Marketers are wondering which technologies, tools, and tactics will inform search engine marketing over the net 12 months. Let’s take a look at what many marketers are considering and keeping a close eye on for the future, including audience targeting.
Audience Targeting Has Increased In Importance
According to a Mondo survey, here are some of the things that we can expect. Mondo surveyed over 1,000 creative and digital marketing decision-makers. The vast majority, 86% of them, said that audience targeting is one of the main technologies that they are factoring into their search engine marketing strategies in 2020.
This is incredibly significant. Keep in mind that in Q2 of 2019, 3 in 10 Google search click ads came from audience-targeted ads, according to Merkle findings.
Considering Keywords And Influential Technologies
In 2020, Keywords will be a strategic priority for 83% of respondents. After all, when your target audience makes relevant search queries to your products or services, you want to make sure that your business pops up. If your keywords are not effective, your business will get left behind.
SEE ALSO: SEO Keyword Selection
On the other hand, about three-quarters of digital marketers will be focusing on remarketing as part of their general search engine marketing strategy.
It is important to note that many marketers are careful about using remarketing, even though it has proved successful in the past. Consumers tend to be limited in just how much remarketing they will accept.
A Peek At Tech
Marketers are taking different technologies into consideration for their 2020 strategies. Of those surveyed, 55% said that video will inform their content strategy for the next year. 41% cited interactive content and 28% cited AI as influencing their upcoming strategy.
Marketers On Voice
In 2019, ClickZ and Chatmeter found that marketers consider voice search to be one of the 5 biggest influential search trends of the next 18 months. They feel that it will provide marketers with the most opportunities and also the most challenges.
Currently, about a third of consumers are using their voice to make search queries. However, those people report that they use voice search rather frequently.
Despite research suggesting that voice search will rise in prominence over time, Mondo’s survey indicates that voice search is not as big of a priority for many digital branders at present. Only 17% of those surveyed said that they had already optimized their website for voice search or planned to do it in the next years.
Visual Over Voice
While most marketers are not positioned to take on visual search, far more are contending with visual search than voice search. 35% of respondents have already optimized their website for visual search or are planning to do so. While 21% of marketers consider visual search important to their marketing strategy going into 2020, only 10% say the same about voice search.
Trends in Video Marketing
Mondo also reports that 76% of respondents cite video marketing as their top priority in 2020. Most of these videos will be incorporated into their social media content strategies. 66% said that their goal is to invest the most in Instagram Stories and 62% in newsfeed stories.
There is an interesting split between B2B and B2C marketers. B2B marketers are more likely to focus on newsfeed videos in their video marketing campaigns. B2C marketers, on the other hand, have largely chosen to narrow in on using Instagram Stories.
However, this is not the end of the story. There are a number of other avenues marketers have noted as being important as things progress. When it comes to digital marketing, 52% will focus on gifs, 31% on cinemagraphs, 28% on live streaming, and 21% on IGTV.
New Players To Consider
When it comes to digital video marketing, new innovations in platforms and tools change how marketers do things all the time. Here are some exciting new things to keep in mind as you consider this research and refine your own audience targeting strategies.
Going Live
Many social platforms offer users the ability to go live and share content with their followings in real-time. This includes Facebook and Instagram. However, the place of it the video marketing ecosystem has not been defined yet. This is a perfect place for digital marketers to get creative.
Shoppable Video Content
Shoppable video ads feature links to products within the world of the video. For example, if there’s a pair of sneakers in a video add, you may be able to click on them and get more information about them. This will likely become increasingly common over time.
Searchable Video
Social networks have made video content a core part of what they offer and so has Google, who owns YouTube. Over the past few years, you may have noticed videos crawling closer and closer to the top of organic search results on desktop and mobile pages.
This is going even further. Google announced in 2019 that they will be using AI to find video snippets related to AI, which they will autoplay on search results pages.
SEE ALSO: Why Video Is The Future Of Content Marketing
Don’t Be Afraid To Edit
Of course, video content is not the only type of visual that will play into reaching the right audience. And if you get it right once, that does not mean the job is done. Audience targeting has to be constantly refined. This is because, as digital marketing analyst at internet marketing agency Pure Visibility, Cynthia Kazanis, told WordStream:
“You’re basically hypothesis testing. Especially in digital marketing, you should never think of anything you create as permanent or done because then you lose the advantage of your platforms’ agility.”
There is a reason that the vast majority of marketers are planning to focus in on audience targeting in the upcoming year and find it a vital search strategy. You cannot reach the right people without the right approach.
Final Thoughts
Before you can create an effective content strategy or use AI to the benefit of your business, you have to understand who you are making your content for. You have to know exactly whose experience you are trying to improve or become a part of by using AI. Ask yourself these questions when refining your strategy.
- Who is your target audience?
- What needs do they have?
- How does your offering meet those needs?
- How can you communicate that to them in a way that appeals to them?
- Are they responding the way you want?
If the answer to number five is “no,” you likely need to refine your answer to one of the previous questions. Audience targeting techniques, tools, and technology can help you get more information. This leads to better results. Of course, marketers want to leverage them.
Are you surprised by where marketers are putting their focus? Why or why not? Tell us below…