Considerable Digital Marketing Trends in 2015 by Nex-G

Digital Marketing Trends

It's a new year and it's important for marketers to take stock of not only where the space is today, but where things are going. Here some major trends for digital marketing pros to keep an eye on this year.

1. Rising consumer spending and digital marketing budgets will fuel investment in advanced customer experiences: This one is supported by quite a bit of data we gathered in 2014 (see Gartner for Marketing Leaders Research Survey Results, 2014 (subscription required)), particularly the finding that eighty-nine percent of companies surveyed plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience by 2016. Combined with recent U.S. economic indicators signaling growth in 2015, this means most enterprises can count on the availability of funds and mandates to innovate around customer experiences, especially digital ones.

2. Mobile will continue to Soar: Anyone in retail knows that mobile is big and only going to get bigger. But there are very specific challenges with mobile marketing that the field hasn’t found solutions for. eMarketer reported last month that mobile search is set to surpass desktop in 2015—though the ROI will continue to trail behind desktop search for advertisers. Banner ads, thought to be the ugly stepchildren of advertising platforms, still account for 97% of mobile ads. Basics like having a mobile responsive site have actually become the norm, and the mobile usage will only increase from here.

3. Native ads: Native advertising was perhaps the breakout marketing trend of 2014, and is likely to continue to evolve this year. As audience targeting gets more sophisticated, it makes sense that the two will be intrinsically connected going forward. When marketers are able to better target their audience, native ads can become more sophisticated.

For example, Facebook recently rolled out a "custom audience" product for brands to interact more easily with loyal customers about new products and offers—and it's been very successful thus far. TechCrunch reports that this idea of 'who you are' will push out the 'what are you doing' mindset of audience targeting, making it easier for native advertisers to reach the most engaged consumers possible. The more loyal a consumer is, the easier it will be to determine the best native ads to display for a particular person.

4. Private messaging: It's not all excitement and new beginnings in the industry: Some trends should make marketers a bit worried. Take the rise of private messaging in 2014. Snapchat had a meteoric rise, Facebook Messenger hit 500 million monthly active users, and anonymous apps like Whisper and Secret also gained popularity. Marketers are going to have to rethink their social media tactics to advertise to these mystery audiences, which they should be doing anyway, according to Forrester.

Snapchat has begun experimenting with video ads but, as AdAge reports, the very nature of the app is likely to send its users running if the advertising becomes too intrusive. It's unlikely social sharing will go completely private, especially within a year, but the trend is certainly one to keep an eye on.

5. Ad spending on social networks will increase: Being a person who always advocates content based organic marketing, this may come as a surprise for many. But, the fact is that, there is no other option left.

A company’s Facebook page has converted more like a broadcasting channel for the brand, and non-paid campaigns can bury your posts into history, very soon. If a brand needs its massive presence on Facebook or any other social network quickly, then it will have to spend.
The budget can be minimal to start with, but there is no alternative left. Targeted, theme based campaigns combined with an advertisement budget is the secret recipe which can help businesses to stay alive on social networks. The budget may vary as per the business objectives, but it has to be there.

6. Everthing will be personalized by Allan Blair, head of strategy, Tribal Worldwide, London: Brands have finally figured out how to use big data and I predict that personalization will be the marketing buzzword of 2015. Anything and everything that can be personalized in 2015 will be.

Consumers will be offered the opportunity to create, share and buy personalised products and services, and brands will be using the big data they have been collecting on their customers to then serve customers relevant individual content wherever they are in their user journey (website, customer relationship management (CRM), social and in-store).

Every brand will be clamouring to do this and by the end of the year we will be asking questions about brand intrusion (is it creepy) and brand consistency (does it lead to fragmented brand messaging).