2023’s Top Marketing Trends to Watch Out For

There’s a famous saying – “change is the only constant”. As we head into 2023 and get up to speed with newer work & life challenges, the physical and digital marketing worlds will continue to evolve. Marketing professionals and business owners need to develop and adapt due to the impending recession, ongoing inflation, and shifting consumer spending.

Keeping the ever-changing economical status quo in mind, last month, Team AccuraCast gathered as a group to put-together what we thought would be the game-changing trends in the world of digital marketing this year.

So here are our top 10 marketing predictions to watch out for this year:

10. Are we a-live?

The live video industry is expected to be worth over $70 billion by 2021. Live video is very popular with consumers, and they spend three times longer watching live video than they do watching carefully crafted content, which can be perceived as fake.

9. Bot or human, can you tell?

This year, conversational marketing technologies will grow, i.e. the interaction between companies and customers that mimic human dialogue. Many websites already feature chat pop-ups or WhatsApp integrations. This year, we’ll see this evolve and go truly mainstream.

8. It’s Gen Z’s world (we’re just living in it)

The more tech-savvy us humans become, the shorter our attention-span grows. TikTok already cracked this code by introducing snackable, short-form videos, and soon after, every other competitor followed. This year, TikTok will sharpen its focus on e-commerce and conversion-driven advertising as it aims to take ad budgets away from Meta.

7. Lets get influenced

The largest video and social media platforms are investing more in trying to engage content creators (e.g. TikTok & YouTube Shorts). Even the brands that until last year swore they’d have nothing to do with influencers, have started some paid influencer activity, and for good reason. This year, it will probably be translated into more people generating content for brands (and more brands investing in sponsored influencer content).

6. AI that adapts

One of the biggest technological trends this year will be machine learning and Adaptive AI to model behaviour change post-deployment by using real-time feedback. Continuous development, self-learning and shaping of models that adapt to ever-changing real-world environments.

5. The Twitter boat, sink or sail?

We think Twitter Ads will struggle in the first half of 2023, and might make a comeback only if Elon Musk puts in strong safeguards and invests in wooing advertisers back with a more attractive ad offering.

4. Retail Media Networks

While social media currently attracts more ad dollars, with a $65bn estimated spend in 2022, retail media is set to grow more than five times faster. eMarketer estimates advertisers are on track to spend more than $37bn on retail media networks this year, an increase of about a fifth from 2021. You can read our detailed take on this here.

3. The post iOS 14 world

Every marketer today is aware of the “post iOS 14” buzzword being thrown around board-meetings, virtual marketing calls & on YouTube videos. Up until 2 years ago, third-party data tracking was reliable and scalable, but given all the changes we’ve witnessed in the last 2 years, it is safe to predict that tracking will become further degraded, with advertisers having to rely more and more on modelling to plug the gaps.

2. Data privacy – everywhere!

Expanding on our previous point, now that every country is acting to tighten data-protection legislations, this will be a game-changer. While the UK has dropped the “legal but harmful” provision in its new Online Safety Bill, stronger regulations of what tech companies are doing in terms of content moderation are likely in all the main global markets. In the past, Facebook has opposed this moderation, and this year, Twitter will push strongest against tighter content moderation. But all will eventually have to fold, in particular in the EU, where regulatory pressure will be strongest.

1. AR & VR take centre stage

For most brands & advertisers, AR & VR is all about experimenting and getting into something new & cool! While we think the Metaverse is still a few years away from it full potential, 2023 may be the year when AR becomes mainstream, with most advertisers needing to invest in the technology, to stay on top of the curve.