It’s a new year and we’re all thinking of how we can create effective marketing strategies for the next 12 months, looking at marketing predictions in the industry and possible opportunities for growth.
The world of digital marketing is always evolving and it is likely that this year will see some exciting developments. To help you get prepared, we’ve compiled a list of our predictions for 2023, from PPC to organic social, and everything in between.
1. PPC Platforms Become More Secretive
2022 has been a battle for advertisers when it comes to being able to access and utilise the data that they have relied on for so many years. The ever increasing stringency regarding user data has left many platforms with no other choice than to restrict what they feed back to advertisers. Without this information, advertisers are having difficulties when it comes to reviewing their performance and optimising their campaigns effectively. Unfortunately as privacy, consent and data transparency issues are out of advertisers control, the only response they truly have is to adapt.
As a result, First-Party data has become more valuable than ever, and advertisers are having to implement more of the Automated features available so that their campaigns can perform efficiently. Specialists in platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising should also have their ear to the ground, ensuring they are up to date with new strategy and feature opportunities to help offset the loss of data visibility.
2. Growth Of The Creator Economy
Historically, lead generation has often been the main focus of social media for many brands. Now, brand awareness is starting to take priority. One fantastic way of raising your profile on social media is to make the most of influencer marketing and working alongside content creators. Creating content that will engage your audience can be tricky, but working with influencers could actually make the process easier.
It’ll come as no surprise to hear that, since 2020, there has been an 11% decrease in consumer trust of online reviews, especially amongst young people. Instead, they’re much more likely to turn to social media and seek out reviews and recommendations from real people. This is where the influencer comes in. If your target market includes Gen Z consumers, it’s vital that you get to know the popular content creators in your field. Supporting the creation of user-generated content (UGC), and being authentic online, will help you grow your social media reach in 2023.
3. More Platform Exploration
As advertisers become more frustrated with the platforms they’re advertising on, they’ll be more willing to test out alternatives. PPC is not just limited to Google Ads and Facebook, they’re a ton of other platforms available! From alternative search engines such as Bing and DuckDuckGo, to more content focused sites such as Quora and Reddit, and SaaS listing platforms such as Capterra, G2 and Sourceforge, there are lots of other options for advertisers to be spending their budgets on.
Not only can diversifying platforms help advertisers to expand their reach when looking for new audiences, but it can also allow them to test our different ad formats. By nature we all prefer different ways of engaging with content and the same goes for the ads we are presented with. Whilst a Text Ad might work for one person, a Video Ad would be more appealing for another. So as advertisers face more challenges of their existing platforms (data visibility, reduced targeting options, increased CPCs), 2023 is the perfect time to start testing alternatives.
4. LinkedIn Ad “Recommendations”
Already in BETA Testing, LinkedIn looks set to explore “Recommendations” in their Campaign Manager.
If Google’s Recommendations are anything to go by, this may not be as useful for Advertisers, as many of the channels suggestions seem to be self-serving for the platforms rather than helpful for campaign performance. If they do, however, provide useful tips which don’t just simply suggest largely increasing budgets, this could prove a useful feature in LinkedIn Ads. It’s also great to see the platform growing their advertising service, as it has spent several years left behind the others.
5. Meta Make Changes
After losing almost $700 from their value in 2022, Meta has had a tough year, and perception of them in the advertising industry isn’t set to change anytime soon. In fact, according to recent research, increased spend in TikTok for 2023 is planned by 85% of brands, while just 39% plan to hike their Meta budget.
In a bid to claw back some of its advertising market share, with the rise of TikTok, we could see Meta ads becoming more affordable, driving down CPC and making their auction process more desirable for marketers. We may also see changes to their Reels and Story offering in a bid to rival the ever dominating TikTok.
We saw a snippet of their increase in marketing activity when they launched the rebrand and I’m sure that 2023 will be no exception as they continue to try and draw people in towards choosing Meta. Look out for their own Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns across all platforms too.
6. Visual Content is King
Gen-Z are starting to bypass Google altogether and turn to social media for their search results. In fact, TikTok even released a TV advertisement campaign recently showing a couple faced with ‘everyday problems’ and turning to TikTok for their solutions. Pinterest was an early example of this but TikTok will dominate this arena with younger generations. They want visual explanations and solutions, so Google must turn to more visual search results. If there’s ever been a better time to focus on your visual content on your site, it’s now. Quality images and video content takes time and often money, but if the predictions are anything to go by, Google will be rewarding those that already have visual content of high quality.
7. The Rise of Short-Form, Vertical Video
We all know that TikTok has been a roaring success in recent years, therefore it was no surprise when we started seeing other social media platforms following in their footsteps in 2022. Instagram started pushing their “Reels” feature, encouraging creators to post short videos rather than static images. Then YouTube introduced “Shorts”; their own take on the short-form, vertical video trend. Now, Twitter is showing signs of prioritising short-form video content too.
Many brands and content creators are already showing signs of innovating with shorter content, with many seeing incredible success. YouTube Shorts now has an impressive 1.5 billion monthly active users, seeing more than 30 billion daily views. Moving forward in 2023, brands will need to start looking at short-form video – potentially in a vertical format – as a priority when producing content for social media.
8. GA4 is Here
It’s come around pretty quick, the inevitable switchover to GA4. If you’ve not already made the switch, you haven’t got long. I’ve been using it for a little while now and admittedly no one likes change. I’ve been a lover of Google Analytics for years and could quite easily waste a day digging into all the data so GA4 for me isn’t my favourite. It makes things more simplified and less beefy to look at, who wants that? Many businesses probably haven’t set up GA4 and when the switchover happens on July 1st, mayhem may happen. If you haven’t even thought about it, now’s the time!
2023 is bound to be an exciting year for the marketing industry, with some challenges and plenty of opportunities for growth. If you’re looking to give your marketing strategy a shake-up this year, get in touch today to book a free consultation with the Victress team.
