TOP 7 DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS ARE COME IN 2021

2020 has already brought many big changes - lockdowns in the corona crisis in particular have intensified existing digital marketing trends. Read here what that means for the near future in customer acquisition via online channels.

First of all we have the top online marketing trends for 2021 as a list:

1. Shoppable posts on Instagram
2. Voice Search SEO Tactics
3. TikTok & the principle of short videos
4. Facebook shops
5. Smart bidding in Google Ads
6. Chatbots
7. Augmented reality

THE MOST IMPORTANT DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS 2021

The growth of the digital marketing industry in particular is breathtaking and has been unbroken for years. In various studies it is proven again and again how effective individual measures can be here. Thanks to the fast flow of information through the Internet, it only takes a few months - if at all for a trend to take hold globally.

In this article, we present the most important digital marketing trends that will continue to intensify in 2021, substantiate them with figures and give you advice on which trends are particularly relevant for which industries.

1. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: SHOPPABLE POSTS ON INSTAGRAM

In 2017, the first shoppable posts were published in the US version of Instagram - companies that post pictures on the social network can tag them: targeted pop-ups that inform about products that are included in the respective posted picture can be seen, display the respective product price and via which the user can then also get to the shop. In March 2018, this function was made available globally.

Since then, companies have been able to turn their Instagram accounts into shops themselves. Products can be placed clearly visible, individually or several at the same time per picture, and followers are informed more quickly about new products. After only a short development period, a checkout function was made available within Instagram in March 2019. 

Users can now shop directly on the social media platform, so they no longer have to leave it. What influence will this digital marketing trend have on online shops.

Shoppable posts can be especially worthwhile when

• Your target group is largely on Instagram
• You can present your products well in pictures and in the appropriate quality
• Both of the above conditions apply, but you do not have your own shop

2. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: SEO TACTICS FOR LANGUAGE SEARCH

Voice search, also known as “voice search”, has been propagated as the future of Internet search for several years. So far it has not been the rule for search queries, BUT: it is gradually being used more and more frequently. A study on voice searches by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) from 2018 showed that almost two thirds of all smartphone users do a voice search at least once a day - albeit mainly within their own four walls.

Above all, the increasing tendency behind this should draw companies' attention: since voice commands can be recognized better and better (as shown by digital voice assistants such as Alexa or Siri), voice search could become a new standard in the future - websites should be optimized accordingly. In contrast to written search queries, whole sentences are often "entered" in voices earches. The better a website can answer such detailed search queries, the sooner it will be able to pick up voice search users

In summary voice search is already important for:

• Local information such as address & opening times or the weather
• Simple instructions
• Answering questions

3. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: TIKTOK & THE PRINCIPLE OF SHORT VIDEOS

TikTok has spread as rapidly as any other platform - first among younger teenagers, then also among older users. The principle of entertaining short videos is that you just watch this video quickly and then another and then another. “I still have the 30 seconds,” you think. And you've already spent another hour watching videos.

At the same time, TikTok largely manages without any text, videos are in the foreground when the app is opened, operation is carried out simply by swiping to the side and other navigation elements are simply placed over the video. The algorithms that propose new videos mainly work regionally and do not favor big brands, but basically give everyone a chance. This is another reason why the platform has so far been used a lot by young amateurs and less by big stars or brands.

Each video only lasts a maximum of 60 seconds, which seems to be a recipe for success in our fast-moving times. The principle of short, easy-to-create videos could also be adopted on other social media platforms in the future.

There are 3 options for marketing on the platform:

• Create your own channel and publish short videos
• Enter into cooperation with TikTok influencers
• Place TikTok ads

4. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: FACEBOOK SHOPS

This digital marketing trend is practically in tow of the shoppable posts from Instagram and represents an extremely predictable step: in the future it will also be possible to buy goods directly on the platform on Facebook. This function has not yet been fully released for Germany, but it will only be a matter of months before German companies also become an active user community on Facebook (according to a post by Mark Zuckerberg dated April 24, 2019) of 2.7 billion people able to offer.

In the English-speaking world, especially in the USA, this function is already known as the Facebook Store: Online shop providers such as Shopify or WooCommerce have already entered into cooperation agreements with Facebook, where users can shop via the social network and only when processing payments in the actual online shop.

You should address customers where they are, ”says Shopify itself in its own article on this topic - the shop providers have quickly come to terms with this new development and instead of competing, they work together. It is questionable whether this will work for everyone.

5. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: SMART BIDDING IN GOOGLE ADS

Smart Bidding in Google Ads uses machine learning to increase the conversion rate, that is, to encourage more users to click on the ad. To do this, Google uses the historical search behavior of users and context-related information (such as location, time, device used and others) - this is intended to predict the probability of a conversion. If the collected data indicate an increased probability, the bid in Google Ads is automatically increased on the placement of the ad.

6 different smart bidding strategies can be used, depending on the conversion goal:

• Conversion maximization: this strategy should simply achieve the highest possible number of conversions within the set budget by adjusting the bids
• Target ROAS: Here, a certain "Return On Ad Spend" (ROAS) value, i.e. a certain conversion rate in relation to ads expenditure, is to be achieved - also by adjusting the bid within the budget
• Target CPA: Here the costs per action, ie the "Cost per Action" (CPA), are to be kept at a certain value - the machine tries to achieve as many conversions as possible at a certain price per ad
• Increase visibility (impression share maximization): This strategy pursues the goal of placing your own advertisements at the top of the page as often as possible - the bids are set accordingly
• CPC optimization: by optimizing the “cost per click” (CPC), ie the costs per ad clicked, the conversion value should be maximized here - that is, as many conversions as possible in relation to the expenditure
• More website hits: This smart bidding strategy is intended to maximize the clicks on the ads - the bids are automatically set in such a way that as many clicks as possible are generated within the budget

These potentially very powerful optimization strategies can now be carried out automatically using Smart Bidding. But you should take a closer look at this in each individual case.

6. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: CHATBOTS

Have you already visited a page and shortly afterwards a small chat window popped up in the lower right corner, in which a friendly contact person told you with words like “Hello! How can I help you? ”Greeted? It is very likely that it was a so-called chatbot. Chatbots are supposed to be able to give simple answers to simple questions that you write in the chat window, but often fail even with slightly more complex questions. Artificial intelligence is intended to remedy this in the long term: the program learns continuously through interaction with real people and should be able to answer more and more questions automatically.

There are also more and more digital assistants in social media: as early as 2018, over 300,000 chatbots were in use on Facebook (Venture Beat). Ideally, they offer quick information in real time that the user would otherwise have to look for on the website themselves, which can sometimes exhaust the frustration tolerance of some potential customers. You could also say that a chatbot is similar to an internal search function in this case -only faster and more convenient, at least if it works and gives the right answers.

Chatbots could become the standard for shops in the long term, with functions such as:

• Recommendation of suitable products for the respective customer question
• Automation of consulting and sales processes
• Answering support inquiries
• Bots can also take over important standard processes in personnel management - for example, they could familiarize new employees with company processes.

7. DIGITAL MARKETING TREND: AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented Reality "- that means something like" augmented reality ". Anyone who has had a beard projected onto their face in the Snapchat app or elsewhere, for example, has already become acquainted with the digital marketing trend AR. Even if this is the only way to make the principle more popular: the idea has been around for a long time. In the furniture trade, for example, AR can be used to virtually place pieces of furniture in the room using the smartphone camera, so that customers can literally get an idea of how the new piece would look in their four walls.

Yes, yes - but only for the time being. In the long term, virtual and augmented reality could combine and become one and the same: with ever smaller and ever more affordable VR devices such as smart glasses, a virtual world could one day be “superimposed” on the digital world. Areas of application are not only found in marketing or in the world of games.

According to Statista, the forecasts see a rosy future for augmented reality: the global market volume for 2020 is estimated at almost 19 billion US dollars. This is almost double that of the previous year, and the trend continues to rise. For applications like

Projection of digital objects onto surfaces - static as well as with animation

Imitation of different lighting of real objects

there are already numerous apps. For example, with NASA's Spacecraft AR app, you can project the Mars robot “Curiosity” into your living room via your smartphone camera - in actual size.