It’s the start of a new decade and we can only imagine what that means for the new technological advancements that are to come in the future. The increasing demand for digital marketing is only going to grow so now, more than ever, it’s important to stay ahead of rapid changes in the industry.
Have a look at what our experts have predicted to be the new trends for 2020 in digital marketing, across both paid social and paid search.
Cross stream messaging
In 2019, Facebook adjusted its branding to be positioned across its three main messaging platforms; Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp. It’s likely that these platforms will be merged to some extent to allow for increased ecommerce functionality, such as transferring funds and messenger bots.
More automation and machine learning
Google has been pushing advertisers towards their automated solutions such as automated bidding and targeting. We believe this will only continue to grow in the New Year, as Google seeks to relieve PPC Executives of daily campaign management and instead allow them to focus on wider account strategies. Currently, scripts automate certain parts of campaigns, however in 2020 we expect to see scripts that do the opposite and bring some control back to advertisers.
Combined audience targeting
Google introduced several new audience targeting methods in 2019, the latest being combined audiences. Over the next year audiences will continue to be a focus and will shape strategy more as we can be more specific with our audience targeting than ever before. To find out more about this topic, read our blog post on combined audiences.
CPC inflation will continue to grow
CPC inflation isn’t a new trend, but we always see growing competition across all industries which, in turn, means that there are more brands competing for limited ad space in SERPs. This then results in higher costs without guaranteed growth, meaning advertisers will need to plan their budgets and forecasts much more carefully, taking inflation into account. If this is something you wish to know more about, read our guides on how you can lower your CPC costs across Paid Search and Paid Social.
Pushing video further on all platforms
Video is only getting bigger and better thanks to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, and it’s safe to say has become the preferred way for audiences to consume content. This year, we expect IGTV users to increase massively as well as watch times on Facebook, which we also expect to be monetised.
Cross-channel integration
Amazon’s growth as an ad platform means there will be a bigger focus on cross-channel integration, as the lines between channels become more blurred. With the previous point in mind, it will be more important than ever for advertisers to ensure their marketing plans cover multiple channels and are all working towards the same goals, rather than being seen as separate, isolated components of their strategies.
Increased daily use on Instagram
As the platform grows and more and more users join the network, we predict that Instagram’s usage will increase from an average of 15 minutes per user per day (this was the average in Jan 2019) by at least double that in 2020.
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