Over the past year, the Laser Red team have launched 20 websites, donated £6,621.93 to charity and taken 1 trip across the pond to Amsterdam. With all of that reflection in mind, let’s look to the future and explore some 2023 marketing trends and predictions.
Trends
Email Marketing
This year our team attended AdWorld, and a big trend that we noticed was the emphasis on email marketing making a comeback. We have already started to see increased success from email marketing campaigns in 2022. It is estimated that there are 4 billion daily email users, and around 37% of brands increased their email budget this year to capture this larger audience.
With all of the signs pointing towards a push on email marketing, we would recommend planning your upcoming email campaigns accordingly.
Performance Max Campaigns
You may have noticed a new type of campaign floating around in your Google Ads account called a Performance Max campaign. This campaign type is fairly new to the ads platform but has quickly become a staple part of any successful account. Essentially a Performance Max campaign combines multiple campaign types into one convenient place. This allows you to run a combination of search, display, shopping and more. At first, we were rather hesitant to use this new campaign type, as we are sure many account managers were, but since testing this campaign type in client accounts, we have seen positive results for low costs.
We expect Performance Max Campaigns to make big impacts in 2023 and the years to come.
Short-Form Videos
A big trend that we expect to see in 2023 is the domination of bitesize videos. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have noticed the massive impact that platforms such as TikTok and Instagram reels have been having on the population. The style of short and to-the-point content has people gripped and coming back for more.
Over the years peoples, attention spans have significantly reduced, studies have shown that in the year 2000 a person’s attention span was 12 seconds. Now, in 2022, it’s shrunk significantly to 8 seconds. That’s lower than a Goldfish!
With this data in mind, users are now looking for shorter, bitesize pieces of content for them to consume quickly. These statistics should be factored into your content and video plans for the new year.
Predictions
With a new year comes new updates from Google!
One of our biggest predictions for 2023 is going to be on the topic of data. As most of you know, Universal Analytics (UA) will be switching over to GA4 in July of 2023, and not many people are up-to-date with all that is needed for the switchover. While you may be able to maintain your UA data for a short period of time after the switch, eventually, this data will no longer be accessible.
All of this means many businesses will be left with no data and no tracking. Therefore, we predict a large number of businesses struggling with their tracking over the summer period. As an agency, we started making the GA4 switch over earlier this year, and while updates are still rolling out, we are feeling much more confident in our ability to implement and track GA4.
Paid Social
To predict the outcome of social media seems rather challenging with all of the Twitter news and Meta updates, but we are going to try!
In 2023, we expect to see a lot of businesses heavily investing in Instagram and TikTok marketing. As we have discussed in our trends section, users are wanting to see more short-form videos in their newsfeeds, and the same can be said for sponsored content. Historically, eye-catching videos have worked well for paid advertising campaigns, and we expect to see bitesize clips live up to the hype.
Additionally, you may want to rethink your paid sponsorships and influencer marketing relationships. The number of days left for the traditional influencer is fleeting, and people want to see more “real” people. Trust and buying advice will be taken out of the hands of major celebrities, and added back into local communities and your more “down to earth” content creators. We predict a shift in power towards micro-influencers and away from creators that have become out of touch over the years.
SEO
Voice search
In 2022 we mentioned that voice search was an ever-growing aspect of SEO that all businesses should be focusing on. This is likely to increase even further in 2023 with the continued increasing use of voice-activated devices such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. We are still yet to see any successful measures of voice search in the SEO software available on the mass market, but we are certain 2023 will be the year it comes.
In the meantime, the best possible way to optimise for voice search is to produce quality content in a natural format. Consider how someone using voice search would find your content and how this would be read back to them, the more simple the better.
Artificial intelligence
It’s coming, regardless of if we want it to! AI can be both a benefit and a hindrance to the marketing world. AI websites which can produce website copy and blog content are becoming more and more popular and that is likely to increase into 2023.
However, this comes at a cost, and Google is starting to adapt its algorithms even further in terms of natural language and content. Let’s face it – Google isn’t daft, it can tell when a robot has produced content in comparison to an experienced copywriter. Those choosing to take the shortcut and opt for AI-generated content will start to see the repercussions of this in 2023.
These tools can be a great benefit to generate ideas, get started or provide some ideas to better your content but always write it naturally from your own experience or research and your SEO will thank you for it!
Structured data
Structured data or schema is likely to be used more frequently for businesses in 2023. Structured data is a way of telling Google what is on your web page, i.e. is it a video, an image, an article or a job posting.
There are hundreds of different types of schema which can be added to websites and we are seeing it as an ever-increasingly important part of SEO. In September 2022 one of the Google Algorithm updates affected how some structured data was rendered on a website, this makes us think that Google is likely changing how it is reading, using and ranking websites which is effectively implementing structured data on their websites.
Authenticity will be key
We have long said that good PR, whether B2B or B2C, should build trust above all else in a brand. In the post-pandemic, cost-of-living crisis world of 2023, both consumers and businesses are going to be looking closely at their budgets and are going to be looking at spending only where they feel trust and see value. As such most businesses should focus on building trust through authenticity and being relatable. Value is a driver, but value doesn’t mean underselling your products or services, it’s about establishing clearly why they’re worth investing in and the returns they will bring. We all need things, make sure people know where the value in your product or service lies and make sure you’re landing that message in an honest and relatable way that will earn loyalty with an audience that is watching their budgets more tightly than before.
User experience
This is going to be a big one in 2023. User experience has always been an important ranking factor for Google, but it is upping its game. Google wants to ensure that the sites it is serving are providing its customers with the best possible online experience, so your website has to deliver.
This ties in nicely with our mobile optimisation point, next.
Mobile optimisation will be even more important
For years optimising your website for mobile devices has been an important factor in any successful business. As the years pass by, more and more people are using their mobile devices to search, engage and convert online. The scary thought of the years passing by also brings up the question – is your website up to scratch with modern-day requirements?
There are multiple online tools that you can use, such as website speed checks, which will allow you to assess the usability of your website, and make decisions moving forward.
In 2023 Google will be implementing mobile-first indexing, this means you need to make sure that the mobile version of your website is just as robust and informative as your desktop version. The user shouldn’t have to pinch and pull the screen to read the text, elements shouldn’t be off the screen and everything should be easy to navigate.
Conclusion
If your business needs any help understanding these trends and predictions, feel free to drop our expert team a call or message.