It’s needless to talk about the rising popularity of digital advertising globally. In some countries, digital advertising spending reached the level of traditional media spending and in some countries, a bigger share of dollars went to digital advertising.

The rising popularity of digital advertising can’t be explained only by the rising number of internet users globally. The developments in technology and different types of advertising made this change possible. Nowadays digital advertising professionals have a bigger menu to choose from and a bigger plate to fill.

Advertising Targeting will Improve

Running an ad campaign is a more complex job than ever. But this complexity comes with its benefit: Efficiency.

Thanks to the new technology and different advertising options it’s possible to run more personalized campaigns today. Instead of “one banner for all”, we are talking about personalized messages tailored for the context that the user is in.

But to be honest, we are not totally there yet. In the past few years, we’ve seen great improvements in ad personalization but there is a long way to go. 2020 will be the year for giant steps.

Shopping Ads and Shoppable Posts

For almost everything, online shopping is becoming something we do every day. Search engines and social media are the best stops to catch new customers.

In 2019, Google shopping ads had one of the most significant increases in all Google advertising products. Because of the effectiveness of these little boxes on top of search results, this increasing trend will continue in 2020.

In 2019, Instagram launched Instagram Checkout and this was one of the most significant developments in social media for marketers. This direct shopping trend will probably spread to different social media platforms and will be used by more brands in 2020.

Micro Influencers

Marketing world had a turbulent relationship with influencers in the past years. Some marketing campaigns using influencers succeeded, some failed. How to use influencers effectively is still a big question.

But there is one unquestionable thing about influencers: Micro influencers are valuable.

Micro influencers are the new opinion leaders about their area of expertise. Maybe they have fewer followers than bigger influencers but there is no doubt that their influencing capacity is much higher. It’s a good time to spot micro influencers in your brands area and to find ways about working with them.

Voice Search

Personal assistants like Google Assistant or Siri became a part of our daily lives in 2019. According to Google 41% of adults and 55% of teens use smart assistants at least one time in a day. The increasing popularity of smart assistants affected the number of voice searches made in a day. The average number of voice searches augmented 35 times since 2008.

In addition to smart assistants in smartphones, penetration of smart speakers like Google Home and Alexa is rising. So, in the near future, voice search will be everywhere.

Being a part of the world of voice search is not an easy task for brands. Brands should pay attention to semantics when optimizing their content on the web.