Invisible Capitalism: Martech Trends of 2023

Customers value political correctness. A search engine’s algorithm may place your advertisement adjacent to negatively charged content on the basis of some keywords. For example, if you test your product on animals, if you accept funding from Shell, or worse, if you put the face of a woman on a vacuum cleaner advertisement, it is very likely that your brand will be boycotted. An increasing number of brands are relying on Brand Safety AI, such as Sprinklr, which scan through your websites, applications, and campaigns, to detect material that may offend certain customers. They also monitor comments to mitigate possible risks to your brand's image.

Consumers expect personalized experiences, and marketers will need to deliver personalized content and offers to stand out. Nike, the world's largest sports apparel company, has been leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to engage with its customers through personalized experiences. For instance, the company has launched a system that enables customers to design their own sneakers both online and in-store. The customization experience allows customers to select specific shoes, colors , and designs that cater to their lifestyles and personalities. The customization not only drives sales, but also gathers valuable data through algorithms that can be used to design future products and make personalized recommendations for future needs. A win–win.

Automation chatbots continue to gain popularity as a means for companies to communicate with customers at any given moment. Sephora, a one-stop shop for all cosmetics, utilizes chatbots to streamline accessibility to relevant services, offers, and product information. Sephora has shown that a chatbot may also function as an expert or personal assistant for beauty-related inquiries in newer marketing technology adaptations. The “Sephora Visual Artist” allows customers to have virtual makeovers, find shades that suit their skin tone, and share products with their friends, all in the comfort of their computer screen.

Voice search technology is changing the game when it comes to digital marketing. Using your phone, computer, or other smart voice-enabled devices, you can search the internet simply by speaking. In short: customers are getting lazy. This method is perfect for long queries, quick questions, and location-based needs. With around 1 billion voice searches conducted each month globally, it's clear that this technology is gaining traction. Brands can benefit from voice search, as it can improve their online visibility and even help with their SEO ranking. It's estimated that around $40 billion in sales will come entirely from voice search.

In the Instagram era, social media sells when people trust unemployed influencers more than the daily paper. Fast. From using hashtags to inventing challenges, the sky is the limit. The most obscure things, like the ALS ice bucket challenge, can go viral and change the fate of your brand overnight. Leveraging social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is an amazing way to build a real relationship with customers and create a buzz around a product or service. Given the democratic potential of media, posting consistently and engaging with online communities is the key to creating brand visibility.

Accustomed to an endless inflow of reels, shorts, and vlogs, video content is a key marketing trend for 2023. In the past year, video content accounted for 82% of online activity, and consumers were more likely to watch influencers explain or unbox a product before making a purchase. Advertisers have found that video ads have higher click-through rates than static ads, but the catch is that most videos are skipped, especially those over 15 seconds long. Marketing solutions that display content based on a user’s preferences, like RTB House’s personalized video marketing tools, can help brands engage their customers.

Have you ever spent hours on Buzzfeed’s website taking quizzes? Brands are now using quizzes, polls, and other interactive content to engage with their audience in an exciting way. Moreover, quizzes and polls allow brands to collect valuable data about their audience’s behavior, which can be used to create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns. Due to the shareable capacity of interactive content, users circulate your website in their social groups, which enhances a company’s brand visibility.

Marketers today use advanced data analytics to track and analyze consumers' online behavior, such as their search history, social media interactions, and location datone-stopeate targeted advertisements. Shoshana Zuboff's concept of "surveillance capitalism" describes how companies exploit consumer data to create a new type of market, where targeted ads are the currency. Companies harvest data to create a detailed consumer profile that accurately predicts their future behavior. This type of unethical targeted advertising has become a central pillar of digital marketing, and it is only becoming more pervasive with the rise of machine learning. While some argue that this type of marketing can be helpful to consumers by providing them with more relevant products and services, others are concerned about its impact on their privacy.

Customer experience refers to the interaction between a business and its customers, encompassing all forms of communication, whether or not it results in a transaction. Closely linked to market attribution, when marketers optimize for customer experience, they improve engagement at every touchpoint. One of the most irksome aspects of CX is long waiting periods for a response. All customers absolutely hate the lobby music as they wait on the phone. Addressing recurring support ticket issues before customers report them can also streamline the experience and reduce workload on staff. Zendesk offers features such as ticketing, help center, and community forum, all easily navigable by connecting over 1,200 apps.

Some might say that watching advertisements while watching the daily relaxation of Netflix is an interruption. But revenues suggest otherwise. The shift towards on-demand content has resulted in a surge of Connected TV devices, like Netflix and Disney+, where consumers spend more of their leisure time. These platforms have recently added ad-supported tiers, allowing advertisers to engage with audiences innovatively. Gaming is another area of digital leisure where marketers can connect with curious and highly engaged audiences, who often have relatively high purchasing power. In-game advertising is an excellent way to promote brands to this demographic. To stay competitive, marketers must recognize and adapt to these changes in consumer behavior and preferences, ensuring that their advertising strategies remain relevant and engaging.

Think about Fanfiction as the ultimate advertising strategy; consider Yelp reviews to be more profitable for a restaurant than a billboard. But how do you get your customer to work for you? Marketing technology for user-generated content refers to the various tools that enable marketers to collect, manage, and utilize content created by users, such as reviews, testimonials, social media posts, and other forms of user-generated content (UGC). These tools can help marketers curate and showcase UGC and leverage it in their marketing campaigns. These technologies enable marketers to harness the power of user-generated content and use it to build stronger relationships with their customers.

Consumers seem to trust brands with an active, and accessible social media presence. To keep up with Instagram, marketers need software to schedule posts ahead of time. One such application is Brandwatch. Your content calendar is a crucial tool in your marketing arsenal, according to Brandwatch. It provides a comprehensive view of your scheduled content across multiple social networks, allowing you to plan, edit, and post directly from the calendar. Other pioneers in this leg of martech include Loomly, Sendible, and Iconosquare.

In a world run by information, cybersecurity is a major concern for businesses that use technology to store their customers’ particulars. With an abundance of sensitive data such as bank account details and addresses being shared online, it is essential to have strong security measures in place. Marketing technology vendors are now incorporating security features, like encryption and data protection into their services to help safeguard customer data and brand reputation. But it's not just the vendors - marketers themselves need to be aware of cybersecurity risks and take proactive measures to address them.

More and more marketers are adopting agile marketing techniques to adjust their strategies based on customer feedback. Having the right martech infrastructure helps businesses consolidate reviews to invoke agility in their revised mode of operations. One such software is Mopinion. An all-in-one tool that helps digital marketers collect and analyze website, mobile, and email campaign customer feedback. Once collected, feedback items can be visualized in customizable dashboards and charts for advanced analyses.

Perhaps the peak of capitalism, marketers attempt to know what their customer wants before they know they even want it. How? Big data. Every post you like, every product you speak about, every Google search you execute, cookies, all contribute to businesses’ predictive analytics system. To be precise, marketing technology such as Google Analytics uses data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data. These predictions help companies optimize their marketing campaigns for better consumer satisfaction and revenues at the cost of privacy.