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I love these end of year posts when we get to talk about all the things we wanted brands to do this year that will be eventually rolled at some point next year, as long as they don\u2019t sidetracked by the another \u2018new marketing opportunity\u2019 in the process.<\/p>\n
In 2014 the digital marketing space and all that above the line activity will slowly but surely be pieced together for many brands as an array of \u2018buzz words\u2019 move away from the conference podiums and marketing journals headlines to becoming a reality. \u2018Big Data\u2019 or the \u2018singular customer view\u2019 became meaningful for a small amount of sophisticated players in the market that wanted to understand how all the fragmented marketing and sales activity attributed to the bottom line; (the metrics that the CEO and CFO may be interested in). Thousands of companies will be going for it next year, everyone will want to be a data analyst, it will be the new \u2018guru\u2019 status, you never know your luck; the metrics may actually stack up, if the analysis is scoped out correctly in the 1st place.<\/p>\n
So what is on the cards for many brands in 2014?<\/p>\n
Google will continue to try and keep the competitive advantage going in 2014 as some Demand Side Platforms and Real Time Advertisers made noticeable inroads into using brands marketing budgets over the past 2 years. I asked the Ambergreen paid search team their thoughts on how the top advertising platforms will try and continue to dominate the majority of spend of advertisers budgets. Here are some of the publishable thoughts!<\/p>\n
With the growth of RTA in the past year, Google will try and make up ground by reaching more granular audience groups, examples of this include:<\/p>\n
DoubleClick demographic data within Google Analytics will be used to help understand how different demographic groups interact with different campaigns.<\/p>\n
New segmentation features within Google Analytics will help cross-sell\/ up sell opportunities and the longer term behaviour of users and life time value of clients will be more clearly defined.<\/p>\n
More Google Opportunities:<\/p>\n
Google will continue to expand the use of their ad extensions including viability of seller extensions as they extend their advertising offering.<\/p>\n
New shopping campaign functionality will help the management of Product Listing Ads (PLA\u2019s) as they will no longer have to be tagged within the Google merchant center feed. Our prediction is more brands will find this ease of functionality very attractive and there will be greater uptake of brands using the Google Shopping Channel.<\/p>\n
YouTube can now be used to stimulate brand searches and recognition as well as driving sales primarily through remarketing. The entire video platform will be used heavily as a medium for advertisers in 2014 and the rate of growth will not slow down this year.<\/p>\n
Shared Endorsement ads will become prevalent in 2014 although it\u2019s unclear how users will react to these ads. Brands with a strong Google+ strategy and a growing following will benefit from this and it will force other brands to follow suit.<\/p>\n
+Post Ads are currently being trialled by a few major brands. This will allow a brand to take a piece of their public Google+ content, ( photo, video Hangout) and with a few clicks, turn it into a display ad that can run across more than 2 million sites in the Google Display Network. Initial results are impressive and we anticipate this will be another incentive for brands to embrace using Google +.<\/p>\n
Google Estimated Conversions estimates the conversion on other devices and locations through from your campaigns based on industry trends. This is a great tool and it will drive home the importance of understanding where your advertisers\u2019 budgets are spent on initial brand and product awareness and where the last conversions lie. Googles\u2019 Enhanced PPC campaigns were not initially well received, but we can see where the benefits to the advertiser will lie. Where several of Googles old tools are now less relevant, the Estimated Conversions tool will be a blessing for planning all paid search campaigns in 2014.<\/p>\n
Google Trusted stores will be a good opportunity to showcase a brands strength in customer management and delivery. The opportunity will be another way of cementing the bricks and mortar experience with the online experience. The \u2018digital\u2019 word in digital marketing will becoming less relevant as the marketing process starts focussing on \u2018engagement\u2019 rather than the specific channels and devices of getting to the point of a sale or conversion.<\/p>\n
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