Digital Marketing Trends 2022: The Useful Guide
By: Mike Clark
Tags: SEO, Marketing Automation, Digital Marketing Trends, Wsi Comandix, PPC Marketing

Summary: Learning how the digital marketing industry is going to change in the coming years can help you get ahead of the trends. Find out more here!

A new year is on its way, and with it comes a new set of incoming marketing trends. From SEO to PPC advertising, there are new tactics and considerations to look out for in every marketing sub-discipline. These trends will eventually become standard practice among marketers in 2022, but as always, the early adopters will benefit the most. Our guide will help you get a head start on preparing your business for these critical changes in the months ahead.

Table of Contents

SEO Marketing Automation PPC Advertising Content Marketing Web Design Social Media Email Marketing E-Commerce Marketing Seven Trends to Watch

1. Digital Marketing Trends for SEO

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals is Google’s latest search ranking factor, making it an obvious concern for marketers going into the new year. The faster your web pages load, the better your Core Web Vitals score will be (and the higher your site will rank as a result). There are plenty of tools out there to help you optimize your load times, including Google’s own Core Web Vitals report tool. Be sure to use at least one of them periodically to get a sense of how well your site is performing and implement any necessary changes — or hire an SEO company to do it for you. They will also be able to correct any issues that they discover, ensuring your site meets the new standards.

Incoming Algorithm Updates

Google is always working on a new update to their search algorithms, but this time, they have told marketers what they intend to focus on in advance. According to recent announcements, most new updates will favour websites that offer an excellent user experience. This means that marketers have a golden opportunity to take proactive action in 2022. Updating your website with quality content full of useful information and clear value for the reader will help your brand come out on top when the newest algorithms updates launch in the new year.

2. Digital Marketing for Marketing Automation

Funnel Tracking and Optimization

The buyer’s journey is no longer a straight, simple path. Leads may backtrack, skip steps, circle around the same few steps for a while, and otherwise subvert marketers’ expectations. While there are still clear patterns underlying consumers’ behaviour, you will need help from marketing automation tools to track them. These tools can help you parse the data you collect on your customers, determine what prompts most customers to make a purchase, then optimize your conversion architecture around those points.

Greater Adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

When sales and marketing do not work together, revenue suffers. Synchronizing your marketing and sales data using a CRM system makes it easy to exchange data between the two departments. This will help your sales team find the best approach for each lead based on how that lead interacted with your website and campaigns, improving the relevance of their pitches and offers.

Photo by Simplify The Internet

3. Digital Marketing Trends for PPC Advertising

First-Party Data

Google has announced plans to block the use of third-party data by 2023, so intelligent marketers will spend 2022 preparing for this massive shift. Consider spending some time this coming year ensuring that you have a working first-party data collection strategy in place, including all of the software and technological supports you will need to make the most of the information you collect.

New Formats

PPC ads are not relegated solely to search ads. Marketers are expected to experiment with alternative ad formats in 2022, including video and podcast ads to reach users in untapped markets. If you have never worked in these channels before, many companies out there will produce these types of ads for you as part of their digital marketing services.

4. Digital Marketing Trends for Content Marketing

Video Marketing

It has never been easier for businesses to create their video content to promote their brand. This formerly underused marketing channel allows even the smallest brands to show their products or services in action and reach audiences who are more apt to watch a video than read a mountain of dense text. Look for even more brands to begin using this high-powered marketing channel in 2022.

Strategic Content

Content creation has caught on with many more businesses in the past two years, leading to a dramatically higher number of blog posts and articles being published in that time frame. To stand out from the other businesses in your niche, you will need to adopt a more precise strategy for your content marketing efforts. Repurposing existing content across new channels (for instance, making a video version of a popular blog post) can help you focus your resources on projects that are sure to deliver a return. When you do produce entirely new content, give it some extra impact by using first-party data to shape its creation.

5. Digital Marketing Trends for Web Design

User Experience

In addition to high-quality content, today’s consumers expect business websites to offer a stellar user experience too. Sites in 2022 will be expected to provide smooth, easy browsing with straightforward navigation and a unified purpose. If you are not sure how to do this, consider hiring a web design company to do it for you.

Page Speed

Perhaps the most important part of the user experience is page load speed. Pages that take more than a few seconds to load are much more likely to lose the user’s interest, driving high bounce rates. Optimizing your web design for lightning-fast load times will be a necessity in the coming year.

6. Digital Marketing Trends for Social Media

IOS 14

Apple’s new iOS update will prompt users with the option to opt out of data tracking each time they download a new app to their mobile device. This change will affect how much data marketers have access to when targeting and measuring their campaigns, especially campaigns run through Facebook. Marketers will need to revisit classic social media strategies and adapt them to better suit the data-related restrictions of 2022.

Short-Form Video

Now that TikTok and YouTube have become such prominent parts of the social media landscape, short videos have also become far more popular in marketing contexts. These bite-sized pieces of content can be excellent tools for promoting brand awareness and engagement, particularly with younger audiences — but this may not happen right away. Be prepared to try a few different approaches in this new format until you find one that works.

7. Digital Marketing Trends for Email Marketing

Privacy Updates

New privacy measures like the iOS 14 update will make it harder for marketers to track key email marketing metrics like open rates in 2022. Without as much data to draw on, it may be more difficult to perform classic optimization evaluations like A/B subject line testing. Some companies may benefit from hiring digital marketing services for additional help and guidance during this transition period.

Revamped Metrics

Since marketers can no longer rely on the same set of KPIs they have always used, they are expected to begin experimenting with different metrics to measure success in 2022. Focusing on more direct metrics like conversion rates (which have a clear relationship to your bottom line) is a good way to future-proof your marketing processes, given the changes we know are coming.

8. Digital Marketing Trends for E-Commerce Marketing

Mobile-First Indexing

In addition to the preferential treatment given to mobile-friendly sites by Google and other search engines, more and more e-commerce sales are also taking place through mobile devices. This makes accommodating mobile users on your website more important than ever. If your website does not already offer these users a top-tier experience, consider investing in a website redesign to implement responsive design principles that will make this concern a non-issue.

E-Commerce Platforms

Selling through large online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay is easy, but nothing rivals the freedom of your own online storefront. From WooCommerce to Shopify, there are plenty of quality e-commerce platforms out there to help you sell your products directly to consumers in 2022. A reputable web design company can help you set up an attractive conversion-ready storefront powered by one of these user-friendly platforms.

Seven Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 2022

In addition to those described above, there are a few other marketing trends that are expected to become more prominent next year.

1. “Position Zero” (P0) Optimization for Voice Search

Voice search results have access to position zero (P0) placement, a rank that displays above typical search ranks and gets most of the searchers’ attention. To get your content featured in this optimal spot, add features that communicate information as quickly as possible, such as lists, tables, videos, and short focused paragraphs.

2. Search Intent Matching

With the introduction of the BERT update, Google is getting better and better at understanding what users want when they search for certain keywords. Content that fully matches user intent will enjoy a boost in search ranks. For example, a user who searches for a particular item followed by the word ‘buy’ probably wants to purchase that item as soon as possible, so Google will prioritize e-commerce webpages that offer those types of items.

3. Enhanced User Experience (UX)

User experience, or UX, has only grown in importance over time. Consumers and search engines alike now expect websites to be easy to navigate, load quickly, and offer engaging activities or visuals to break up the text. Take some time to make sure your website conforms to these expectations in 2022.

4. Personalized Video Marketing

Video content ranks extremely well and is popular among users as well, making it an excellent investment for businesses looking to take their marketing to the next level. For best results, shape your video marketing strategy around your first-party data on your leads’ search behaviour. Make videos that answer specific questions about your products or services that you know your audience is interested in.

5. Google My Business (GMB) Will Become Google Business Profile (GBP)

Along with the name change, Google will be retiring the GMB app some time in 2022. It is still important to remember that local search results pull heavily from your GBP, so keeping it fresh and up-to-date can really help your business reach more people in your local area. Updating your hours, location, and description as needed is a good place to start. Marketers are expected to delve deeper into some of the features this platform offers in 2022, such as Google Posts and the ability to post images and video.

6. Social Media Shopping

More and more consumers are purchasing directly from platforms hosted on social media sites, but few marketers have fully integrated this new channel into their marketing strategy as of now. Next year, this is expected to change. Consider extending your e-commerce approach to include selling through popular platforms like Facebook and Pinterest in 2022.

7. Content Re-Optimization

Content marketing is booming, but this has led to some older content getting lost in the crowd. 2022 is the perfect time to revisit some of your previously published content and rework it slightly to improve its SEO performance. You might update it to include new statistics or information or simply sprinkle a few new keywords into the text to better reflect your audience’s real interests.