readers to ‘share’ and ‘like’ your content rather than doing it yourself. Do not hoodwink social media contacts into visiting your website by misleading them or spamming them!

Tap mobile internet users

The top SEO trends of 2013 include making way for the mobile internet user in a big way. Smartphones are billed to overtake desktop or laptop users when it comes to surfing the net. You need a mobile version for your websites and blogs. Mobile internet users are even more impatient about uploading and downloading than computer users. Your website must cater to their demands and that is the only way forward. You need to attune your SEO efforts according to the requirements of this upcoming market.

Most Important SEO Trends in 2012-2013 – Infographic

Watch out the top SEO trends in 2012-2013 (Infographic). After the Panda and Penguin updates by Google, the scenario in SEO is changing a lot. This is no more a child’s play. Serious work and various strategies are now required to do a better SEO. The concept is now somehow tending to branding. SEO is getting similar to digital / online branding of website that would take more time and serious efforts. Also qualified traffic and conversion optimization would take bigger role.

We have tried to visually represent the most important SEO trends in 2012-2013 in the SEO infographics below. Humanized search, social approach, real time search & user response, link baiting, quality content with multiple mix (text, video, image, audio, ppt), mobile & voice search, personalized search are obviously few of them.

The Top Digital Marketing Predictions from 2015 onwards that are still relevant

Come new year and every professional is busy making their predictions of the domain that they work in! it is a natural human trend to do so, especially because we are living in a fast-changing world.

What distinguishes a prediction for a traditional industry as opposed to the digital marketing world is that in the latter, you will often find two grads in a garage changing the whole scenario within the span of a few months! Keeping such sweeping changes aside, here are my top digital marketing predictions of 2015:

Twitter on SERPs

Hashtags, tweets and retweets, the world of Twitter will show a stronger presence on the SERPs. Twitter is looking to conquer the SEO zone and their focus will be to stamp their presence of the SERPs. Search results will increasingly contain URLs links from Twitter. Indexing on Google will have a face change when Twitter begins to mark a dominant role on the SERPs.

Facebook Search

Of late, Facebook is showing a growing fondness for search crawlers, primarily because they want to fine-tune their ad offers. It remains to be seen whether Facebook launches its own search engine algorithm or simply ties up with a search engine, like they did and severed with Bing. You can, however, definitely expect Facebook to come up with something that puts them squarely on the search engine scene.

Google’s Instant Answers

Google is playing the game with their single-point agenda: make the internet and Google more user-friendly. Keeping in tune with that motto, expect Google’s instant answers to provide more information and options than never before. While previously you could simply come across the answers, Google is now looking at tie-ins with several online vendors. Who knows you might be able to book cabs or movie tickets through the instant answers functionality!

Content Advertising

Content advertising or recommendation is the way forward for most major brands online. That much has already happened in 2014. In this year, I expect platforms like Outbrain or Taboola will be picked up by the big boys of the digital marketing arena like Yahoo! or even Google. There are smaller fries as well, like Zemanta or Zegnet. Acquisitions are definitely on the cards in this segment and that is entirely because of the need for content promotion and recommendations.

Pinterest Rises

The use of promoted pins on the ‘in’ social networking site Pinterest will be the next tool for digital marketers. The brands that already have a strong presence on Facebook will look to diversify and capture more eyeballs.

The ad model of Pinterest that is already launched after the customary beta phase. With the use of this ad machinery, brands will look to spread their presence over Pinterest, especially B2C digital marketers. Two reasons for the rise and rise of Pinterest in the estimate of digital marketers: better engagement and untapped consumer base.

No Threat to Google

Question is: which brand challenges Google anyway? It is Amazon, according to critics who say that for commercial searches, it has become the go-to destination for online shoppers instead of Google. True, Google will love to get that consumer numbers on this own site but its position is not really threatened.

Here’s why: those consumers are already gone and Google won’t waste resources trying to woo them back! What they are doing instead is blending the mobile devices with desktop or laptop computers through the Android and Chrome platforms. That keeps them very much ahead of the curve in terms of eyeballs and consumer base.

Top 3 Digital Marketing Predictions about Google (2014 onwards) that are still important

For every SEO executive and enthusiast, what Google has up its sleeve in the near future is always of great interest. That is because of obvious reasons. To survive in the online marketing domain, you have to toe the line marked out by Google.

Otherwise you find yourself at the shallow end of the internet pool. Keeping up with this burning desire to find out what Google will throw at the SEO world, experts are already drawing up predictions for 2014. Taking a leaf out of their book, here are the top 3 predictions about Google in 2014:

• More Focus on Mobile Ads: The mobile device segment is one area where Google is still finding its way to maximize revenue. You can expect Google to be more serious about internet surfed through mobile devices. Its own ad format will be more mobile device friendly and you can expect heavy penalties on websites that do not have mobile editions but mislead mobile users into their main site. Such wrongful redirects are going to be a thing of the past because mobile ad revenue is something that Google is focused on.

• More on Knowledge Graphs: Till date, Google’s Knowledge Graph has relied entirely on a narrow number of sources like Wikipedia and CIA Facebook. In 2014, you can expect Google to open up more entry points for data and statistics to pour into Google’s Knowledge Graph. This is a very welcome change because every SEO professional wants to have more information on the fingertips. The limited sources of knowledge and structured data are not working anymore.

•  No More of Result Counts: A feature that we are noticing since the early days of Google search is the total number of results that the search engine giant has thrown up on a single query. That is going to change, if the predictions are to be believed. You will no longer see the total number of results that a search comes up with. This is another step in making the Google search function friendlier for the layman searchers rather than SEO professionals. With this new modification, users will no longer have to look at a bit of information that doesn’t have any value for them anyway.

Q4 Changes Your Website Needs on Google

The last quarter of the year, that marketing whiz-kids term as Q4, is usually the make or break time for most businesses online. This is the holiday season in full swing, with greater demands for better products and services. You need to make some strategic tweaks in your way of handling Google to ensure that you stay ahead of the competition curve. Google will offer opportunities to make more out of your brand, but you must know how to make use of those chances. Here are some changes in the Q4 period that your website needs on Google.

Tip 1: Mobile Search Trends: 

The holiday season is the most important time for online businesses that look for mobile devices to earn them revenue. Your consumers will search for your brand through mobile devices while they are on the run. Many will scamper for last minute gifts and other services to tie up loose ends before the year draws to a close. You have to be prepared with your mobile search strategy for Google. There are some tricks that you can pull up through our previous posts on this blog. Try them out and secure the mobile device territory.

Tip 2: Glean and Use Data: 

You cannot make much sense of the competition around you without pulling data from the archives and Google’s tools. Grab as much data and stats that you can and use them to draw up your own strategies. This is a timeless tip that will hold you in good stead throughout the year. The reason: your competitors are doing the same thing! They are gleaning data and drawing counter measures if you are a force to reckon with in your industry. Don’t be caught napping!

Tip 3: Better Ad Placements: 

Ads on Google can come in various shapes and sizes. Now is the time to look at your ad ship and pull up the loose sails. Look at the areas that you have not covered through Google ads. Is there something you can do to earn better revenues through these ads? You need to figure out Google’s seller ratings and special offers to find out where you stand in the Google ad scenario.