Digital marketing is changing rapidly and constantly presents companies with new challenges. In addition, the Covid 19 crisis has massively driven the adaptation of digital channels and changed the online behavior of users – whether media, retail or experience. In order not to lag behind in 2021, companies should already deal with online marketing trends and establish the right strategy for themselves. Here are some key trends we’re going to be keeping an eye out on for this year.
E-shopping on social media
Source of inspiration, traffic providers and, of course, sales channels: Retail and e-commerce have long benefited from the importance of social media channels. In mid-2020, Facebook and Instagram stores were introduced. The feature allows companies worldwide to offer and sell their own products directly on their own profile without customers having to visit an extra website. This applies regardless of company size or budget. This is particularly interesting for small businesses and startups that are launching their products for the first time. Now the feature is also being extended directly for Instagram Stories, TV and Reels. This means that companies have even greater chances of putting their products in the spotlight creatively or with the help of storytelling. As with shopping posts in the feed, the corresponding products are marked in the IGTV Publisher.
Social commerce will continue to gain in importance in 2021.
The advantage of social shops is their enormous potential: the channels are accessed by billions of users every day and contain a lot of data. These not only provide information about the shopping behaviour, but also provide information about the private interests and interactions of the users. With the help of Facebook and Instagram, companies can now not only play out their offers very specifically and address the corresponding users at the right time, but also distribute the offers directly. Nevertheless, in the long run, social shops should not replace the normal online shop, but should be used as an additional sales tool.
New campaign type for Google Ads
For users, Google is mainly a search engine, but for companies, the platform is an important part of the marketing mix. Google Ads campaigns target potential customers who search the Google world for information, products, or services, or simply stream videos to YouTube. Under the name “Performance Max Campaigns”, Google is developing a new campaign type, which is to be released as a beta version next year. This further development of the smart campaign offers companies a wide range of suitable marketing goals and is designed as a complement to existing search campaigns. The aim is to increase conversions and revenues. New reports should be available for evaluation, for example to determine which target groups or asset combinations achieve the best results.
The benefits of Google ads should be known to every company. The “Performance Max Campaign” and the associated automation achieve even better results in the desired areas. The Insights feature also helps to identify trends and changed user demand and allows you to respond to them in real time. In this way, the funds can be used even better.
Search engine optimization for voice search
Siri, Alexa and Co. – the voice search is already ubiquitous and is used daily. In most cases, cooking recipes, addresses, opening hours or the weather are still requested. Using well-maintained, structured data and machine learning processes in the search algorithm, Google can provide accurate results. However, as users become more familiar with the tool and how it is handled, the demands also increase. Therefore, websites should be optimized accordingly. This means, for example, preparing information clearly, answering simple W questions and optimizing the loading time. Unlike written searches, whole sentences are often “entered” during voice search. The better a website can respond to such detailed searches, the sooner it will pick up users. For this reason, all industries should optimize their website for language searches as much as possible. Content that helps users and answers their questions is therefore becoming increasingly important.
