The Top Digital Marketing Technology Trends for Strategic Success

PPC, along with other digital marketing technology trends we will discuss in this article, is a quintessential marketing tool to drive qualified search traffic, when done right.

I did extensive research on keyword terms relevant to my target audience, including terms with transactional and commercial intent.

By targeting the right keyword terms, I set my PPC campaign up for success and only allocated funds towards terms that aligned with the content searchers were looking to read when they clicked through to my website.

The 5 Digital Marketing Technology Trends You Need to Know

Digital marketing is a fast-paced field, prime with opportunity to meet evolving consumer needs as long as your business keeps pace with evolving technology.

Remaining nimble and current is a must, ready to pivot at any moment a new worthwhile tool it presents itself.

For marketers, that tool most recently was Generative AI technology with many relying on ChatGPT to help streamline their efforts. Many of those that have jumped onboard the ChatGPT train have reaped its benefits and stayed ahead in competitive markets.

ChatGPT, however, is just one digital marketing tool out of many to leverage. Top digital marketing technology trends continue to grow in sophistication encompassing SEO management, pay-per-click platforms, programmatic advertising, and more.

Staying up-to-date with emerging trends in digital marketing is essential to drive meaningful results. By embracing new technology trends, marketers are better poised to improve performance, boost sales, and increase sales.

Basic website management and direct mail campaigns no longer move the needle. Instead, marketers must arm their digital marketing arsenal with a vast array of tools and technology to deliver effective marketing campaigns.

Neglecting to evolve in this rapidly advancing digital landscape risks falling behind competitors and missing potential conversion opportunities.

If you’re overwhelmed wondering where to start, you’ve come to the right place. UNmiss offers a plethora of free SEO, AI, and content optimization tools to help improve your website’s quality and position in the Search Engine Results Pages.

In this article, we’ll explore the digital marketing technology trends that are shaping strategic success.

We’ll dive into insights industry experts share frequently with us during our podcast episodes to examine what technology is working and what isn’t. Let’s get started with how to effectively manage SEO.

Effective SEO Management for Strategic Ranking

SEO is a comprehensive strategy that involves a wide range of efforts to achieve results.

As Alex Melen, a founder of web hosting company T35 Hosting and co-founder of advertising agency SmartSites, shared with us in a podcast episode, effective SEO requires adopting a strategy that integrates both on-page and off-page optimizations.

To accomplish on- and off-page optimizations requires a strong understanding of the SEO management technology available to marketers.

In this section, we’ll share our top recommended SEO-specific tools and technology that can help businesses achieve maximum results.

One of Melen’s foundational approaches for SEO success is strategic keyword research. Your focus keyword sets the stage for how and where your content will rank. This is the first piece of SEO management you need to get right as it will affect the rest of your efforts.

The best way to perform keyword research is using a tool like UNmiss’s:

• Keyword Generator
• Keyword Position Checker
• Keyword Density Checker
• Keyword Cluster Analysis

These tools enable you to determine the best keywords to target based on your topic of interest.

They examine what’s already ranking, the terms and phrases consumers are using to find more information related to the topic, how highly searched they are, and how competitive they are.

We recommend looking for terms that are low-competition but have high search traffic.

One of the fundamental aspects of Melen’s approach to SEO is the strategic use of keywords throughout website content, meta tags, and descriptions.

However, he emphasizes to only use your focus keyword and related keywords where it makes sense and reminds SEOs placement should sound natural.

SEO Content Management

Content management is another crucial component of SEO. Creating high-quality, informative content that adds value to your users is essential for achieving higher search engine results rankings.

Content should address common questions your customers are asking, provide value insights and a unique perspective, and solve problems. Incorporate internal links naturally within your content to guide users to other helpful and related content that exists on your website.

One of the top digital marketing technology trends related to content is leveraging a content optimization tool.

These tools enable you to maximize the value of your content, find existing high-ranking content related to your content, and how to maximize your content to outperform the top ranking competitors. A few of the best content optimization tools include:

• ChatGPT for AI-driven recommendations
• Clearscope for an all-in-one writing tool
• Dashword for clean user interface
• Letterdrop for B2B content marketers
• MarketMuse for personalized, objective insights
• RankIQ for bloggers and businesses that run a blog
• SE Ranking for an all-in-one SEO platform
• UNmiss for all your SEO, content, and AI needs

Another crucial aspect of effective SEO management is building authoritative backlinks from reputable sites within your niche.

Building relationships with journalists and other related contacts within the industry can help your business build a stronger backlink profile to signal trust and authority to search engines.

SEMrush’s Backlink Gap tool is a great resource to identify competitor’s backlink profiles to target potential link building opportunities. Additionally, SEMrush’s Link Building Tool can help businesses build backlinks at scale.

The tool enables you to identify link building opportunities based on your focus keywords and your competition to improve your outreach efforts.

From there, you can set up email outreach campaigns to solicit backlinks with ease, eliminating the need for manual outreach.

There are numerous tools and technology trends in the SEO realm, and it’s important to determine which will be most beneficial for your business.

Each of these tools can help amplify your digital marketing efforts and ensure you’re keeping up with emerging trends to boost your business’s success.

Google Ads and PPC Automation

When considering which of the top digital marketing technology trends to focus your efforts on, mastering Google Ads remains a cornerstone for improving online search visibility.

Ameet Khabra, founder of Hop Skip Media, a digital marketing agency specializing in Google Ads, Meta Ads and SEO, is a seasoned digital pay-per-click (PPC) marketer and shared her expert tips for maximizing the effectiveness of paid campaigns during a podcast episode.

Khabra shared that the best strategies for ensuring a lucrative paid campaign include keyword optimization, excellent ad copy, and continuous campaign monitoring to identify areas for optimization (such as low performing keywords).

Khabra’s approach highlights the need for identifying your business objectives and audience preferences before turning to a paid approach. Once you have your goals in place, the audience you wish to target, and an adequate budget in place.

How to Determine the Right Budget for Your PPC Efforts

Every PPC budget will look different depending on the business, however, the budget should ultimately align with your goals and the money you can allocate towards this effort.

Ultimately, you’ll want to calculate how much you should be spending to accomplish your goals. Here’s an example of how you can accomplish this.

For example, let’s assume the objective for the PPC campaign is for the business to gain more leads rather than purchases. Consider asking yourself the following questions and answering them as an exercise to determine an appropriate PPC budget.

• What’s your average order value? (Example: $200)
• How much are you willing to reasonably spend to get a sale? (Consider many businesses allocate ~20% to customer acquisition)
• How many leads does it currently take you to get a sale? (It takes typically 10 people to view a product before a purchase is made).
• How many leads do you want and how many new customers can you realistically handle? (Say you want 50 new customers a month)

Considering these sample numbers and examples, the business wants 50 new customers which will take 500 leads to get one sale.

Multiply this by the average cost per lead which is around $4 (average order value times money spent to get a sale divided by leads it takes to get a sale). That means a healthy ad budget for this business would be $2K a month.

Keep in mind these figures align more closely with a small business, however, the same logic can be applied to businesses of any size. Ensure the keywords your targeting are chosen strategically and receive a decent amount of traffic volume.

Google needs to have a decent volume of searches for a given keyword to optimize your search efforts properly. This helps to ensure the money you’re spending is being used wisely and where it makes sense.

Expert Tips on Google Ads Optimization

Google will likely be your paid advertising platform of choice for PPC ads. It holds the most dominance in search engine market share at 91.37% and it’s the top search engine used worldwide. Khabra shared several invaluable tips that can help with managing your Google Ads campaigns and ensuring your dollars are well spent. These include:

• Keyword Optimization: Conduct thorough research to identify keywords consumers are searching for when looking for your product or service. Use a mix of broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords to reach a diverse range of customers at each step of the buying journey.
• Ad Copy: Write content that resonates with your target audience. Incorporate relevant keywords where it makes sense. Offer a clear call-to-action to encourage readers to take the next step in the sales journey.
• Campaign Structure: Organize your Google Ads campaigns into logical groups. These groups should be based on your goals or product categories. This ensures your ads reach the right people.
• Conversion Tracking: Ensure you’re tracking the success of your PPC campaigns. A few metrics to keep an eye on ar4e conversion rate, cost per conversion, and return on ad spend.
• Continuous Optimization: Regularly monitor your campaign performance. Make logical, data-driven adjustments where needed. Test different ad copy, bidding strategies, and targeting to see what works best.

Google Ads Automation

Frederick Vallaeys, a PPC expert and co-founder of Optmyzr, shared his tips with us in a podcast episode for setting up automation in PPC.

Automation is not only becoming more intelligent but it’s a key technology trend marketers use to streamline their paid campaigns. When done right, marketers are able to focus less on their PPC efforts and more manual areas of marketing.

A few tips Vallaeys shared for achieving scalable and efficient campaigns include:

• Smart Bidding Strategies: Vallaeys recommends using Google’s automated bidding strategies to optimize bidding based on performance goals. This includes Target Cost Per Acquisition or Target Return On Ad Spend.
• Ad Extensions: Use ad extensions to improve your ad relevance and click-through rates. Some of these extensions include sitelinks, call extensions, and structured snippets.
• Dynamic Remarketing: Dynamic remarketing campaigns allow you to reach and re-engage visitors who previously were interested in your products or services. These visitors are served targeted ads based on their browsing or purchasing behavior. Automation streamlines this process and will display products the user previously looked at or had in their shopping cart.
• Automated Rules: Create custom automated rules.These rules might include adjusting bids based on defined performance metrics or scheduling ad optimizations.

By leveraging the above tips, your business is better poised to reach your target audience and encourage them to take the desired action. This helps boost sales and encourages customer loyalty.

Google Analytics and Privacy-Centric Data Insights

Consumer behavior is constantly in flux, which means your analytics will never look 100% consistent month-over-month. Additionally, Google’s frequent search engine algorithm updates cause fluctuations in organic traffic whenever a core update occurs.

Google’s analytics tools, like Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Search Console (GSC), have been around for awhile, but GA4 recently received an overhaul. These tools allow brands to have a clear view of how their website is performing.

That’s why it comes as no surprise it’s one of the top digital marketing technology trends for strategic success because it enables brands to make informed decisions based on vast amounts of data.

Over the years, Google Analytics has undergone a significant transformation. Most recently it was updated to GA4 from Universal Analytics.

While the shift may seem like a minor change in name, it represents much more than that. GA4 marks a turning point, where privacy-centric data practices converge with informative insights.

When first announced, businesses panicked believing it may cause a lapse in deep data, but this shift has proven to be one that benefits brands and customers.

The shift from Universal Analytics to GA4 aligns with Google’s response to evolving data privacy concerns. It also aligns with regulatory frameworks, like GDPR and CCPA.

GA4 introduced new features to protect user privacy while still ensuring marketers receive the kinsights they need.

Key aspects of the switch over to GA4 include an emphasis on aggregated data, compliance with data protection regulations, and users having more control over how their personal information is being shared.

Exploration of GA4’s Privacy-Centric Features

Privacy is at the center of the GA4 update. Nidhal Firoze, a DAA Certified Web Analyst and Google & Adobe Certified Digital & BI Consultant, delved deeper into the privacy-centric aspect of GA4 in a recent UNmiss podcast episode.

Firoze shares that one of the key changes you’ll see with GA4, is a focus on active users, which essentially means the user has the browser tab in the foreground, to determine engaged visitors versus anyone who clicks on your page.

This enables brands to get a better gauge of how interested, action-driven customers engage with your content rather than those who are browsing and bounce quickly.

To get the most out of your GA4 reporting, Firoze recommends focusing on custom metrics rather than out-of-the-box metrics to fit your business’ unique needs.

He states understanding how to evaluate the web user journey with your site is the most important metric to track, such as tracking key conversion events (like clicking a specific link).

Knowing which content consumers are most interested in engaging with can help boost sales and drive traffic to appropriate landing pages, streamlining the sales journey.

Another notable feature of GA4 is its increased focus on aggregated data. Rather than tracking individual user interactions, GA4 consolidates all your data into anonymized, aggregated reports.

This change helps to anonymize user data and also eliminates concerns around personally identifiable information.

With GA4, users have the power to control how their data is shared with consent settings and opt-out options.

User safety and security remains a top-tier concern for many customers, and GA4 effectively addresses many of these issues to ensure an optimal browsing experience for businesses and their customers alike.

GA4’s privacy-centric features allow marketers to get a deeper understanding of user behavior without compromising individual privacy. This ensures data is protected while also getting a more granular view of how engaged consumers interact with their website.

With a deeper understanding of customer behavior, marketers are better poised to create more targeted marketing campaigns while simultaneously respecting their privacy preferences. They’re also onboard with necessary shifts in technology trends where user privacy is paramount and incorporated into tools as such.

The Impact of IoT and Blockchain Innovations

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most significant recent technology trends marketers are leveraging to improve connectivity and gather deeper data-driven customer insights.

IoT devices, such as smart speakers and wearables, connect to appliances and industrial sensors. These interactions are tracked and delivered to the brand, enabling the business to collect vast amounts of real-time, actionable data.

This wealth of data gives marketers insights into how customers are engaging with their technology, along with their preferences and behaviors.

By leveraging data-driven insights to improve customer experiences and deliver more targeted, personalized information, customer engagement and satisfaction levels can vastly improve.

Eighty nine percent of marketers see positive benefits in terms of sales when they use personalization in their marketing efforts. Additionally, 61% of consumers now expect brands to deliver personalized experiences.

One key impact IoT has on digital marketing is its ability to create seamless omnichannel experiences.

With IoT-enabled devices, marketers can map out more streamlined customer journeys across multiple touchpoints. For example, consider a retailer who uses IoT data from a customer’s smartwatch.

They can push personalized promotions based on their behavior to use when they enter a physical store. Similarly, IoT devices in smart homes can offer targeted advertising based on previous engagements.

This level of personalization enables marketers to optimize their campaigns and drive better results. Customers, in turn, are presented with more relevant content and offers that align with their needs and wants.

As IoT continues to evolve and expand its market share, its impact on digital marketing technology trends will further advance and continue to drive distinct engagement.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology enables marketers and businesses alike higher levels of transparency, security, and trust in transactions. Blockchain technology essentially enables information to be distributed but not copied, recording transactions across a network of computers.

It was originally created for the digital currency Bitcoin, but the tech community has found other use cases for this technology.

In digital marketing specifically, blockchain is driving forward customer data management and privacy.

With blockchain-based identity solutions, consumers are able to protect their personal information, allowing them to share exactly what information they’ll share with marketers in exchange for a service.

It also can help enhance data integrity by combating issues related to ad fraud, click manipulation, and other pertinent data privacy issues. For example, by leveraging blockchain, marketers can ensure the authenticity of ad impressions and clicks. In turn, ad spend is optimized and fair.

As Jason Rowlett, a business consultant for Foretoken Media, shared with us during a recent podcast, blockchain is driving improvements in customer data management and privacy protection.

It’s a multi-purpose technology that extends beyond data security too; it’s being used by marketers for tokenized loyalty programs and decentralized content distribution networks.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve explored a wide range of digital marketing technology trends, many backed by research and wisdom from our various podcast guests, that are reshaping the way marketers are driving conversions.

Each trend discussed offers unique opportunities for businesses to propel their marketing strategy and campaigns forward.

By keeping up with emerging technology trends, brands are better poised to meet shifting consumer expectations and align with modern behavior.

It also helps businesses stay ahead of the curve, engage their customers more effectively and achieve their marketing goals more seamlessly.

UNmiss continuously releases new podcast interviews with leading experts in the digital marketing field.

We encourage you to check back often to hear the latest tips and best practices industry leaders share with us to continually elevate your business.