To achieve success, a business must always be one step ahead of their competitors. Fall behind, and customers will soon find newer and trendier places to shop. Staying ahead comes in many forms – product innovation, customer service, and staying in-tune with consumer trends and modern marketing practices (just to name a few).

Today, we’re focusing on the latter – staying in-tune with consumer trends and modern marketing practices. After all, what good is a high-quality product or a supportive customer service team without a strong marketing campaign?

In today’s overly saturated marketplace, it is more important than ever for marketers to look ahead, do their research, and make sure they earn their market share against competing ads. For that reason, we’ve pulled together four key predictions to help you plan your marketing strategy and stay ahead of your competitors.

4 Key Predictions to Help You Plan Your Marketing Strategy

1. Digital device and internet usage will continue to rise.

It’s no secret that the world is going digital – this has been a trend for many years. Digital device usage has become so ingrained in our culture that networked devices now outnumber us. One study estimates that the number of devices connected to IP networks will be more than three times the global population by 2023, at around 3.6 networked devices per capita (Cisco).

Furthermore, the increase in digital device use has resulted in an increased number of internet users. According to DataReportal, around 4.66 billion people use the internet today. By 2023, Cisco predicts that number will reach 5.3 billion (nearly one billion more than two years prior).

What this means for marketers

With such projections, it’s clear that marketers need to continue to prioritize digital channels in order to generate leads. Such channels include tried-and-true tactics like paid search (SEM), social media marketing, and content marketing, as well as newer tactics such as influencer marketing and pay-per-call. As device usage continues to increase, having a comprehensive knowledge of these channels becomes more and more valuable.

Curious to learn more about pay-per-call and its effectiveness? Check out this free eBook below.

2. Mobile e-commerce will continue to rise.

Since the invention of the smartphone in the early 2000s, mobile device use has sky-rocketed. While digital device use will continue to rise, we predict that most of that growth will come from mobile. In fact, mobile usage has already surpassed desktop use, with more than half of the time spent online coming from mobile devices (Perficient).

Related: Marketers should capitalize on the increase of mobile device users and inbound callers

The increase in mobile device usage has resulted in a spike in mobile e-commerce (transactions completed online via mobile devices). In 2018, mobile retail e-commerce sales reach 148 billion dollars in the United States alone – and that number is projected to reach a whopping 432 billion dollars in 2022 (Statista).

What this means for marketers

If there’s one lesson marketers can take away from this, let it be this: optimize, optimize, optimize! With mobile commerce on the rise, it’s up to you to make it easy for your customers to purchase your products or services from their smartphones. Optimization can come in many forms – whether it’s optimizing your ads and website for click-to-call or creating a mobile app. It’s your job to make the mobile transaction process as easy and user-friendly as possible.

3. Location-based marketing spend will grow as the need for personalized marketing grows.

One thing we hear stressed time and time again as marketers is the need to create personalized experiences for our consumers. As a part of this larger trend, location-based marketing (otherwise called “geo-marketing”) will play a key role in reaching consumers and speaking directly to their needs. Location-based marketing occurs when an advertiser targets consumers in a specific location. This can be seen in location-based paid search results (ex: restaurants near you) and geo-targeting in general ad campaigns.

With today’s modern technology, it’s easy to reach the audience you want – and in a specific location, no less. Because of this, geo-marketing is expected to grow in the coming years. In fact, Zion Market Research predicts location-based ad spend to reach $38 billion by the year 2025.

What this means for marketers

The projected growth for location-based marketing means that, if you don’t take advantage of it, chances are your competitor will beat you to it. If you are targeting prospects in a specific geography, location-based advertising will greatly improve your campaign performance.

4. Companies will continue to rely on data to optimize their marketing budgets.

Modern technology has changed the way both consumers and marketers operate. Modern data completely changes the way marketers look towards the future as they make analytical, research-driven predictions related to how consumers will engage with different advertising channels.

In an article by Forbes, Lindsey Roy, CMO at Hallmark, describes how data and modern technology helps marketers respond to the Covid-19 crisis: “Data feeds insights, and insights feed our solutions. Hallmark has an in-house trends team who don’t just look at, ‘What’s the color or the icon of the year?’ but also, ‘What are those cultural behaviors and shifts and deep needs?’” This is just one example of many that demonstrated how a company can use data to derive useful insights and improve its marketing strategy.

What this means for marketers

As technology continues to grow, we predict that companies will continue to rely on data to drive their marketing efforts. Knowing how to collect data is one thing, but knowing how to use it and analyze it is another. By becoming a data expert, you can use insights to allocate your advertising budget strategically, spending more in channels that bring in high-quality leads for less rather than channels that aren’t driving a high return on investment (ROI) or a positive return on ad spend (ROAS).

Why Performance-Based Advertising will Continue to Rise in Coming Years

A strong case can be made for using performance-based advertising tactics to stay ahead of the marketing trend curve since these tactics incorporate many of the above recommendations. For starters, most types of performance marketing (pay-per-call, pay-per-click, pay-per-view, pay-per-sale, etc.) take advantage of the increase in digital and mobile device use among consumers.

Related: Performance Marketing Explained: How it Works

For instance, pay-per-call occurs when an affiliate promotes a tracking number online and generates a phone call (think: click-to-call ads on Google for example); the call is connected to an advertiser who only pays for the lead when a caller stays on the line and become qualified. With so many internet users around the world using their mobile devices to buy products and services, this type of performance marketing, when used correctly, can be extremely successful in generating quality leads.

Additionally, the performance-based advertising model allows for geo-marketing because advertisers can target consumers in a specific location and will only pay for leads that meet their geographic requirements. For example, in pay-per-call, an advertiser may specify that they only want calls from New York, and then it’s the pay-per-call partner’s responsibility to filter out calls from all other locations. This eliminates the risk of paying for any unwanted leads from another location.

Lastly, data enables advertisers to continuously monitor and optimize their performance marketing campaigns. This allows the advertiser to pause and optimize low-performing campaigns while allocating more budget to affiliates, call sources, and channels that deliver a lot of value.

To learn more about performance marketing and how to start a performance marketing program at your company, download our free guide.