Digital trends to leverage in 2023

Marketing technology continues to advance at a fever pitch. From grayscale newspaper advertising to the shimmer and glimmer of digital media, marketing and advertising has come a long way. With technological innovation reaching higher peaks every year, 2023 is set to be an exciting year for marketing professionals. To help our clients reach their marketing goals for the new year, we produced an elaborate report covering the following six digital marketing trends that every marketer should leverage in 2023.

KEY TREND #1
INFLUENCER MARKETING WILL REACH NEW HEIGHTS

About half of all consumers who follow influencers, use their recommendations when making purchase decisions. 70% of teens trust nano and micro influencers more than traditional celebrities. Therefore, it is no surprise that influencers provide equal or better ROI compared to other marketing channels while delivering higher quality customers.

The reach brands get through influencer marketing is massive. With platforms like TikTok, where users are watching content recommended by the algorithm over content from people they follow, brands are no longer limited to reaching just followers of the influencers they collaborate with.

KEY TREND #2
SOCIAL COMMERCE WILL TAKE CENTRE STAGE

Social commerce is more than just a new shopping experience, it represents a shift in how consumers interact with brands: where, when, and how they shop. For consumer brands, this creates opportunities for a much more interactive, entertaining, and experiential journey.

Brands can narrow in on gender, age, cities/zip codes, etc, and using pixels and product catalogues, serve the best product ads on social channels to the right people at the right time. This helps in driving users out of the social environment to the brand’s website to make a purchase, track that purchase, and send the users back to the social experience.

KEY TREND #3
AUDIO MARKETING: FROM RADIO TO DIGITAL ADS

Listeners now spend 30% more time with digital audio services than broadcast radio. Research shows that engagement with Spotify was 127%, compared to 104% for TV, 100% for social media, and 94% for broadcast radio.

Podcasting in particular is going from strength to strength, with brands such as Google & Twitter recently launching their dedicated pages for podcasts. Google has also recently announced the global availability of audio ads for YouTube music and podcast listeners.

KEY TREND #4
STRIKE GOLD WITH SHORT FORM VIDEO

The growth of the Short-form video ad format is underpinned by the fact that they are more attentionally efficient. A viewer who pays attention to a few seconds of a short-form digital or TV ad could be more impacted in terms of recall than someone who views the same ad in the duration of a longer commercial.

Carefully crafted six-second ads draw heavily on consumer knowledge of a brand to tell their stories – featuring known characters and referencing previous ad campaigns. While these elements are impactful in advertising of any length, they are especially useful in short-form video to create meaning quickly.

KEY TREND #5
STREAMING TV: REDEFINING ADS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Huge growth opportunities lie in Streaming TV advertising for marketers. As per a recent report by Appsflyer, almost all businesses (98%) are convinced that CTV advertising will overtake mobile advertising. This is no surprise if you consider that a great majority of consumers are happy to watch 1.7 ads within 30 minutes of content and that this number takes a 220% leap to 5.8 ads if ads are relevant to viewers.

Compared to linear TV, Samsung Ads found that only half of the intended audience is reached by ad campaigns, CTV allows marketers to leverage enhanced targeting capabilities, reaching consumers who don’t watch linear TV, and consumers who are watching linear TV so infrequently that they are unlikely to be reached by a linear ad schedule.

KEY TREND #6
UNLOCK STRONGER NARRATIVES WITH AUTHENTICITY

The success of social media apps such as TikTok and BeReal that are focused on promoting online authenticity is reflective of consumer interest (especially Gen Z and millennials) in authenticity. The demand to be genuine has gone beyond business purpose and impacted style of content as well.

Consumers have become much more conscious about where they shop and want to know that the brands they spend money on share the same values. This is largely because today’s consumers are looking for personal and not just transactional interactions. By repeatedly providing authentic customer experiences that sets you apart from competitors, you’ll be able to have a strong positive impact on the lifetime value of your customers.

2023 will be a year of abundant opportunities for marketers leveraging these digital marketing trends to reach their audiences. With new channels arising, and innovative placements available to reach audiences online, brands can expect favourable marketing outcomes. Do you want to leverage the 6 digital marketing trends for 2023 identified by our subject matter experts but don’t know how to shape your strategy?

Reach out to contact us. We’d be happy to help you.