Given how quickly the industry is evolving, it can be challenging to stay on top of trends in digital marketing. A successful digital marketing plan or campaign includes several moving pieces, making it difficult to keep up with every aspect.

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way B2B and B2C businesses operate as more and more consumers adapted to online purchases. The digital marketing world and the role of digital marketers have been significantly impacted by this transition. The reopening of societies, however, coincided with declines in site traffic and online revenues as marketing teams adjusted their strategies to match the virtual demand.

Digital marketing becomes increasingly challenging with each passing year. In addition to fundamentals like SEO, PPC, branding and UX, marketers have to navigate booming social platforms and evolving regulations, along with content creation, customization, and automation among others.

Here are some of the digital marketing trends to watch out for in 2023:

1. TikTok Keeps Growing

If you're not already using TikTok, you should, and brands need to take it seriously. Its rapid rise has seen the app reach 1 billion users in record time. TikTok has enormous engagement, and offers individuals and brands the opportunity to go viral; no small achievement in the social media world. According to Alison Battisby, Social Media Consultant at Avocado Social, “TikTok’s growth over the last year has just been phenomenal. Facebook is certainly worried because so many of TikTok’s features are beginning to filter into Facebook products.”

2. Social Commerce Is Becoming Seamless

Using social media to find a product or service is simpler than ever. Brands raced to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok during the pandemic to offer customers online shops, complementing or replacing physical stores. According to Accenture, social commerce is expected to reach $1.2 trillion globally, a growth that’s three times faster than traditional ecommerce.

As platforms work behind the scenes to enable client payments without leaving social networking apps, creating a seamless customer experience, the second half of 2022 will witness a bigger revolution in social buying. By 2025, Gen Z and Millennials will generate 62% of worldwide social ecommerce sales, making them the greatest spenders.

3. YouTube Advertising Is Booming

In terms of advertising investment, YouTube will continue soaring in 2023. According to Brendan Almack, Managing Director of Wolfgang Digital, “I feel that YouTube is a sleeping giant, but I think that the transition away from linear TV, fragmentation with subscriptions, and streaming services all indicate that more advertising spend is going to go to YouTube”.

Through its parent firm Alphabet, YouTube's global revenue increased to approximately $29 billion in 2021, up about 46% from the previous year. This level of revenue, which puts the social media platform on pace with Netflix, is the outcome of brand advertising, direct response ads, and an increase in traditional TV advertisers on the channel.

4. The Metaverse Is Marketing’s Next Big Thing

The Metaverse has been there for a while, however, it has come to marketers' attention only following Facebook's decision to change the name of its parent company to Meta in October 2021.

What is the Metaverse though? Simply put, the Metaverse refers to the persistent environment where people work, play, and socialize in the virtual world of AR, VR, 3D holographic avatars, and video. Well-known gaming platforms - familiar to the youngest demographic of all, Generation Alpha - like Minecraft, Roblox, Pokemon, and Fornite already adopt the technology. The Metaverse is a relatively new digital medium for marketing, but in recent campaigns, brands have embraced its immersive aspect for advertisements.

5. Brands Are Increasingly Using NFTs

The blockchain technology has seen its fair share of skeptics. Peer-to-peer networks are used by this technology to store data, and it has been connected to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. One trending aspect of blockchain is non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Non-fungible means it can’t be exchanged for something of equal value; it doesn’t have any equals. For example, the U.S. dollar is fungible; you can exchange a $100 bill for five $20 bills. But you can’t exchange your mother’s ring, a non-fungible, for anything of equal value, due to the authenticity factor. NFTs are the digital equivalent of non-fungibles; unique animations, graphic designs, GIFs, audio/video files, or memes, on a blockchain.

How are NFTs becoming a popular digital marketing trend in the marketing industry? Brands, which make up a sizable portion of the Metaverse, use NFTs to connect owners to communities or serve as a digital badge. Brands like Campbell’s, Charmin, and Coca-Cola have issued NFT collectibles last year, while others like Adidas started to partner with NFT collections, as a way to build community among their customers.

6. First Party Data Is King

Marketers have known for a long time about the impending doom of the third-party cookie in 2022 (now pushed out to 2023). The issue with third-party cookies is that the online activities of customers were being tracked without many knowing what brands were doing with their data.

Google decided to move away from gathering this data and take a privacy-preserving API approach, while other providers may reveal identifying information using PII (Personally Identifiable Information) graphs. This means that advertisers using Google need to find new ways to identify and target customers. The answer? increase revenue with a first-party data strategy.

Based on Cathal Melinn’s statement, this makes maintaining and building your email marketing lists essential in the coming months. Most importantly, craft an email marketing strategy that’s in tune with your marketing activities to get the most from your first-party data.

7. Core Web Vitals Are Hard to Ignore

Google unveiled Core Web Vitals in May 2020, a set of measures centered on users to evaluate a website's "health" from a user's perspective. These Core Web Vitals are now ranking factors that affect your content and digital marketing. Your website’s performance and usability will be enhanced by optimizing those variables. The three metrics for measuring user experience are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - measures page load performance

• First Input Delay (FID) - measures web page interactivity

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - measures web page visual stability

The objective is to improve usability, enable faster loading times, and achieve higher Core Web Vitals scores, which will become an SEO ranking element and increase the number of visitors who convert to sales.

8. Short Form Content Is on a High Rise

Content is king when it comes to digital marketing. Content involves all the online materials you publish on your social media channels; from pictures, to videos, and blogs etc. You'll probably bring in a lot of organic traffic to your business with relevant and engaging content. In 2023, customers are looking for easy-to-digest content. Consumers are more interested in short content to accommodate their busy lives. One of the best ways to ensure more consumers engage with yours is to make it as short as possible.

9. The Importance of Having Conversations with Customers Is Undeniable

Consumers are hungry for knowledge; on a daily basis, they seek answers to their questions and feel at ease doing so online, whether it be on social media, a forum, or in a chat room. As a result, conversational marketing has taken off as a means to engage customers.

The good news is that effective conversational marketing can benefit both B2C and B2B brands significantly. The bad news? You run the danger of driving clients away if you're not on top of your communications, slow to answer, or send out a confusing message.

This drive for consumers to find information online has seen messaging apps like WhatsApp become an effective way for marketers to communicate and offer customer support. The same holds true for Slack-type systems, voice-activated gadgets like Alexa, and the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook Messenger.

While Chatbots have been around for a while, in the past few years, brands have been using them more frequently for customer service. Chatbots have the potential to drive retail sales, particularly among younger generations who are expected to spend $112 billion by 2023.

10. AI-Based Automation Is Rising

Over the past several years, AI has made enormous strides, and there has been a significant rise in the number of businesses employing AI-powered technology and automation to support their marketing initiatives. AI is one of the major technologies behind voice search and smart assistants. It’s also made Chatbots possible, which are now more prevalent on websites than ever before.

Automation and AI are reducing some of the redundant tasks associated with marketing so that brands can focus on strategy and creating exceptional customer experiences. Remember, the human aspect of marketing is still key, so the idea is to use this technology to enhance your marketing efforts, not replace the real people behind them.

Big data, supported by AI and predictive analytics, is assisting brands in learning more about their target market and customers. It makes it possible to scale up personalization of marketing messaging and client experiences.

Conclusion

There you go: a helpful guide to the top digital marketing trends that will be big in the coming months. The greatest approach to maintaining competitiveness, expanding your business, and ensuring client loyalty will be to stay on top of current developments.

From exploring the Metaverse, revisiting your YouTube advertising strategy, or creating a content strategy, there’s a ton you can do to drive engagement and revenue. So, why not try one of those as a start?