Happy new year!
As
an avid learner and practitioner of digital marketing, wanted to share my
thoughts on the top 5 trends we will see taking concrete shape, or accelerating
significantly in 2024 that will have implications and call to action for Marketers
in some shape or form. I started with a solid
list of 12 and ranked all of them on various dimensions to come up with the top
5 list (with a notable 6th and 7th).
1.
Intense focus on user privacy and data protection. Triple whammy
from Apple, Google, and US laws (Significant acceleration):
a. Google started deprecating third party cookies for 1% chrome
users (30 million) on Jan 4th and will ramp to 99% by end of the
year. It plans to replace the cookies with its own solution called Topics API,
which enables interest-based advertising (IBA)
without having to resort to tracking the sites a user visits.
b. In 2017, Apple’s introduced ITP (Intelligent Tracking
Prevention) to protect user privacy, and it has already diminished campaign ROI
by ~35% by limiting the use of cookies in Safari. iOS17 will add more headwind by
removing more user-tracking parameters.
c. 8 states have comprehensive data
privacy laws; 25 states are considering data privacy laws of some kind and some
of them will come to fruition.
Path forward- Marketers need to rely on Privacy-centric Marketing with focus
on First party data, build trust through security solutions, and communicate
with transparency around data collection, use and protection.
2.
Organic
Search continues to undergo Seismic Transformation (Significant acceleration):
Trend –
a.
SEO evolved
into SGE (Search Generative Experience), which summarizes, and compiles results
from across the web. This means less traffic to publishers. Humans interact
with AI results, and do not visit the website.
b.
Voice search becomes more prevalent (~27%
right now)
Path forward - Marketers
need to focus on long tail keywords that align with
conversational search patterns. It is important to structure content in
a Q&A manner using natural, conversational language to enable voice search optimization.
Finally – focus on quality
content – human assured content is and will continue to surpass AI-generated content.
3.
Consumer spends
more time with Short-form videos than any other content (50 minutes out of
total of 125 minutes per day) (Significant acceleration):
TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are at the forefront
of short form videos.
Path forward - Marketers
need to leverage social media platforms based on specific KPIs (engagement, discovery,
purchase etc.). TikTok leads handily on engagement rate @ 5.4% (likes, comments
etc.), and Reels leaves everyone in the dust with a watch rate at 13% (view
rate > 3 sec). YouTube shorts used extensively for discovery.
4.
Dawn of Gen
AI in Art – Advanced Video and Image Generation (Taking Shape)
a.
Advanced
image generation enabled by neural style transfer that combines content of one
image with style of another (attached slide with examples of mona Lisa art rendered
in 3 different styles from world known artists). Top platforms – DALL.E and
Midjourney
b.
Text to Video
generation- Creation of promotional videos, training
materials, and product demos using custom avatars. Features like natural idling,
head nodding and seamless transition are available that makes it look like a
natural recording.
Path forward - Continually update the skills and knowledge to stay ahead of leveraging
AI for video production, graphic design, and data analysis. Learn how to leverage these tools cleverly to
augment individual skills to stay relevant.
5.
Evolution
of Marketing Analytics (Taking
Shape)
a.
Emerging concept
of central AI application that works across all MarTech tools- Example Adobe
Sensei Gen AI, a central AI works across Adobe tech stack.
b.
Data clean
rooms to activate with first party data especially after demise of chrome cookies.
c.
Extensive industry
conversion on ethics
Path forward – Create high value exchange so clients/prospects will be
amenable to sharing first part information. Also, focus on data quality/integrity
is even more critical than ever especially for LLMs (garbage in, garbage out)
since the downside of wrong decision is far more significant. Finally
Notable 6th
-
Blogs augmented
heavily by Podcast -Blogs are over saturated. There are 600 MM blogs and 4 MM
podcasts with 60 million podcast episodes. Assuming 8 billion people, that translates
to blog for 8 people and 1 podcast for 133. For the more established businesses
that already have the SEO authority, Podcasts are replacing blogs for certain types
of content.
Notable 7th
-
Influencer
marketing. Trends 50% Millennials trust influencers to purchase products on
social media driven by transparency and authenticity (versus 38% for celebrities).
This used to be ~35% in 2020. This is leading to longer-term and performance-based
partnerships with influencers.
