Digital Marketing Trends in 2022 (aka 2020 too!)

It is my opinion that not much has changed in terms of digital marketing technology and tactics over the last two years.

Digital marketing, or online marketing, is the practice where brands attempt to connect with consumers through technical medium, such as computers, mobile phones and tablets each connected to the internet. It is analogous to a person driving on a highway (which would be the internet) in a car (the computer) and billboards (brand advertising) keep popping up along the route. The internet changes this narrative by giving millions of drivers endless lanes and limitless places to travel. As these individuals travel, they are leaving clues of who they are, what they are doing, where they are going and even potentially why. Brands can amp up their digital marketing if they can understand, perfect and operationalize these potential customers “travel plans”.

Over the last decade, many companies popped up all over the place to market to these individuals on this highway. Some companies created more billboard spaces (which are the many media brands); others tried to connect with the individual driver at the very moment they drove by the billboard (your ads). Even more tried to provide marketing technology to connect and collect information all along the process. Marketing technology became really complex, and that highway? Well, it got crowded.

Fast forward to 2020, where a global pandemic forced more potential consumers on these digital highways. Many agencies and brands had the ability to test out these digital marketing tactics and have figured out how to be successful. Over the last two years, the tactics have been tested and refined. The tactics I’ve listed here are just examples:

1. Audience segmentation (do I know my prospects and customers?)
2. Emails, emails and more emails
3. Walled garden (Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Twitter, etc) ad buys
4. Content marketing (distribution to media and social channels)
5. Influencer marketing (find someone famous to talk about you)
6. Loyalty programs
7. Digital experiences & innovative content on owned digital properties
8. SEO on owned content
9. Be more Omnichannel (huh!)
10. etc

So many of these tactics created new acronyms we are all racing to understand, perfect and operationalize.

It’s a dog eat dog marketplace on the digital highway. Every retailer is trying to inch towards positive profit margins by personalizing their marketing to a driver. In a recent analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data by Digital Commerce 360, their interpretation points to a pretty significant dependence on Ecommerce for sales in the pandemic era. Almost a quarter of retail revenue comes directly from online channels.

So, what are the trends for 2022? They are the same ones that won customers in 2020 and 2021.

Companies that did well to win, grow and retain customers had connected marketing technology that allowed them to quickly act on any or all the above tactics (and new ones that emerged). But, the always-on engine that IT departments implement to empower their marketing departments is complex.

the always on engine

How far has your organization progressed from 2019 to now in understanding, perfecting and operationalizing your marketing stack?

Check off the following actions if your organization has perfected the tactics and technology:

◻︎Have a secure clean room to bring in data

◻︎Get a unified view of your customer(s)

◻︎Determine a unified view of your customers household

◻︎Have a platform to perform advanced analytics models on unified view of data

◻︎Automated audience discovery (segmentation)

◻︎Operationalize a project plan to create a campaign for this segment

◻︎Create offers for this discovered segment

◻︎Create content/asset for the offer

◻︎If television or video, organize and manage the production process

◻︎Activate a campaign push offer

◻︎Email this segment the offer

◻︎If appropriate, mail the offer to segment

◻︎Enable the segment and offer on owned properties (web/app)

◻︎Enable the segment and offer on PoS

◻︎Upload segment and offer content to Walled Gardens

◻︎Determine the proper search terms and #tags to buy or take

◻︎Push to television channels (include OTA TV’s)

◻︎Track the campaign for this segment and offer analytics and report on its effectiveness

◻︎Create an executive presentation of the campaign

If you were not able to check off many of the above items, then it is worth having a discussion with me and our team at Merkle. Please direct message me on LinkedIn.

Also, stay connected. I’ll be publishing a series this year on the state of content and how marketing, advertising and technology are evolving, what’s working and examples of what the always-on engine can accomplish.

The view and assertions made in this article are solely formulated by the experience and observations of Deepak Narisety and not necessarly that of the dentsu/Merkle’s marketing.

Dentsu/Merkle focuses its core offering on being a customer experience management company by helping brands understand consumer insights to drive personalized customer experiences. Merkle’s experts work to redefine customer experience through identity solutions, technology, and activation as well as help retailers drive organizational change. Merkle’s professionals work as a strategic partners who look for new ways for retailers to drive revenue and increase profits.

About Deepak

Deepak is the VP of Technology Services at Merkle working with many clients helping them understand, perfect and operationalize marketing tech and tactics. Deepak has over 20 years of technology and consulting experience. Start a conversation with Deepak on LinkedIn.