New Delhi (India), June 7: Since the technology is evolving constantly, so are its applications in different industries. Marketing industry, being one of the most versatile and experimental industries, has always adopted new trends and technologies.
2024 is an exciting year for marketing. 3 months into the year and the industry is already on the cusp of ushering in a new world, driven by AI, privacy-friendly technology, and new marketing channels. In this post, we’re going to elaborate on the trends every marketer has to be on top of, to stay ahead of the curve.
Social Commerce Marching In
As digital is making its way into all the segments of marketing and all industries, all eyes are turning to social media, waiting for the wonders it will bring to the table. Along with social media comes the trend of integrating social commerce, which has been waiting to shine bright for quite some time now.
As per a report by Insider Intelligence, social commerce to be an emerging trend in marketing for the year 2024, here’s what you can expect. Today’s generation is spending significant time scrolling and browsing through social media and a large number of users are leveraging social media only for shopping.
This is offering new and emerging brands opportunities to reach out to the digital audience by leveraging the social media platform and social commerce trends. Along with this, social commerce is enabling around 44% of advertisers to expect a raise in their investment in social commerce in the year and explore more opportunities.
Taking the cue from the rising trend of social commerce, social media giants including TikTok and Meta have introduced Meta Marketplace and TikTok shop that allow users to make a purchase without leaving the social media platforms. It makes the shopping experience smooth, by removing the friction of hopping from one platform to another. In addition to this, it also ensures that all creators, advertisers, and marketers are focused on building their social media presence while also offering user-centric content and services.
Adding to the same, Udit Verma, Co-Founder and CMO of Trackier said, “Gen Z shoppers are very different from Millennials. They are more likely to make a purchase based on a recommendation by a social media ad or a post. If we go by numbers, 29% of Gen Z shoppers have agreed to have made at least one purchase based on a brand’s presence on social media. Not only this, the new-age shoppers use social media instead of Google as a search tool, giving brands investing in social commerce huge opportunities to increase their sales number and boost brand loyalty.”
Leveraging Gemini Generative AI
Another trend making its way is the use of generative AI tools such as Gemini. The extensive use and implementation of generative AI tools is not only enabling marketers to offer enhanced customer services and leverage customer data for predicting trends but also allowing them to integrate chatbots for redefining user experience.
Not to put all their eggs in one basket, marketers and advertisers are leveraging multiple generative AI platforms to upscale their marketing efforts and get the customer’s attention. In the cookieless marketing world, these tools are going to mark their presence, allowing them to serve hyper-personalised intent-based targeting instead of intrusive user-level targeting. In a survey it was found that around 88% of marketers are excited to witness the new realm of marketing without cookies and the strategies brands will come up with to collect the user data, be it first-party or zero-party data.
Integration of these AI platforms into marketing is allowing marketers to unlock the unexplored potential of the huge data and analytics for redefining the customer experience.
Creator Marketing Making its Mark
At the start of this year, 44% of marketers decided to invest in creator marketing with an average spend of 25%. This allows the creators to be open and flexible with the spending budget the marketers are offering and explore more opportunities in the market.
Creators ads have more impact on the audience as compared to display ads or other advertising channels. This impact is about 1.4 times higher than traditional forms of advertising, allowing creators to collaborate with brands and connect at a deeper level with the targeted audience.
While the audience has been facing overconsumption and misleading due to influencer marketing. But with creator marketing the scenario is expected to change since gone are the days where the number of followers is going to have an impact. This further urged the brands to look and analyse thoroughly with whom they are collaborating and partnering.
One last factor of consideration in creator marketing is that a large number of agencies and brands are now going to rely on creators for collaborations and building up a brand recognition, and awareness campaign to generate more profits at the end of the day.
In creator marketing, affiliate marketing is going to play a crucial role in the success of the content. For this creator can integrate attribution tracking platforms for keeping track of the success and impressions of the content campaign.
Retail Media Networks Shining Through
The retail media network is going through a revolution once again and is expected to come up with its 2.0 or 3.0 version with enhanced consumer experience and customer-centric offerings. Retail Media Networks is another trend that has been predicted by the experts that would shine through the year 2024.
In the retail media also, the cookieless transition is going to have a major impact since without cookies the entire process of collecting data is gone for a toss unless you implement a first-party or zero-party data collection policy.
Moving on, retail networks such as Walmart have realised the intensity of this opportunity and are all set to embrace this with open arms. For this, Walmart has moved its product demo show in-house and named it Walmart Radio. This is one of the biggest opportunities for all the in-store retailers to leverage and offer enhanced customer experience.
Retail giants such as 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Instacart are all aligned with making full use of this opportunity to gather customer data and offer enhanced experiences that would create repeat customer purchases. Additionally, the money spent here is not of a great amount as compared to the profit being generated from this opportunity.
A different side of this entire campaign is, that these in-store campaigns are leveraging the audience footfall to advertise and market the right products to the right audience. It offers the experience that a linear TV is failing to offer.
Apple’s RCS (Rich Communication Service)
For offering enhanced interoperability of messages between Android and iOS users, Apple has finally decided to switch to RCS or rich communication service, although this doesn’t have a direct impact on marketing or advertising for brands. Making this switch to adopting RCS, Apple is allowing mobile marketers to have better implications for their strategies and allow other brands as well to leverage the RCS.
The major impact of this is going to be on the marketers. Majorly benefits the marketer who will now have a verified sender and receiver after taking a message live. Additionally, it would also help the marketers analyse the impact of their campaigns and how effective their communication has been.
Along with this, it will also enable the marketers to have a quick view of the campaigns and make any changes or modifications required as per the requirements of the audience. In addition to this, there are other benefits as well such as sending high-quality media and longer-interactive messages to the target audience.
It is further expected that by the year 2025, the count of active users of RCS will reach 2.1 billion globally- as indicated by Juniper research. This clearly indicates the impact and effectiveness of integrating the RCS model.
One of the biggest applications for this as indicated in the Juniper research is for the airline industry. Implementing RCS, airlines can now send an effective message to the users attached with a link to further create an impact on the user. It was also revealed that this update will be released via a software update by Apple.
What Else to Expect?
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the coming time for the marketing industry is going to be heavily reliant on new and advanced technologies. Up-and-coming channels like creator marketing are coming into the picture offering creators and marketers a new opportunity to expand their reach and expand their revenue streams.
Additionally, retail media, social commerce, and generative AI such as Gemini along with Apple’s RCS are all trends incorporating AI and other advanced technologies. These trends are going to change the dynamics of the marketing industry. In addition to this, enabling the marketing industry to leverage these trends for their benefit and mark their presence in the industry while also having seamless communication with the audience.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
