Once considered far-fetched ideas, Metaverse marketing, voice search engine optimization (VSEO), and advertising through the Internet of Things (IoT) are now among the leading digital marketing trends. It's not difficult to understand why – to stay competitive in today's saturated online arena, companies must embrace the newest advancements.

This article highlights 25 significant digital marketing trends that cannot be ignored in the upcoming year. By adopting these trends, your business will not only survive but also flourish in an era of incessant marketing transformations.

1. AI Marketing

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has gained significant traction as the technology behind various services, such as content creation, chatbots, and search engines.

The rising popularity of AI in digital marketing is due to its ability to provide faster and more accurate insights into customer behavior, resulting in higher success rates for AI-powered marketing campaigns. Moreover, AI can automate mundane tasks like data collection and analysis, allowing marketers to focus on more complex activities, such as creative strategy development. By leveraging AI-powered marketing automation in their digital marketing strategies, businesses can better understand their customers and maximize their digital return on investment (ROI).

For instance, Jasper is an AI-powered software used for content creation. With features such as automated keyword tracking, trending topics analysis, and personalization capabilities, Jasper can quickly generate relevant content for ad campaigns, email campaigns, and blog post writing, freeing marketers from the tedious task of manually searching for content ideas or creating new content from scratch.

AI can also analyze consumer behavior and search patterns, leveraging data from social media platforms like Instagram and blog posts to help businesses understand how customers find their products and services.

Google is one of the companies that has made AI the center of its value proposition. Its implementation of AI has allowed its search engine to understand with higher precision what people are looking for and what kind of content best serves their search intent. By nailing the search intent, content optimization becomes even more critical.

With AI-driven tools, such as chatbots, digital assistants, and natural language processing (NLP), becoming increasingly sophisticated, AI is an indispensable marketing asset.

2. Metaverse Marketing

The concept of the Metaverse is gaining increasing popularity as a digital universe where users can interact in immersive three-dimensional, computer-generated environments. The Metaverse allows individuals to explore digital spaces, create digital objects, and purchase digital assets. For businesses, this presents an opportunity to engage consumers in a more captivating way than traditional digital marketing methods can offer. Brands can leverage Metaverse marketing to create interactive branded campaigns or launch digital stores within the Metaverse that customers can visit.

Metaverse marketing involves the integration of digital and physical spaces via VR and AR to create an immersive digital experience in which brands can sell their products or services. For instance, a retailer could create a virtual store within the Metaverse, where potential customers can browse products as if they were in the store, enabling them to shop from anywhere in the world without leaving their homes.

Here are some important statistics related to the Metaverse:

  • Metaverse marketing is anticipated to attain $783.3 billion by 2024, with an average growth rate of 13.1%.
  • It is estimated that by 2026, a quarter of the population will spend an hour every day in the virtual world.
  • It is estimated that 30% of companies will be selling their products within the Metaverse by 2026.
  • Already, 33% of adults have shown interest in buying digital products within the Metaverse.

3. Augmented Reality (AR) & Immersive Technologies

Although virtual reality (VR) has captured people's imagination with its grand sci-fi ideas, augmented reality (AR) has proved to be more practical for marketers. Recently, Facebook introduced its highly anticipated smart glasses, and although they focus more on taking photos than AR, they are the starting point for what could be a game-changing venture.

Other companies have also released their AR apps, such as IKEA's IKEA Place app. The app allows users to take a picture of a room in their home with a smartphone camera and then “test drive” IKEA's furniture in it. Users can move the furniture around and view it from different angles. L'Oréal is another brand that has made good use of AR with its Style My Hair app. This app enables users to try out different hairstyles or makeup without touching a single strand on their head by simply uploading their picture or using the app's preloaded image of a model.

As AR technology continues to improve, we can expect to see a significant increase in brands finding practical applications for it in the future.

4. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising streamlines ad buying through the use of AI, providing companies with a reliable and cost-effective solution to their advertising needs. The power of programmatic advertising lies in its optimization scale capacity, which surpasses that of human capability.

While manual advertising campaigns consider three or four targets, such as the keyword, time of day, and location, programmatic demand-side platforms use hundreds of targeting signals to personalize advertisements and even target according to customer behavior and lifestyle habits when integrated with customer data platforms.

Real-time bidding (RTB) is a popular application of programmatic ad buying, using real-time auctions to buy guaranteed ad impressions in advance from specific publisher sites. If paid media buying is an essential customer acquisition channel, programmatic advertising should be a crucial consideration.

5. Conversational Marketing

Modern marketing has evolved to become more conversational than ever before, with chatbots, AI, and personalization being among the most talked about concepts in the field. Conversational marketing is a tactic that involves having real-time conversations with prospects or customers to foster engagement, build relationships, and boost sales. It aims to create unique experiences for each user through interactive chatbots, voice search, SMS, and other digital channels.

By utilizing AI technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) to analyze customer intent and provide customized responses, companies can create more captivating interactions while obtaining valuable insights into their target audience. This allows them to deliver personalized experiences at scale, ultimately leading to increased conversions. Brands are reacting accordingly, as 82% of consumers expect an “immediate” response when they have a question. Conversational marketing provides a personal and instant connection between marketers and customers.

Conversational marketing differs from traditional marketing in that it is now accessible through multiple channels, enabling brands to connect with customers on their preferred devices, platforms, and schedules.

David Cancel, CEO, and founder of Drift, explains that modern buyers expect immediate access to information and communication options that suit their preferences.

According to Drift, 41.3% of consumers utilize conversational marketing tools for making purchases.

To implement a conversational marketing strategy, companies may use various methods such as chatbots, personalized videos, personalized emails, and virtual selling assistants. ThoughtSpot is an example of a company that successfully utilized conversational marketing to achieve significant results.

Following the implementation of this strategy, Thought Spot experienced a tenfold increase in sales conversations, a 70% rise in marketing qualified leads, and a 64% increase in booked meetings.

6. Chatbots

Chatbots are a popular implementation of conversational marketing. They rely on AI technology to provide automated, human-like responses to web visitors in real-time. According to surveys, the top benefits of chatbots for companies are 24-hour service (64%), instant responses to inquiries (55%), and answers to simple questions (55%). In fact, Uberall found that 80% of consumers have positive experiences with chatbots.

Experts predict that eCommerce transactions via chatbots will reach $112 billion by 2023, and consumer retail spends via chatbots worldwide will reach $142 billion by 2024 – up from just $2.8 billion in 2019. Customers appreciate chatbots for their responsiveness, promptness, and accuracy in recalling buying history. As chatbot usage becomes more widespread, they will play a critical role in providing an excellent customer experience.

7. Personalization

To differentiate yourself in 2023, it will be essential to implement personalized marketing strategies that involve tailoring your content, products, emails, and other materials to the unique preferences and behaviors of your target audience.

Personalization is highly valued by consumers, as evidenced by the following statistics:

  • According to SmarterHQ, 72% of shoppers respond to marketing messages only if they are tailored to their interests.
  • A survey by Salesforce revealed that marketers consider personalization to have the greatest impact on customer experience (64%), conversion rate improvement (63%), and visitor engagement (55%).

Similarly, EmailMonks' Kevin George states that “personalized, triggered emails based on behavior are 3X better than batch-and-blast emails.”

Netflix and Amazon are prime examples of the effectiveness of personalization, with their highly successful tailored recommendations of products or movie titles. However, there are other companies using personalization effectively as well:

  • EasyJet launched a data-driven email campaign that uses customers' travel history with the airline to create personalized travel suggestions. This campaign sent 12.5 million unique emails, which had a 25% higher click-through rate than non-personalized emails.
  • Cadbury's personalized video campaign utilizes Facebook profile data such as age, interests, and location to match users with a Dairy Milk flavor. The campaign generated a 65% click-through rate and a 33.6% conversion rate, proving the effectiveness of personalization.
  • Starbucks uses a gamified mobile app that leverages data such as purchase history and location to personalize customer experiences. Customers can customize their drinks and are encouraged to use the app further through its rewards system, which skyrocketed Starbucks' revenue to $2.56 billion.

8. Customer Experience

Digital marketing strategy has evolved to prioritize customer experience (CX), which involves optimizing digital interactions between businesses and customers. With increasing competition and digital channels, customers now expect personalized and seamless experiences when engaging with brands.

By understanding customers' needs and desires when interacting with websites and digital platforms, CX can help businesses create personalized experiences. With digital marketing tactics like personalization, automation, augmented reality, and gamification, businesses can provide exceptional digital experiences that keep customers returning for more.

A study by Temkin Group found that a moderate increase in CX generates an average revenue increase of $823 million over three years for a company with $1 billion in annual revenues.
Moreover, bad customer experience poses the biggest threat to any business. However, 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.

Here are some ways to enhance the experience of your customers:

  • Develop detailed buyer personas to understand your customers better
  • Simplify website usability and navigation to provide a good user experience (UX)
  • Offer an omnichannel experience (more on this in the next section)
  • Provide a high level of personalization to make your customers feel valued
  • Make customer actions such as making purchases, contacting customer reps, returning products, or canceling services as easy as possible
  • Actively listen to customers by collecting feedback through emails or feedback forms on your site
  • Incentivize customer loyalty through rewards programs, special discounts, and points programs
  • Encourage customers to leave reviews by making it easy for them to do so on your website or review sites and respond to each one publicly
  • Empower your employees to solve customer issues independently, without requiring them to seek managerial approval first.

Amazon is a surprising example of a brand that prioritizes making the customer experience as seamless as possible. Despite being a large e-commerce store, they have implemented measures to make it easy for customers to get in touch with a human representative. Their “call me” service ensures that customers can speak to a human in under a minute, without being placed on hold or having to navigate through multiple phone menus. Additionally, returning a product is made effortless with Amazon's provision of a shipping receipt that can be taken to a UPS store, where the item is boxed and shipped on the customer's behalf.

9. Omnichannel Marketing

The buzz around omnichannel marketing may have died down since 2020, but the strategy remains just as pertinent today. The approach involves marketing across various channels, including social media, email, apps, and blog posts, to deliver a seamless and consistent brand message that enhances the customer experience and drives up conversion rates and customer loyalty.

To ensure a comprehensive omnichannel plan, consider offline marketing strategies such as:

  • Sending out physical letters or postcards to promote digital marketing initiatives.
  • Promoting digital coupons that customers can use in-store through promotional emails.
  • Displaying online and offline promotions on digital screens in stores.

These stats show that marketing teams using three or more channels in an automation workflow can achieve remarkable results:

  • Engagement rate: 18.96% on omnichannel vs. 5.4% on single-channel.
  • Purchase frequency: 250% higher on omnichannel vs. single-channel.
  • Average order value: 13% more per order on omnichannel vs. single-channel.
  • Customer retention rates: 90% higher for omnichannel vs. single-channel.

10. Account-based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a targeted marketing strategy commonly used in B2B businesses to focus on specific accounts instead of a wide audience. This approach enables them to customize their messaging and establish connections with important decision makers, thereby enhancing the chances of success.

ABM is also efficient in terms of time and resources as it prioritizes the accounts most likely to produce successful results. Furthermore, this strategy helps in creating strong customer relationships, which can improve conversion rates and boost customer loyalty.

Bizible utilized an ABM approach to reach out to their target prospects by mailing them a physical care package. They identified the key decision makers in their account list and created 37 custom care packages, which included a physical copy of their Total Economic Impact Bible.

Additionally, they donated to an environmental charity in their prospect's name and sent a handwritten card. After sending out the care packages, Bizible followed up with each prospect to ensure they received the package and directed them to customized landing pages addressing the decision maker and their business by name.

This ABM strategy generated over $33,000 in additional revenue for Bizible and helped them surpass their quarterly sales quota by 15%.

11. Video Shorts & Video Marketing

Short and long videos are both essential components of video marketing, which is one of the most significant marketing trends today and is likely to remain so in the future. According to HubSpot, short-form videos (usually 60 seconds or less) have the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy. People love sharing videos, and they do so twice as much as other content types.

For brands, creating short videos is an easy and fast way to produce engaging content for platforms where their target audience is already spending time, such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels. Instead of flooding all of these platforms with your short videos, focus on only two or three channels that your audience is using.

Here are some ways you can use video shorts:

  • Create product teasers
  • Encourage user-generated content (UGC)
  • Share behind-the-scenes videos
  • Make quick explainer videos

When it comes to traditional video marketing, don't limit yourself to YouTube. You can enhance engagement with your videos in several ways. Video is a flexible platform that enables you to recycle and transform your current content into novel formats. For example, you can turn a blog post into a video or use footage from a live event to create a promotional video.

There are various ways to repurpose and distribute your video content across different platforms to increase its reach and engagement. For instance, you can upload your video on your website and YouTube channel, and then:

  • Transcribe the video and publish it as an article, embedding the YouTube video to boost search engine rankings.
  • Add subtitles to the raw video and upload it natively on Facebook, which usually garners higher impressions and engagement compared to shared YouTube videos.
  • Extract the audio and turn it into a podcast episode.
  • Incorporate video thumbnails in your email marketing campaigns and use the word “video” in the subject line, which has shown to boost open rates by 19%.

12. Visual Search & Visual Content Marketing

Visual search is a new search method that allows users to upload an image instead of typing in a search query. Although it’s a relatively new concept, two companies that are leading the way in visual search are:

Pinterest 

Pinterest introduced Lens, a visual search tool that allows users to snap a photo of an item and find out where to buy it online, look for similar products, or view pinboards of related items. Lens recognizes 2.5 billion home and fashion objects and has inspired over 600 million searches on Pinterest's mobile apps and browser extensions. Since its launch, Lens usage has grown by 140%.

Pinterest has also added new features to its functionality, including:

  • Pincodes: These use QR codes to help users find inspiration while out shopping or browsing through magazines.
  • Idea Pins: Similar to Snapchat or Instagram Stories, this feature uses multi-page video formats for creators who want to publish high-quality, evergreen content directly to Pinterest. Currently, it's only available to users in select countries, including the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
  • AR Try: This is an augmented reality feature for trying on new eyeshadows from popular brands such as Lancome, YSL, Urban Decay, and NYX Cosmetics.

Google lens

Google Lens is a camera application that functions as a visual search engine, capable of identifying objects and landmarks. When a photo is taken using this app, several tasks can be performed depending on the item photographed.

  • Apparel and home goods: Discover similar products and locate stores that carry them.
  • Barcodes: Obtain information about a product, including purchasing options, by scanning its barcode.
  • Business card: Store contact details, such as phone numbers and addresses, as a new contact.
  • Book: Obtain a synopsis and read reviews of the book.
  • Event flyer or billboard: Add the event's details to your calendar.
  • Landmark or building: Access historical information, operating hours, and more.
  • Painting in a museum: Read about the artist and learn additional information.

Moreover, visual content marketing takes this concept to the next level. Visuals are an immensely influential tool for captivating audiences. Compelling visuals such as videos, images, charts, GIFs, and infographics enable you to establish a much more profound bond with prospective customers than if you solely depended on textual content.

  • Convey intricate information promptly and efficiently.
  • Enhance brand recognition (particularly with an enjoyable, witty, or beneficial visual).
  • Improve the memorability of your product or service – and when individuals remember the conveyed message, they're more prone to take the intended action.
  • Stimulate your audience to share the image, GIF, or video (people love sharing captivating content like this).
  • Boost your SEO as appropriate use of alt tags and keywords in images and videos can make them appear in the SERPs (not just in image search engines).

13. Live Stream Shopping & Shoppable Ads

The trend of live streaming is increasingly prevalent in the Western world; however, it is immensely popular in China. During the first half of 2020, around 309 million people, equivalent to one-third of China's internet users, participated in a live streaming shopping session.

Marketing Brew reports that due to Apple's recent privacy and data update, an increasing number of advertisers are testing shoppable TV ads. The popularity of shoppable ads, akin to shoppable livestreams, is rising due to the convenience of discovering and immediately purchasing a product.

The market for shoppable ads is projected to expand to nearly $80 billion by 2025, up from approximately $45 million in the current year. Advertisers are now looking into Roku's novel shoppable ad experiment, which enables viewers to purchase Walmart products directly from their Roku devices.

14. Voice Search (VSEO) & Voice Commerce

The surge in voice search usage has prompted companies to reconsider their digital marketing strategies. Take a look at these statistics regarding voice search:

  • Voice-based searches make up 40% of all internet searches conducted in the U.S.
  • 58% of consumers utilize voice search to discover local business information.
  • Daily usage of voice search is reported by 40% of adults.
  • The number of voice searches conducted monthly worldwide exceeds 1 billion.

As the prevalence of digital assistants and voice search grows, Voice Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) is becoming more crucial. VSEO aims to improve website content to enhance its compatibility with digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, which in turn improves the accuracy and speed of search results. To guarantee that their content can be effortlessly found, it will be essential for businesses to optimize their content for voice search by 2023.Currently, voice search plays a vital role in delivering relevant information to search engine users.

The introduction of voice assistants has disrupted more than just the search engine world. In fact, consumers are not only utilizing them to conduct their search queries, but also to make purchases.

To comprehend the significance of voice commerce, it is necessary to consider the convenience factor in the consumer's purchasing process. While a customer may not purchase a large product like a 55″ TV through a voice assistant, they are more inclined to buy a small, low-cost item that is difficult to search for online.

According to Walker Sands, “food and grocery” holds the highest rank on the list (21%) of items purchased via voice-controlled devices, followed by Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) at 16%.

Walmart is one company that has taken the lead in this emerging trend by collaborating with Google to launch the Walmart Voice Order feature. Google Home owners can now say “Hey Google, talk to Walmart,” select their desired product, and add it to their cart. Amazon also offers voice commerce through AmazonFresh, which enables customers to shop using any Alexa-enabled device.

Here are some ways that your e-commerce store can take advantage of voice commerce:

  • Craft content with long-tail keywords designed for conversational search strategies.
  • Focus on anticipated queries and appropriate keywords, employing trigger words for voice searches such as “who,” “why,” “when,” “how,” “where,” “should,” “could,” “does,” etc.
  • Avoid being limited to exact wording; instead, consider the context of the customer's queries and provide valuable content that addresses the question.
  • Combine various terminologies to create diverse sets of keywords and phrases that naturally encompass all pertinent information from the questions.
  • Create appealing product descriptions that sound engaging when read aloud, and write in a natural manner that aligns with common speech patterns.

15. Social Media Stories

Social media stories have gained immense popularity ever since Snapchat first introduced the concept. And there's a good reason for it.

Available now on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, stories offer a great way to engage users and boost visibility for your products or services. They offer a unique format that can be leveraged to promote events, showcase products, announce deals, or simply share a story.

Stories are posts that are available for a limited time and disappear after 24 hours. But despite being such a simple idea, they provide marketers with a powerful tool to share authentic content and connect with their audiences on a personal level.

Below are some ways in which you can utilize social media stories to connect with your audience:

  • Incorporate polls in your Instagram Stories
  • Include links to your social media Stories
  • Utilize Snapchat geofilters
  • Add location tags to your Stories
  • Mention other brands and your followers
  • Experiment with live video when creating Stories
  • Encourage followers to engage more through clear call-to-actions

16. Push Notifications

The effectiveness of email marketing has been weakened by the introduction of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and more rigorous privacy laws. Additionally, younger audiences tend to favor other communication methods and prefer fewer touchpoints when interacting with brands.

In order to engage with users through multiple channels, more and more brands are expected to adopt browser push notifications in 2023. These notifications are becoming increasingly sophisticated and personalized.

Personalized push notifications can significantly improve conversions, as shown by the following statistics:

  • Segmented push messages have a 7% open rate, compared to only 3% for generic, broadcast messages (a 2x improvement).
  • Users are 3 times more likely to convert from a segmented push notification, with 54% doing so, compared to only 15% for broadcast messages.

Behavior-triggered notifications are increasingly being utilized to re-engage individuals who have displayed interest but did not complete a purchase and to recover revenue from abandoned shopping carts. These notifications can even contain images and call-to-actions (CTAs) to enhance conversion rates from such efforts.

17. Interactive Content & UGC

Interactive content that offers an immersive experience, such as quizzes and polls, embedded calculators, augmented reality ads, and 360-degree videos, will become increasingly popular in 2023, leading to a shift from traditional text-based content.

Interactive content has proven to be more engaging, memorable, and effective in generating business results. This is because it provides an immersive experience to users, making them feel more connected and involved in the buying process. In fact:

  • 88% of marketers believe that interactive content helps differentiate brands
  • 79% say that combining interactive content with other content types improves message retention
  • Over 96% of people who start quizzes on Buzzfeed finish them
  • User-generated content (UGC) is a perfect match for interactive content.

UGC is content created and shared by users on social media, including images, videos, reviews, and blog posts about products or services. Consider these stats:

  • 85% of consumers find UGC more influential than content from brands
  • 60% of people believe that UGC is the most authentic type of content (compared to just 20% for brand-generated content)

Using UGC in your marketing strategies offers several benefits, including:

  • Increasing brand visibility and engagement as customers share their positive experiences with the product or service with their friends and followers
  • Building trust between the brand and its customers since user-generated content is seen as more authentic than traditional advertising campaigns
  • Providing valuable feedback that can be used to improve customer experience and make the product or service even more attractive to potential customers.

18. Predictive & Augmented Analytics

One approach to identifying patterns and predicting future outcomes is through predictive analytics, which utilizes data mining, machine learning, and predictive modeling. As its potential has become more apparent, it has gained greater sophistication and has been implemented in various industries.

Advanced lead scoring, customer segmentation, and personalization are some of the predictive analytics tools and applications that are expected to become more prevalent in the digital marketing industry.

One example is Amazon Assistant, a Chrome extension from the retail giant that permits users to receive product recommendations beyond the website and receive personalized offers while they browse the web. On the other hand,

Augmented Analytics employs machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automate data preparation and enable data sharing.

The difference between predictive analytics and Augmented Analytics lies in the technologies utilized:
“Predictive analytics employs machine learning to forecast what will happen, while Augmented Analytics uses machine intelligence to augment human intelligence, enabling us to work more efficiently and effectively on increasingly large datasets.”

According to Gartner, by the end of 2024, 75% of enterprises will use AI for their operational requirements, driving a five-fold increase in streaming data and analytics infrastructure.

19. Geo-Fencing

The concept of marketing to people based on their location is not new, but there is a growing trend in the use of geo-fencing, a market that is predicted to reach $2.4 billion by 2023, in conjunction with the increasing use of mobile devices. Geo-fencing enables real-time targeting based on a user's location.

A defined area is targeted, such as a radius of one mile around a restaurant, and when a user enters or exits this area, they receive a marketing communication through means like push notification or text message.

According to Reveal Mobile, over 50% of surveyed marketers consider restaurants and bars, health and beauty, entertainment, grocery, and pet stores as the top five retail locations for geofencing.

Additionally, they found that geotargeted audiences tend to perform better or similarly, on average, compared to other targeting tactics. As an example, the American gas company called 76 used Waze to highlight their gas stations on a map throughout California.

As drivers approach, a logo appears on their map showing the location of the gas station and offering entry to a competition if they fill up. Their “Tank 5” campaign resulted in a 6.5% navigation rate to fuel stations.

For industries that aim to convert digital users into physical customers, geo-fencing will become an increasingly vital aspect of their marketing strategy.

20. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites designed to function like mobile apps while providing the same features as native mobile apps. PWAs have the ability to load quickly, enable push notifications, support offline usage, and much more without being restricted to any particular platform such as Android or iOS. With PWAs, development teams can create web apps that work seamlessly on any device, offering the same experience as a mobile app.

21. Blockchain Applications

Blockgeeks states that a blockchain is a cluster of computers that are not owned by a single entity, that manage a set of time-stamped and unchangeable data records. Each block of data is secured using cryptographic principles and is bound to the previous block, forming a chain. This ensures the security and immutability of the data on the blockchain.

Below is a visual representation of how a blockchain operates:

Blockchain technology, although initially associated with cryptocurrencies, has expanded beyond the financial industry to various other sectors.
Leandra Monteiro, an expert from IBSintelligence, has highlighted some key blockchain trends to keep an eye on in 2023.

These include BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) that involves third-party creation and management of cloud-based networks for businesses building blockchain applications. Another trend is Verifiable Credential & Self Sovereign Identity (Universal Identity), which aims to offer privacy-preserving, globally resolvable, and verifiable credentials that individuals can store and manage from their own devices and show to anyone, anywhere.

DeFi (Decentralized Finance), a shift from traditional centralized financial systems to smart contracts on blockchains, is also gaining momentum.

Furthermore, NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens), a unique cryptographic token that uses blockchain technology to link with an exclusive digital asset that cannot be duplicated, is gaining traction.

Lastly, CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), a digital form of central bank money based on blockchain and legal tender created and backed by a central bank, is also an emerging trend.

22. Quantum Computing

The digital marketing industry can be revolutionized by quantum computing, which can process vast amounts of data simultaneously, enabling marketers to make informed decisions at an unprecedented pace.

The technology behind quantum computing is rooted in quantum physics theory, which suggests that subatomic particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously.

Quantum computing presents new opportunities for digital marketers. Here are some potential applications:

  1. Enhanced mobile data coverage and security thanks to the future adoption of 6G wireless communication networks.
  2. More human-like AI, such as Google AI, which is exploring quantum algorithms to improve machine learning significantly.
  3. More relevant advertising, including the use of quantum annealing to help ads reach a broader audience at a lower cost.
  4. The ability to develop more targeted digital campaigns by quickly analyzing customer data using machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and preferences.

23. SERP Position Zero / Featured Snippet

The importance of featured snippets lies in the fact that they can significantly boost website clicks, since being featured at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) can enhance visibility and authority. Featured snippets, which are brief content summaries related to user queries that appear in a box at the top of the SERPs, have gained popularity in recent years.

Acquiring a featured snippet for your website means achieving “position zero” and improving domain visibility. The average click-through rate (CTR) of featured snippets is about 8.6%, and they also play a crucial role in voice search. According to a Moz study, digital assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa use featured snippets to answer users' voice search queries. Even low-authority websites can rank as featured snippets by producing high-quality content and optimizing it with long-tail keywords.

The rise of position zero SERPs means that analyzing whether a keyword has a featured snippet or not is just as important as evaluating search volume, intent, and organic competition. With Google incorporating more AI into its ranking algorithm, zero-ranked results are expected to become even more prevalent.

24. 5G Technology

The rise of 5G technology is poised to become a crucial trend in digital marketing for 2023, especially in a world that is increasingly reliant on mobile devices. The fifth generation of mobile technology will revolutionize digital communication and impact virtually every industry.

T-Mobile highlights how 5G speed will benefit the burgeoning augmented reality industry, as it could help develop a virtual heads-up display. The European Union has set an ambitious 5G action plan that aims to achieve uninterrupted 5G coverage for major roads and railways by 2025.

Furthermore, the technology is expected to power 100 times more connected devices. Undoubtedly, 5G technology will transform how we access online content, from digital marketers to the average user.

25. First-Party Cookies

The GDPR in the European Union and the CCPA in California were implemented to restrict how companies utilize their customers' data. As a result, many of the biggest corporations globally have been fined significant amounts of money for breaching user privacy, including:

  • Amazon was fined €746 million ($877 million)
  • Google was fined €50 million ($56.6 million)
  • H&M was fined €35 million ($41 million)
  • TIM was fined €27.8 million ($31.5 million)
  • British Airways was fined €22 million ($26 million)

The impact of the new privacy laws goes beyond just economic consequences. The end of third-party cookies is a major challenge for marketers, as cookies provide valuable data for measuring, personalizing, and optimizing ad campaigns. Without third-party cookies, companies will have to rely solely on their own data.

To address this issue and create more privacy-focused open web standards, Google has announced the end of support for third-party browser cookies in its Chrome browser with its Privacy Sandbox.

These cookies gather a wide range of information about users and their preferences, which is then sold to various businesses and individuals. While it's still unclear how much this change will affect marketers, there are several actions they can take to prepare for the shift.

  • Employ an omnichannel marketing approach (refer to trend #15) that gathers data from every touchpoint while complying with the user’s consent.
  • Use a clear and personalized invitation that is easy to spot.
  • Introduce the first-party data collection form/checkbox in a friendly way, similar to an invitation to join a loyalty program.
  • Provide a detailed explanation of every data attribute you collect from your visitors, its significance, and how it is utilized to ensure complete transparency.
  • Allow your visitors to modify their data collection and usage preferences through a preference center.

Bottom-line

To gain a competitive edge in digital marketing, marketers must embrace change and continuously explore new technologies, tools, and marketing strategies.

Adopting digital marketing trends like Position Zero, quantum computing, and IoT advertising can offer brands and marketers unparalleled insights and opportunities to succeed.

By learning and utilizing these marketing strategies now, businesses can remain ahead of their competition and achieve success in 2023. Best of luck!

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