Digital Marketing Trends 2017

Just like last year, this fall we will again take a look at the digital marketing trends that are sure to keep us busy in the coming year. And we’ll focus on those trends that are just about to get their big break – in other words, trends expected to have an actual impact on our sector.

Why is this important? The pace of change was rapid in 2016, too. Pokémon Go is probably the best example. Launched in July, the game was downloaded six million times on the first day alone and took just two weeks to become the most popular game in the US – with 21 million active users! This global digital trend emerged practically overnight and dominated the headlines for weeks. In Switzerland, for example, Basel Tourism and Swissquote also didn’t waste any time and used the game as an instrument for their big marketing campaigns.

Technology companies set the pace

We live in the age of technology. The world’s five biggest companies in terms of market capitalization (Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon) set the pace in our sector. Identifying relevant trends at the right time while gauging and aligning one’s own strategy in relation to these trends will again be essential to business success in 2017.

In the coming year, we expect to see the most activity in these five key areas:

1. Page speed as a key success factor on the web
2. China as a rising B2C power
3. Programmatic Advertising
4. Voice search becomes commonplace
5. Bots are getting down to work

We’ll be dedicating one blog post to each of these trends in the coming week (CW 47) as part of our 2017 Trend Week, which will follow the lead of the keynote we presented at our Thought Leaders @ Webrepublic customer event. The presentation is also available on Slideshare.