21/07/2025
The algorithms that dictate Google search results are constantly being updated. If you’ve never heard of BERT, chances are that your organisation’s rankings on Google are being steadily eroded.
Worse, your answers may be showing up at the very top of Google for zero-click searches but you won’t be getting any traffic as a result. That’s especially bad news because nearly two-thirds of mobile searches lead to zero-click results (i.e., searchers get the answer they want, your answer, from Google itself and don’t need to click any further).
Oh, and the strong growth in voice search thanks to Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa means that your website copy needs to get far more conversational. If you’re not meeting that need, there’s a very real risk that your competitors will.
Digital Marketing developments don’t stop with search, of course. Consumers in 2020 very much expect personalised digital experiences – – and more than half of them are likely to switch brands if you don’t make an effort to personalise their communications. But, wouldn’t you know it, things are not that easy.
Consumers demand personalisation but they also want their data kept private. A recent Roy Morgan privacy survey identified the top 10 pieces of information that consumers want kept very private; if you don’t know what those are, you could be suffering some very nasty repercussions, especially with new New Zealand privacy legislation expected to become law in 2020.
Another big deal in 2020: influencer marketing. The US Federal Trade Commission is making noises about cracking down on influencers who don’t adequately flag when they are being rewarded for promoting products. That new practice is going to have a chilling effect on influencers around the world, who will now go out of their way to highlight when they are promoting products and getting paid. Unfortunately, research tells us that consumers are getting more savvy and less willing to trust influencers unless they have earned that trust through their own non-sponsored efforts.
Social media is constantly in flux. Have you checked out TikTok yet? It’s getting massive numbers of downloads –– more than every other app but WhatsApp in 2019 — and Generation Z love it. But is it worth your effort as a marketing medium?
Meanwhile, Facebook continues its migration to mobile, and now 97% of Kiwi users access Facebook by mobile. For more than half, that’s now the only way that that they access the platform.
Social media is also coping with privacy issues and a move towards more controlled sharing (especially in response to the growth and growth of messaging apps). Instagram recently introduced its “Close Friends” initiative, enabling users to restrict the sharing of chosen posts to a designated group of friends.
Oh, and some potentially fatal news on the display advertising front: In January 2020 Google announced that it will stop supporting third-party cookies in its Chrome browser within two years. Traditional methods of tracking consumers across the web are about to fail. New initiatives are being discussed, such as the IAB’s Project REAC, so it definitely won’t be business as usual for much longer.
Those developments are simply the tip of the iceberg. Every day brings more and more Digital Marketing initiatives.
