The pace of change in digital marketing can be dizzying for marketers as some publishers rise while others fall, new ad types emerge, competition changes, and small changes in pricing and performance can make or break campaigns. The underlying forces are many, but the rapid evolution of consumer behavior and preferences sits near or at the top of the list.

The lines between marketing, customer support, and customer experience haven’t just blurred, they’ve been erased altogether, giving marketers and brands much to consider. An organized and orderly approach to auditing efforts can keep short- and long-term plans on track. 

Thankfully, marketers can access a variety of resources to guide them in optimizing and expanding campaigns. Setting aside time to consider both the mix and the minutia can help.

The marketing mix

Year-end wrap-ups, forward looking projections and lists of top trends from a wide range of technology platforms, businesses and experts can help brands and marketers with far-reaching considerations. So too can internal performance metrics related to customer service wait times, customer satisfaction and other key metrics. Are we tapping into the right channels to best reach and take care of our customers? Within those channels, are we working with the best publishers and utilizing the most appropriate ad types? 

If marketers set aside even just a few hours twice/year to round up and scan some top trend forecasts, it can open their eyes to major shifts taking place and new, promising offerings they may want to consider. These insights can also prove invaluable when it comes to staff augmentation and team building.

Hootsuite’s “9 Most Important Social Media Trends for 2022,” published in late May is a great example. That post alone highlights the emergence of TikTok as the fastest growing and possibly most important social network for marketing, the need to spread spend across a wide array of smaller networks, consumer expectations for social commerce, and several other big-picture, impactful trends. Posts like these can help guide marketers investing in search, programmatic, retargeting and a host of other channels. 

Other posts quantify trends across channels and can help marketers understand if they’re overlooking major efforts that may help them reach their goals. Revisiting the big-picture marketing mix at least twice annually can help marketers identify glaring oversights and prioritize new initiatives to consider. 

Managing the minutia

Marketers who are knee-deep in campaign management also have a wide array of resources to help them stay on top of impactful trends influencing their campaigns, channels and results. Competitive intelligence helps marketers identify opportunities to capitalize on competitor wins and shortcomings, whether they want to tackle this on their own or tap into technologies that can automate much of the process for them, like CI Radar or SEM Rush.  

For marketers interested in closely monitoring the latest pricing trends, shifts in publisher dominance and other meaningful changes across the entire digital marketing landscape, several top marketing technology providers break down changes on a quarterly basis. Some of our favorites include Skai, (formerly Kenshoo) which breaks down these trends in great detail across search, social, e-commerce and other advertising channels; Merkle, which examines quarterly trends at Google, Facebook, Amazon and Instagram; and Hootsuite, which regularly updates its Global State of Digital report. 

Marketing moves fast, but making time to consider changes at both the micro and macro levels can help brands stay ahead of competitors, keep up with rapidly changing customer behavior, and make sure they have the right talent in place to win today and tomorrow. 

Anytime talent moves on or the roadmap shifts, we can keep your marketing engine running at 11 with the right talent, at the right time, in the right capacity. How can we help?