Top 10 Digital Marketing trends that can’t be ignored in 2020

We live in a time where Marketing technology moves fast, thus consumer behaviors are getting even more difficult to predict. Relating to this fact, Marketers can no longer rely on educated guesses and hope that the same old methods will continue to work.

To help your business survive and thrive in this age of innovation, discover the Top 10 Digital Marketing trends below:

Artificial Intelligence – AI
Once upon a time, artificial intelligence, data-driven marketing, and voice search engine optimization were all challenging notions bordering on the ridiculous. However, today, these innovative digital marketing trends are among the top priorities for most businesses in 2020. In other words, AI will transform the digital marketing landscape.

Moreover, we can’t refer to the event of PPC in 2020 without addressing AI. The number of agencies that are smartly investing in AI has increased rapidly in recent years (i.e. the development of smart campaigns and the automation of bidding strategies).

Programmatic Advertising
For those of you who don’t understand programmatic advertising, it uses AI to automate ad buying so you can target more related and specific audiences. The most important benefit of this type of advertising is that automation is much more efficient, which results in higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.

Video Marketing
As it is already a known factor to active Marketers, videos are the most effective type of content that reaches a higher number of people and is considered to be more attractive. Don’t just think YouTube, videos are especially effective on social media channels as stories. Based on the conducted research, the percentage of people that prefer to learn news and information on new products are from videos rather than standard written content.

Micro-influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has been a digital marketing trend for a few years now, especially for social media channels. Nowadays, it is considered to be a commodity since it has been providing successful results for a while now.

Micro-influencers, are the medium-sized influencers with narrower niches – also referred to as “people like me”. They are popular enough to be influential, they look like random people – you and I and they keep in touch with their followers. All these factors result in a better engagement rate than more popular influencers, also they are more affordable.

Social commerce
Because both e-commerce and social media are growing rapidly, brands have started to use the two together to maximize opportunities for sales. E-commerce brands are creating and posting interactive ads that allow users to click and shop easily and safely. You might have seen that Instagram began to integrate this feature in its app, by allowing the advertiser to ‘tag’ their products on the post and directing the user to the payment section in a few steps. Instagram believes this will make it easier for businesses to reach prospective customers, as it will effectively shorten the sales funnel, giving consumers the instant access they desire.

Chatbots
Chatbots will, without doubt, continue to be a vital part of digital marketing in 2020. This AI-based technology uses instant messaging to chat in real-time, 24/7, with your customers worldwide through the website.

Based on many surveys, many customers prefer interacting with chatbots since they are responsive 24/7, provide answers and solutions promptly, record the buying history, and most importantly never lose patience.

Interactive Content
Considering that the behaviors and demands of users are constantly changing, the type of content being published has shifted from traditional written content to dynamic, engaging content – which results in a more immersive experience for the user.
Some examples of interactive content are:

• Quizzes and polls
• Embedded calculators
• Augmented reality ads
• 360-degree videos

Voice Interaction
Verbal interaction with devices is continuing to rise, thanks to Siri, Google, Alexa, and a host of other ‘smart’ devices. Because we humans prefer to talk rather than searching and typing, machines are catching up to our preferences and the way people want to shop and discover new things. However, some challenges come with this type of advertising. The main challenge is that conducting a voice search, is very different from typing a query, particularly in the results since with typing you have many more results being that the search term is more defined. Thus, the strategy for targeting voice search users should focus on writing in a more conversational tone, using keywords that people will speak rather than type.

Interactive Email Marketing
Email marketing will always be a trend, considering that with the working audience on their desktops, the percentage of emails being opened is still relatively high. However, to keep this type of advertising effective, Marketers now and then should ‘spice’ up the style.
Lately, there has been a swift decline in plain-text emails and newsletters since now the templates are looking much better with pixel-perfect emails. Email marketing now is much more eye-catchy and interactive for the reader, including features such as clickable buttons and other interactions.

SEO A/B Split Testing
Modern and effective Marketing is all about testing and analysis. The method of A/B split-testing refers to the isolation of certain variables of a campaign, which makes it easier to identify the versions that are driving the required results and that are achieving campaign goals.
Including this activity on your Digital Marketing Strategy and using the right tools, even a small budget can deliver a great ROI.

Author: Bardha Ajvazi