The advertising industry has been shifting towards a more data-centric approach for years now. It is entering a new era. With emerging internet technologies, there has been more precision in data gathering, sorting, and utilization. Online advertising is on the rise, attracting more and more advertising budgets. Data is the new gold standard for advertising and, alongside ad tech, is a game changer in process and targeting. Older advertisers are losing importance, while new forces are emerging. This transition is structural and is expected to continue. 

This year might bring us surprises in the advertising industry to help us create our marketing strategy better. Here, we have listed a few anticipated transformations in digital advertising that we expect in 2023.

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Cookieless future

Cookies have been around since the dawn of the web. Web browsers use cookies to make our surfing experience better. It is anticipated the cookie will eventually crumble, with the removal of third-party cookies in Chrome. The removal of cookies will create an opportunity to build a better foundation for digital advertising. According to stats, 42.2% of users reject cookie banners. The cookieless future will create a more robust and reliable technology space for advertisers. Additionally, cookieless futures will allow advertisers to respect user privacy. Users will enjoy transparency as to what companies and websites are doing with their data. 

Rise of white labeling

According to various advertisers and marketers, white labeling would witness a rise in 2023 and beyond. The rise of the white label is an alternative to uncertainty in digital marketing. White-label solutions offer an opportunity to create a balanced and transparent environment for everyone. Nearly 87% of SMBs use digital advertising to grow their business. With white-label solutions, advertisers will be able to bring in top-funnel traffic to brands and attention to all other marketing tactics. 

AI-powered advertising

AI will play a major role in how brands understand what consumers want and need. The different preferences of people for products and services will be catered to in a better way with AI. This technology would also be used to generate smarter advertising content. The recent innovation that grabbed the eyes of the people – Chat GPT – is an excellent example of an AI tool which has attracted 96Mn+ users, and will continue to grow. Additionally, AI can also be very useful in automating conversational marketing. Brands use AI to shoot personalized email marketing campaigns based on the behavior of their customers. 

CTV programmatic advertising

It is anticipated that advertisers will spend nearly $27 billion in 2023, witnessing a 27.2% increase since last year. CTV advertising platforms give advertisers advanced tracking options such as location, lifestyle, demographics, internet browsers and search habits, allowing brands to reach relevant audiences. Video marketers across all industries think of CTV advertising as a must-have in their media plans to deliver ads in a premium environment and minimize ad costs. 

Emergence of ad tech and mar tech tools

As Mar Tech & Ad Tech enriches with more customer data, advertisers will be able to use that data more efficiently. Advertisers and savvy marketers have recognized the value of shared big data over the last few years. With cooperation leading toward the creation of uber-personalized campaigns, this trend seems to be promising. Additionally, DTC advertising is all set to capture and conquer the e-commerce market, which opens more opportunities in the digital world, making brand-consumer interactions more individualized and customer-centric. 

Conclusion

The future of advertising rests on discreet technology that follows the latest privacy guidelines and delivers a quality user experience. Digital marketing is an industry that cannot stand still. After 2023, there will be many changes to how it works. It brings us development and new interesting challenges that digital marketing will surely tackle.

The impact of digital marketing has forever changed the way companies positioned themselves in the market and communicated with customers. Post the development of computing and business intelligence systems, digital marketing has transformed the way brands communicate with their audience. Artificial Intelligence, Metaverse, Social Media – it has now become central to almost every brand to include them in their marketing and media plans.  The digital marketing trends for 2023 are an essential aspect that brands are watching out for to skyrocket their businesses. From SMEs to large organizations, it is crucial to incorporate the latest marketing trends into marketing strategies to stay relevant and competitive in today’s market.  With continuously evolving tools, algorithm updates, and technologies, keeping up with digital marketing trends can be overwhelming. However, the trick to keeping abreast of trends in the adage is to work smarter, not harder. For brands to stay on top of current and future trends, we have listed down what marketers can expect in the digital space in 2023: 

Relying heavily on data

In the era where brands are engaging digitally with their customers, it is important to use the collected data to make decisions. Data helps businesses determine how well the digital marketing strategies have performed for the targeted population and make required adjustments in areas of improvement. The collected data is valuable for marketing and sales teams to focus on qualified leads and A/B testing of messaging, emails, creatives, and strategies. With the help of marketing automation, brands get real-time insights into user engagement and campaign performance, making their strategies more effective. 

Boom in live audio interactions

Live audio interactions in social media are rapidly evolving. Multiple social media platforms are now making a shift towards active interaction with customers via dialogues. These interactions enable brands to portray their most authentic selves by promoting better empathy and accessibility. With a surge in social audio, businesses must make the most of this social media trend in 2023 by incorporating the same in their channel-specific strategies. Additionally, marketers can also make use of audio interactions for a Tête-à-Tête on brand-specific topics. These discussions will be a new form of UGC, with free-flowing conversations as attendees will be providing all the required content.     

Youth-centered marketing

Gen Z isn’t just the upcoming generation of consumers; they are the current generation, with a solid capacity of purchasing power under their belt. In addition to their impressive power as consumers, Gen Zers are trail-blazing how the audience views and interacts with brands. This generation chooses to connect with brands that truly appeal to them and the way they communicate – they expect brands to be extremely honest, down-to-earth, authentic, and transparent. The younger generation isn’t pro to the feeling of being sold a product; they expect it to be more imaginative or experiential. This generation is more inclined to consume short-form video content, which comprises eye-catching visuals that appeal to their values. Brands need to frame their identity around their tastes. 

Leveraging Pinterest marketing

Pinterest has recently gained immense popularity, with over 442 million active users each month. This visual search engine is an excellent platform for brands to reach out to new target audiences and increase brand and product awareness. Many brands would leverage this paid media trend in 2023 to introduce their brand to new and potential customers, utilizing a distinctive approach to sell their products or services. The ads on Pinterest appear in the same format as a usual Pin on the users’ feed. Consistent pinning of ads will guarantee more engagement for brands. 

Augmented reality becomes mainstream

In an effort to grab user attention and boost sales, more and more brands would heavily rely on augmented reality in 2023. The global augmented and virtual reality technologies market is expected to reach around $142.4 billion by 2023. With the pandemic adversely affecting the stores globally, more and more brands have started to heavily invest in augmented reality to power sales growth. According to Statista, around 1.4 billion users would shift to augmented reality by 2023, which makes it a discernible digital marketing trend for brands. [caption id="attachment_11430" align="alignnone" width="1218"]  [/caption]

The future of digital marketing for brands

There is a lot of room for progression in the digital space. Agencies and brands need to make use of these digital marketing trends in their strategies to secure increased sales, digital followings, and brand loyalty. Brands that get ahead of these advancements in the next year are well set to be ahead of the curve in 2024 and every year to come.     

The Coronavirus pandemic has furthered digital marketing by a considerable margin in the past few months. Not like it wasn’t popular before, but now, it is possibly one of the go-to methods that people are using to get their brands across to people. The new normal has definitely changed the way businesses function, and with employees working remotely, everybody is putting in constant efforts to adopt new ways and techniques, so that their organisations function as smoothly as they would, prior to the pandemic. Since work from home is expected to be a key takeaway from the year 2020, businesses are gearing up to target, engage, and retain their customers apart from also generating new leads - all this in the light of the fact that almost everybody has had to do away with the traditional methods of marketing. Even digital marketing for that matter has changed and continues to evolve. People today are buying all sorts of things online - medicines, clothes, sanitisers, food, etc. With the changing consumer behaviour, digital marketing is also changing to adapt. Therefore, to continue making those bucks, here are some interesting digital marketing trends that will take over in the year, 2021:

Power of voice-search

Using the voice-search based method, people can talk to their devices, ask questions, seek information, and do a variety of other things that does not require the traditional text-based or typing-based search. Google, Alexa, and Siri are famous and common examples of voice assistants that people know of today. They are rather fascinating and convenient to use as well.  Conversational interfaces are expected to take over and this might make CaaP (Conversations as a Platform) an actual thing. NLP or Natural processing Language will start trending soon, owing to its intuitiveness and personal touch. Further, it is quicker, and it replaces typing and keyboards.

Learn more - How Voice Search Will Change The Future Of SEO

Tell a story with a video

The attention span of people in general has become quite small. They want content that holds their chin in place but also does not drag on for too long. Videos are a good way to achieve both. They are very commonly used  for marketing and advertising purposes as well, but the main challenge is to make it full of content and information, yet condense it. Due to the pandemic, the trend that has set in is that, videos and ads have left the television space, and are moving on to computers, tablets, smartphones, Youtube, Social media handles, etc. - so we can expect to see a lot more of virtual reality, animation, live videos, 360-degree videos, and so on, in 2021.  As the world advances, people are becoming more and more tech-savvy, and they are on some device or the other, trying to catch up. These new methods will keep them further hooked.

Checkout 15 Smart Ways to Promote Your YouTube Videos

Influencer Marketing Revamped

The switch from offline to online will continue to happen for the foreseeable future. Though brands and businesses continue to find and apply new digital marketing strategies, adapt to new trends, and get their message across, loud and clear, they still want to organically connect to their audience. This is possible through influencer marketing, and brands will start giving that importance to this concept and use the influencer community to get their products  and brand message across to the unreachable segments. A healthy relationship between brand marketing, product marketing, and influencer marketing is expected to take over.

People believe more when they see and hear someone speak - visual and vocal reassurance is very personal and impactful, therefore, much more engaging.

Pocket your local audience with SEO

Increasing the search visibility for local businesses is definitely the in-thing these days, and it will start booming in no time. Hypertargeting allows for bringing in customers from communities or areas that are geographically restricted. By ranking higher on local searches, visibility is improved, plus credibility also increases. People are always looking for quick fixes. If something is not available at the nearest store, it is preferable to walk down to the next nearest. Hypertargeting allows people to do exactly that. It is time-saving from the customer’s perspective, and from the business’s perspective, it is beneficial because the online presence fetches them the required attention and audience.

Growth of in-game advertising

With people staying in, e-watching of sports has become even more common, and consequently, this has led to a spike in in-game advertising. Apparently, Gen Z indulges in a lot of esports, and because of the lockdown, others too are doing the same. The lockdown has contributed heavily to a rise in smartphone gaming. Mobile gamers ( around 57 percent) are okay with in-game advertising as long as they are allowed to play the games free of cost. Television is going down and online streaming is becoming more popular than ever. This exponential increase in the number of viewers has led to a healthy bond between gaming and advertising, and this is allowing brands to interact with the audience successfully.

It is interesting to note that all these trends have been fairly around for sometime now, dilly-dallying between becoming ‘generally known’ or ‘popularly used.’ The pandemic has helped with that super-nudge, thereby making these more popular than before, and also putting them on the path to becoming extremely popular. Had this been a choice, maybe the growth would have been a little slower; but with social distancing and lockdown, digitalisation is the need of the hour. Everything is happening online and therefore, people must know how to navigate through this world of digitalisation. The sooner, the better.

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