Trends To Watch In Digital Marketing For 2023

The modern marketing industry is in a constant state of flux, with the likes of rising inflation, softening economy, cookie deprecation, and rising consumer expectations that brands, advertisers and agencies face.

Resolution Digital’s marketing director, Samantha Smith, has identified five key trends for 2023 that marketers need to be aware of to make the most of their campaigns ranging from personalising consumer experiences, to honing in on creative quality, to ensuring consumer privacy is maintained.

Looking back at 2022, there have been several big trends laying the groundwork for the coming year.

There have been concerns around the state of world economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Subscription-based TV services such as Netflix and Binge have started to accept advertising in return for reducing consumers’ monthly bills. Meta and Google have laid off more than 20,000 people, largely as a result of declining ad spend, and Elon Musk sacked more than half of Twitter’s staff as he looked to move the site away from advertising towards subscriptions.

All told, these point businesses looking to sharpen their business models, with lower bottom lines and increased revenue. As such, this will lead to a renewed focus on their margins and ad performance.

Trend One: Total Experience

Every marketer dreams of being able to offer individualised experiences for consumers. However, in 2023, giving consumers the best experience possible will become essential for campaign success.

However, don’t think that simply creating a nice user experience will suffice. Next year, brands will need to ensure that every touchpoint along their customer journey is optimised and set up for success. From adverts to after-sales success, your service should be optimised to deliver remarkable results to get the best overall experience.

Resolution Digital’s Samantha Smith

This requires advertisers and brands to get a holistic view of their customers, employees, and partner experiences. Improving data gathering techniques and gaining deeper insights into your marketing audiences and channels is imperative for next year. Resolution Digital overhauled the customer experience of one of Australia’s fastest growing educational facilities to create a personalised experience for their users, which meant we were able to significantly increase the conversion rate of key landing pages.

There’s a reason that Resolution Digital scooped the Best Digital Services gong at the B&T Awards this year. The agency has delivered Remarkable Results for its range of clients across a variety of different metrics — whether its organic search performance, UX design, or optimising return on ad spend.

Trend Two: Consumer Privacy

No customer likes handing over data if they can help it. However, recent Medibank and Optus data breaches have led to an increased apprehension around data sharing and security for Aussie consumers.

What’s more, stories about the creepiness of cookies and internet tracking — irrespective of the impending Chrome cookie crumbling — coupled with Apple’s recent App Tracking Transparency privacy feature, means that consumers are more on edge about their data than ever before.

As a result, marketers in 2023 will need to be sharper at collecting and deploying first-party data to drive effective performance campaigns. They will also need to work harder to gain customers’ trust.

“Sophisticated analytics tools will become part of the norm, to optimise cross channel campaigns and clearly see a brand’s ROI across all media in play, without dependency on cookies,” said Smith.

“Resolution’s ROI Optimiser tool does just that, to help marketers have full transparency over every marketing dollar spent, tracked against their KPIs, with clear visibility on ROI.”

This can sound daunting for advertisers and, to some extent, it is. The changes in consumer privacy and data security laws are flipping the internet slowly, but inexorably, on its head.

Trend Three: Creative, Creative, Creative

Everyone sees thousands of adverts every day. But you already knew that.

Getting the best results from a campaign in 2023 will require a renewed focus on quality creative. On social media, for example, as much as 70 per cent of a post’s success is due to the quality of the creative — users’ attention spans are shorter than ever and an eye-catching creative will help your brand stand out.

“We refreshed a leading sustainable pet food brand’s creatives with a social-friendly mindset, alongside Hearts & Science” explained Smith.

“This delivered a reduction in CPC by 56 per cent compared to the brand’s previous creatives. By creating assets specific to the platform, our creative team were able to increase video views by as much as 85 per cent.”

This focus on putting the right high-quality creative, in the right place, in front of the right audience bore fruit for Resolution and will for any marketer operating across any platform in 2023.

Trend Four: MarTech Will Be Closely Assessed

The world is facing an economic dip and, as a result, paid media usage is likely to dip twice as company budgets tighten.

However, MarTech should see a corresponding increase in usage — running contrary to trends over the last two years. According to Gartner, MarTech utilisation stood at 58 per cent. By this year, it had dipped to 42 per cent.

The research company said that these low levels of MarTech utilisation require “urgent” attention to maximise impact in the face of potential economic headwinds. Chief Financial Officers will be casting an even sharper eye over marketing budgets and, as a result, underutilised assets are likely to be the first to get the chop.

For marketers, making the most of your MarTech stack will become a huge priority in the coming months. Building, maintaining and evolving your technology platforms

Of course, this under-utilisation has not happened because marketers are lazy. Most of the respondents surveyed by Gartner said that their MarTech systems have critical feature gaps when it comes to supporting improved sales, profits, and cost-effectiveness.

Trend Five: Agile Tactics To Be Ahead Of The Game

Agile marketing is not a new phenomenon — it’s an oft-used buzzword in the industry. But, in 2023, it will move from a buzzword to a norm.

Marketers will need to be light on their feet and able to adapt to changing circumstances quickly and efficiently in order to thrive next year. Real-time collaboration and short, fast-paced bursts of work are essential to engendering an agile approach to marketing.

Sprints are a fantastic way to get your team pulling in the same direction quickly to respond to changes — setting aside a couple of hours, for example, to get your team working on different portions of the same project can save days of work.

Similarly, short ‘stand-up’ style meetings at the start of a day can help your team become aligned on their goals quickly and easily. Rather than trudging through email chains, opportunities and collaborators can be quickly identified to help get the ball rolling on projects.

“From my experience over the last year, fixed budgeting and planning for the year ahead can make it challenging to shift your focus, particularly so when you have a campaign performing exceptionally well or when you want to try something new such as a different channel” said Smith.

“It’s best to attribute up to 80 per cent of your marketing budget to planned activities alongside resourcing and time attribution. This means you have the remaining 20 per cent to utilise creatively for something new or if your data shows you have one campaign performing better than another.”

In 2023, these more agile ways of working will become particularly important. Businesses, whether they are agencies, advertisers, or brands, all face downward pressures on their bottom lines and profits. Being able to jump onto new opportunities quickly will be essential for all marketers.

The Year Ahead In Digital Marketing

2023 will be a challenging year for marketers in the industry, there’s no doubt about it.

However, all hope is not lost. There are a range of tools at your disposal that, with simple adjustments to working style and practices, can quickly set you apart from the competition and on the path to success.

From making the most of your MarTech stack to re-embracing the quality creative as a priority, delivering Remarkable Results for businesses, and the bottom line.