Digital Marketing 2024: Emerging Trends

With 2023 already wrapped up, it is a perfect moment to start thinking about digital marketing trends and changes in the digital marketing space that business owners and marketers may face. 

We see that every year, new tech advancements arrive and offer more opportunities for digital marketers. So, keeping up with those digital marketing trends allows companies to stay ahead of the competition and cover the latest customer needs. 

Much of 2023 was characterized by technological revolution, tough economic conditions throughout Europe, and a large number of new businesses arriving on the global scene. But even in these conditions, businesses were still able to grow and develop new positions using tech advancements and overcoming unstable financial market situations. Statistics show that global ad spending is forecasted to rise 8.2% to reach $ 1 trillion.

Let's explore top marketing trends the world can expect in 2024 so you can consider new strategies and see how they fit your existing process.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Digital marketing strategy looks different for each company. We recommend you think about it as a composition of traffic sources like Google, ads, social media channels, etc.

The goal of the digital marketing strategy should be to ensure the integration of digital and other marketing activities and to support overall business objectives. Digital marketing strategy needs to align with marketing strategies to grow a business through customer acquisition and retention or, in the case of not-for-profit organizations, to achieve their communications goals.

10 Digital Marketing Trends Marketers Can Expect in 2024

1. Hyper-Personalization

We can't ignore the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. As a result, both marketing and sales teams are already tapping into a wealth of customer data to better curate and personalize content, including product recommendations, timely discounts, and special offers. For example, the Rask AI video editing tool is used to provide an authentic and personalized localization experience. 

Let's say you have been browsing e-commerce stores searching for wellness supplements. The store's AI engine can analyze vast amounts of data, like your previous purchases, checking history, and buying patterns as you explore different supplements. 

Then, AI uses this data and delivers it to the platform so the store can automatically offer a supplement that will perfectly fit the initial request. This could be a supplement to improve sleep and overall well-being or an energy drink for more focus - everything will depend on what you've been searching for before.

Even though AI tools open up new opportunities for personalization for businesses, companies should still be very careful with processing user data and implement cookies that users should either accept or deny. Make sure you stay responsible when handling customer data and are transparent when explaining how your business collects and uses user information.

2. Sustainability in Digital Marketing

It isn't surprising that modern people have environmental concerns, so businesses should also put the environment at center stage. Customers prefer brands that align with their values. To achieve success, it will be crucial for modern businesses to consider adopting sustainable digital strategies to increase authenticity.

Although the majority of world-leading companies have already started showcasing eco-friendly initiatives, it won't be enough in 2024. For example, it is best for companies today to add various sustainable practices and validate their purpose for the ecology as well. 

We live in the conscious consumerism era, so companies that genuinely implement and follow a commitment to different aspects of sustainability tend to attract more attention from customers. They also have chances of attracting and, therefore, retaining customers, making them loyal to the brand as it reflects their wants and values.

3. Video Marketing

As the attention spans of the modern audience become smaller, video content will remain the undisputed king when it comes to different types of marketing. Experts believe that 2024 will be the year when businesses in various domains will witness a further surge in video marketing. 

Although long-form content has been prevalent for some time, short-form videos like on social media platforms TikTok and YouTube Shorts have started to gain increased popularity. As a result, marketing teams should pivot towards developing compelling, short-form videos to grow engagement and long-form interactive content to educate the audience.

The numbers around the ROI and effectiveness in attracting potential customers of video marketing are convincing. But not every type of video will fit every brand. 

So, to avoid unnecessary spending on interactive content production and distribution, we recommend exploring different types of video marketing before committing to one or more of its types. 

• Animated videos: The animation and visual part of the video help to showcase a branded message and a product in an engaging and visually appealing way.
• Explainer videos: Explainer videos are extremely popular within the product sphere since they work as a handy and easy-to-understand guide for users of all experience levels.
• Product tutorials: This type of video content in digital marketing allows to educate the audience through instructional videos to show how to use a product or service.
• Promotional videos: Promotional videos in the form of YouTube Shorts, TikToks, or Instagram Reels are used to market a product, service, or brand.
• Live video: Not popular among businesses, though real-time streaming videos are widely used in the gaming sphere which allows creators to build a personal connection with their audience.
• Testimonials/case studies: While new customers can read testimonials on your website, it is still great to grow the proof of your experience through this type of video content so you can influence buyers' decisions.
• Social media: Social media videos are essential in the digital marketing landscape in 2024 since they allow brands to reach new audiences, create brand awareness, and keep close contact with their audience.

The great thing about developing video content in 2024 is that businesses don't need an entire team of content production now. Many AI-powered tools help streamline and automate video creation and sharing processes, translate videos, and localize them for a global reach and grow upcoming sales. Some of the leading tools are  Rask AI, ElevenLabs, Dubverse, Speechify, HeyGen, Pictory, Adobe Premiere Pro, etc.

4. Artificial Intelligence for Automation

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been here, though it only became a crucial tool for many businesses in 2023. Even though AI technology still needs some time for improvements, it remains one of the most popular tools among marketers in 2024.

We all know of ChatGPT, but it’s just one of many AI-driven tools out there. For example, there exists a vast range of AI-based tools that allow for automation in different aspects of content production and distribution. For example, Rask AI is one of the most popular dubbing and localization tools that reduces the need for human translators and can automatically translate any video into more than 130 languages.

AI tools significantly power up digital marketing efforts, allowing creators and small business owners to achieve more in less time. The key thing here is to find out how AI can benefit your business and find the right tool for you. With so many apps available today for different purposes, it could be challenging to understand which one to choose. Therefore, we recommend you to first explore what marketing aspects AI can cover:

• Content generation;
• Education;
• Video creation;
• Video editing;
• Sentiment analysis;
• Audience segmentation;
• Customer support;
• Customer engagement and help via AI chatbots.

5. Content Experience Platforms 

Content Experience Platforms (also known as CEPs) will transform digital content management in 2024. CEPs focus on developing, managing, and optimizing highly personalized interactive content within different media channels.

In contrast to traditional content management systems (CMS), CEPs allow creators to integrate new technologies such as AI, machine learning (ML), and data analytic tools to develop tailored content for customers based on customer preferences, behavior, and history of search. 

Among the main features offered by CEPs are personalized experiences like content recommendations, automated content sharing through integrations, content design for mobile devices as well as practical analytic tools for user engagement. CEP platforms allow for a much more dynamic and user-focused approach to interactive content creation and management.

6. Influencer Marketing 2.0

Influencer marketing is increasingly popular today and will remain one of the leading ways to build a strong connection with the audience in 2024. Influencer marketing 2.0 is a new era of traditional influencer marketing, integrating new technologies and data-driven strategies. 

This digital marketing trend offers much more than just leveraging popular social media personalities for brand establishment and promotion. For example, influencer marketing 2.0 leverages the power of tools like AI-driven analytics for automatic influencer selection, real-time performance tracking, and the creation of highly personalized content.

The key difference between influencer marketing 2.0 and a traditional one is that the new version strives for authenticity and long-term partnerships instead of one-off marketing campaigns. This is achieved through establishing a collaboration with micro influencers who share the brand's values and potential customers. This enables a more organic and engaging form of digital marketing.

Rask AI offers exclusive benefits for its Ambassadors.

7. Self-Service Advertising Platforms

As a leading digital marketing trend, self-serve ad platforms allow companies to buy digital ads directly from the servers, offering useful tools that brands may need to create, manage, and estimate their own effective marketing campaigns. Below, you will see some examples of self-service advertising platforms that you may consider in 2024:

PubScale - PubScale is a self-serve ad platform that was developed to streamline Ad Monetization, User Acquisition, and Ad Mediation within one unified dashboard.

Adsterra - Adsterra services more than 30 billion ad impressions all across the world each month and provides premium traffic within several verticals.

SmartyAds - As a versatile self-serve advertising platform, SmarttAds enables diverse ad campaigns. These include standard banners and complex gaming formats, offering advanced targeting tools for customization.

These platforms grant control over advertising to marketers, enabling autonomy and flexibility in their marketing efforts. Since brands now collect their first-party customer data, they can effectively fine-tune data-driven marketing campaigns, allowing for customization with lower costs.

8. Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) has shown to be immensely productive in marketing. A recent MarketsandMarkets survey shows that the Augmented Reality market will reach $71.2 billion by 2028 from $25.1 billion in 2023. 

This significant growth shows that AR's role in shaping future marketing strategies will only become stronger, so there is no doubt that AR will be a digital marketing trend in 2024. AR technology advances, so marketing and sales should start benefiting from the opportunities offered. 

As one of the top digital marketing trends, virtual and augmented reality allows new customers to model and try on makeup, clothing items, and a variety of home-related products without directly interacting with them. This could be presented directly on a company’s website, social media channels like YouTube, or through email campaigns. 

9. Podcasts are Getting Popular

Following significant digital marketing trends of 2023, podcasts continue to become increasingly popular. The truth is that the modern audience prefers audio and video content over text. Some people even prefer to listen to podcasts instead of reading books as a way of education. Based on recent statistics, podcast listenership is steadily increasing and is suggested to reach 504.9 million by the end of 2024. 

These are some of the podcast emerging digital marketing trends creators can hop on to:

• Live podcasts allow creators to interact with the audience in real time.
• More "edutainment" podcasts offer value for viewers while being engaging.
• AI transcription technology offered by Rask AI will be a game changer in 2024, enhancing the audio and automating different tasks. Rask AI also offers to translate podcasts and interviews into more than 130 languages in a few clicks. 

10. Memes Drive Engagement

Producing content that doesn't relate to the target audience's wants, needs, and pain points isn't the way digital marketers should operate today. Even though memes aren't good for every business, and it is crucial to keep things professional for some industries, developing relatable and relevant content is still a must.

Even companies in pretty unexciting industries have seen better engagement and traffic increase after incorporating something funny into their content and in marketing strategies as well. In addition, a study conducted by NYU shows that memes have a 60% higher organic reach when compared to regular graphics.

One of the main reasons for memes to be digital marketing trends is because they are easily shareable. Whenever your potential customers come across memes that relate to their problems or ones they find amusing, they are happy to share these memes with their friends and followers on social media channels. 

By adding memes to your digital marketing strategies you increase your brand's visibility and reach a broad audience. And these two factors directly affect how successful your marketing efforts are. For example, you can use Rask AI to quickly translate memes and make your content engaging within different audiences.

Rask AI as a Handy Tool for Streamlined Digital Marketing 

Rask AI is a leading dubbing and localization tool. It is well known in the digital marketing domain because of its vast range of features creators need to reach a global audience and increase brand visibility. 

Rask AI has the widest selection of languages for video translation. With over 130 languages to choose from, Rask AI also allows features like SRT files upload and the ability to work with long videos (up to 5 hours).

The tool also offers three unique features for digital marketing trends known as 'Text-to-Voice', 'Voice Cloning' and “Lip-sync”. Simply put, they allow creators to add custom voiceovers to their videos without the need for a voice actor while ensuring the new voice is synchronized with existing lip movements. 

This helps to reduce both time and money needed for localization and enables companies to create immersive experiences. With the ability to work with multiple speakers offered by the tool, creators can assign a unique voice to every person in the video.

The Rask AI team constantly works to improve the quality of transcription and translation as well as on adding new languages, allowing companies to offer as authentic customer experience as possible. 

Rask AI offers different pricing models and has an incredibly easy interface, making it suitable for users of all experience levels and marketing skills.

Tips to Create an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy in 2024

1. Get to Know Your Customers

As we mentioned, personalization is essential in modern digital marketing. We see even more demand for that in 2024. So when you read "learn your target audience," we don't mean simply exploring who they are and what they like (like it used to be for so long). 

Now you have to know your customers much better. For example, you need to learn what their buying patterns are, what triggers them to take action, and what makes them want to leave the website or choose other brands. Make sure that you have a clear picture of your ICP (ideal customer portrait) so you can seamlessly operate within an established audience. 

Creating a robust customer profile involves data and demographics. Here are the steps you may consider for your digital marketing strategy in 2024:

• Identify channels that fit your key demographics;
• Speak your customer's buying language;
• Learn consumer behavior;
• Learn pain points and deliver efficient solutions;
• Stay culturally aware;
• Leverage the power of automation tools for segmentation and targeting.

2. Audit & Assess

Creating an efficient digital strategy requires businesses to assess the channels they currently use and have. So the next step should always be a full channel and content audit, so you can gain a clear picture of all digital marketing activities, the budget invested in each channel, the amount of qualified leads you get from each channel, and overall traffic sources.

We also highly recommend linking all pieces to business goals you established for the quarter or a year so you can identify which channels suit milestones the best. Let's say your main goal is driving personalization for more qualified leads being closed - then you should focus on channels that have been proven to attract solely decision makers. 

By the end of this stage, you are likely to have a full overview of what drives traffic and what doesn't. You will also be able to find out why other channels don't bring traffic and help you reduce unnecessary investments.

3. Focus on the End Goal

It is easy to waste money and test all hypotheses that seem to be effective when you don't know your goals or have unclear milestones. Since there could be so much emphasis on the product and the numbers around it, marketers sometimes lose sight of what a product or service really needs.

Most marketers prefer quick results, though investing more in the quality of a product and keeping contact with the audience allows them to form long-lasting relationships for higher revenue. 

That is why it is crucial to always keep a focus on the end goal or a result. You should understand pain points to learn what customers are doing with your product or service. Starting to see long-term results is also a good point.

4. Review and Refine

The last step is reviewing and refining what you have already done. Start by including key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor your new channels and marketing activities for data-driven results.

Make sure you have a well-defined plan that always helps you understand and remember your goals and objectives, gain valuable insights, and monitor results. We advise following these steps:

• Get rid of vanity metrics – we recommend to stop paying attention to the numbers that aren't essential for your long-term success, like likes on Twitter;
• Measure your success through KPIs, but don't have them set in stone;
• Develop intervals for analyzing, measuring, and reporting to timely make changes when required;
• Learn how to isolate critical metrics if you see something isn't working.

Last Thoughts on Digital Marketing Efforts in 2024

Following the latest digital marketing trends is a tricky business, though having a list of emerging trends and a clear roadmap for achieving content marketing success can reduce the majority of struggles. 

AI's role in digital marketing, voice search, video content, podcasts, and memes is only a small portion of marketing trends for 2024. The best recommendations here are to explore trends and find those that seem either relevant or effective for your business goals today.