Here's our 'What to Watch for in Digital Marketing in 2019' checklist:
The Pros
Rampant Responsive
The proliferation of flexible ads such as Facebook Dynamic Creative, Facebook Creative Hub, and Google RDAs make it possible to optimize campaigns with responsive display ad formats.
Need help with responsive ads on Facebook? Read our ultimate guide to Facebook Dynamic Creative Ads >
Video Everywhere
A launch of Outstream Ads in 2018 brought videos off of Youtube, and onto the Google Display Network, and Facebook's Creative Hub launched high-level video creation tools.
Good Custom Intent
Launched at the end of 2017, Google Custom Intent isn't yet fully usable but shows promise of audience targeting capabilities.
The Cons
Less Control
Machine learning and artificial intelligence in relation to ads in 2018 typically are used as justification for limiting advertiser's direct control over campaigns.
Pushback and Hesitation on Facebook and Other Ads
Facebook is no longer the leader in demographic and psychographic targeting capabilities due to the social network's misuse of data from third parties in 2018.
More Declines in Organic Traffic
In 2018, SEOs collectively freaked out when Google dropped organic listings completely for some very specific searches, and we can expect organic search traffic to continue declining.
An article this year said that now up about 50% of users don't know how to differentiate between ads and organic.
"More than 50 percent of people between the ages of 18–34 can’t differentiate between an ad and an organic result on Google. To maximize this percentage, Google is always testing to find ad visuals that blend in best with organic results."
The IDKs
Voice Push for Ownership
The battle for voice search supremacy rages on between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
AMP Up/AMP Down
It seems that without additional ranking/CTR gains in the Search Engine Results pages, AMP hasn’t been valuable at all for many marketers in 2018.
- Google AMP case study: leads dropped by 59%
- Google AMP beat Facebook Instant Articles, but publishers start to question AMP's benefits
- Google AMP: a 70% drop in our conversion rate
Wish List
- Better Twitter Ads
- More Pay For Conversions
- A little security
- Responsive search ads on Bing
- Test images against video in Facebook dynamic
- A real exact match type for search ads
Read more about these topics on the Cypress North blog >