Last updated on June 13, 2017

The world has witnessed a rapid shift from analogue to digital in the past few years. Since digital content is catching more and more eyeballs on a daily basis, digital marketing has become the mainstream marketing strategy for businesses worldwide to boost their sales. So it won’t be wrong to say that digital marketing has become the new frontier of digital marketing. Through this blog, I am attempting to shed light on 9 biggest digital marketing trends that’s been making the waves in the digital world.

#1 Social Media Ads

More than a billion people exist on social media, making social media sites a great platform to post ads and increase sells. With cutting-edge tools, digital marketers can identify their target customers and sell their products via social media ads. Targeted marketing and retargeting will certainly be a differentiating factor between digital marketing and traditional marketing in 2016.

According to Interpublic Group’s Magna Global, digital ad spend grew 13.5% in 2016 and left behind the TV as the biggest advertising platform in 2017. Social media advertising accounts for a big percentage of digital advertising. According to eMarketer, social media ads spending soared to $23.68bn in 2016 and will reach $35.98bn by the end of 2017.

#2 Native Advertising

Since Adblockers inhibit the strength of modern-day marketers to display ads on many websites, it’s essential to follow a pragmatic approach of native advertising.

The best characteristic of native ads is they do not appear promotional, which is why ads blocking technology can’t stop them from being displayed. Ads blocking technology has emerged as the bane of digital marketers, which is why it’s paramount to create native ads and reach out masses with your products.

#3 Ads via Facebook Messenger

We all use Facebook messenger to communicate with friends and loved ones. Taking a significant step further, Facebook opened Messenger to third parties as well, thereby allowing users to interact with businesses and buy products they feel they need. Messenger has millions of active users, meaning it could have a great impact on your digital marketing efforts.

Digital marketers must see a great opportunity in the Messenger app to tap into the abundance of users and bolster their coffer.

#4 Podcasts

A podcast, which is a digital audio file that you can download and listen on your preferred device, has emerged as a great tool for digital marketers to spread their message across the world. Podcasts are trending, which provides a brilliant opportunity for digital marketers to advertise their products and boost their business sales.

Podcasts also pave the way to build customer loyalty by allowing you to offer tips to customers to fix resolve their problems. For example, if your company sells financial products, then you can offer your customers guidance on important financial matters via podcasts. The most popular podcast programs, like TED Radio Hour and “Wait Wait…don't tell me, was chosen by Squarespace and Casper to capture ad space during breaks, which significantly help them expand their ads reach and increase their bottom line.

#4 Marketing Automation

Marketing automation system has become the need of the hour for businesses in 2016. Marketing automation involves content management, social media automation, email scheduling, segmenting contacts and many more. Automated marketing not only reduces the size of your marketing team to half but makes it possible to reach your goals faster, too.

By adopting marketing automation implementation services, digital marketers can bring ease to their jobs and make their goals achievable.

#5 Video Marketing

Video marketing possesses great potential to create an impact on your prospective customers to buy your products. People are more likely to jump on videos than exploring a static ad. Since videos are full of colours, visuals, sounds and music, they keep the audience engaged and attract their attention to your products.

In 2016, digital marketers across the globe focussed on short videos (not more than 30 seconds) to take their businesses to fruition.

#6 PPC Personalization

Gone are the days when paid search was restricted only to targeting the right keywords to identify people who can buy your products. There have been many negative impacts on sales due to irrelevant clicks and site visits. But not anymore, the year 2016 calls for finding the right audience on the web. In 2015, Google introduced a top-notch feature, called Customer Match, to allow a company to upload a list of emails that customers have provided to the company and when these customers are signed into Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail, the company can show them its product ads.

The Internet knows a lot about people, the need is just to understand their behaviour and make a list of those who are likely to show interest in what you have on offer.

#7 Buy Buttons

Social media sites, like Pinterest and Twitter, are also using buy buttons to make it easier for users to directly buy from there itself. Buy buttons on social media sites will avoid the need for visiting an e-commerce site to buy products, which would be a welcome change for more than one billion social media users worldwide. Marketers need to acclimatize to this changing trend and strive hard to make out the best of buy buttons on social media sites.

#8 Mobile Marketing

Mobile users have already surpassed the numbers of desktop users, which has a great implication for a digital marketer. A sudden rise in mobile users to access the internet has caused the stir in the SEO arena, requiring marketers to optimize their sites for mobile devices too. So, digital marketers must deploy mobile marketing strategies to increase the visibility of their products to maximum users.

Digital marketing has become the need of the hour, no matter what type your business is. If you are a digital marketer, you must take cognizance of the above eight trends to add new dimensions to your business. If you have interesting digital marketing strategies in mind, please share with all our readers in the comment box below.