While digital agencies and SMEs need to be on top of current digital marketing trends, it can be even more valuable to focus on “the next big thing” in digital marketing and prepare to adapt accordingly.

After all, outdated marketing strategies will never win over innovative ones. But what does the future of digital marketing look like? Here are just a few predictions, according to SEO services Australia and industry experts:

1. AI Will Be EVERYWHERE

While artificial intelligence (AI) may still seem to many a futuristic and irrelevant technology, the truth is that by the end of 2021, those organizations not using AI will begin falling behind. Businesses who do adopt AI in the coming year will accelerate growth, reduce staffing costs significantly, and get an edge over their competitors.

When it comes to digital marketing campaigns especially, using AI to analyze and predict patterns of consumer behavior (including when, how, and why they are purchasing products or services, which platforms they are likely to be referred by, and so forth) will become critical to success.

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According to Salesforce, 67% of marketing leaders already rely on marketing automation and 21% plan on implementing it over the coming 12 months.

2. Voice Search marketing Will Grow.

Early on, it was predicted that by the end of 2019, 67 million voice devices would exist in the US alone. The current number exceeds that, meaning that the capacity for voice search-enabled marketing is now absolutely enormous.

Formulating campaigns using intelligence that scans voice search data and uses past purchase information is set to become a new area of growth in digital marketing. Those marketers who focus on this have an extraordinary opportunity to reach new audiences.

3. Shoppable Posts on Social Media

Fifty-four percent of shoppers now use social media to research trends and make product purchases, with Instagram, the most popular choice for millennials. To reduce the chances of sales abandonment, retailers need to focus on creating fewer steps for consumers and making the purchase process a simple click and confirmation.

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Automation already helps with the payment side of things, but making social media posts themselves connect directly to e-commerce stores will soon become the new norm in online shopping.

4. Influencer Marketing Will Also Become Automated

Soon the tedious process of sifting through thousands of could-be social media influencers to decide whether or not they should represent a brand will become redundant: influencer marketing is set to become automated very soon.

With the ability to sift through millions of images in milliseconds while analyzing them for specified characteristics, AI will perform the “influencer-brand affinity analysis” instead of people. AI will also help brands analyze the success of influencers’ posts, analyzing data to determine how well the job was received and which posts led to actual purchases.

AI can also potentially be used to predict which incentive works best to encourage an influencer to post, and then proceed to offer this incentive at the exact moment it is needed, enabling influencer marketing (which, we all know, is the ‘human-centered future’ of marketing we have all been waiting for) to become quicker, less-resource intensive and more data-driven.