Five Top Marketing Trends in 2016

Keeping up with the marketing trends within the online industry is an exciting and complex activity. The industry is ever changing with new software, hardware, market niches and user preferences are easily either picked up or bypassed as quickly as they are discovered. Here is what, to date, is hot for this year:

1. The Video Advertisement

There’s nothing new here; we are all familiar with YouTube who continues world domination with billions of videos and advertising friendly options. However, the big news is that Google have finally embraced this trend and have now developed in-SERP video advertising. Google owns YouTube, so expect more of these adverts to pop up in unexpected places.

2. App Indexing will mean more Apps

There is currently a trend towards mobile-optimised sites, but this will soon be over-ridden as apps become more complex and dedicated apps develop. Apps are more intuitive and efficient than websites and are largely becoming more accessible. Will this mean that apps will eventually replace the traditional website as we know it? The answer is most probably yes as from this year onwards business owners seem to be moving quickly towards that direction.

3. Move over desktop – the mobile is here to stay

2015 was the year that Google announced that the mobile overtook desktop traffic across ten different countries. Dubbed “Mobilegeddon”, an algorithm update was released to phase out desktop sites that were not optimised for mobile. The interesting development with this is that Google have said there is no requirement to have a desktop counterpart if you have an optimised mobile-only site. So, with this sort of backing, it would seem that desktop traffic will slow down and become far more mobile-focussed for the world of online marketing.

4. Say Hello to Virtual Reality

Set to increase rapidly over the next few years, virtual reality is here to stay. Dedicated applications are being developed for video games and general use with excitement generating with the VA device from Oculus Rift. Billions of dollars have been invested in the development of this and other VR devices, and are set to release a whole new medium of online advertising which can be integrated with other social media platforms, channels, and even direct messaging apps.

5. Fashionable Technology is here

This may be where we find ourselves in a transition from online marketing to real marketing. With the release of the first generation Apple Watch last year, we see an emergence of ‘wearable smart technology’. This may set a whole new parameter of marketing, challenging our views on where the line gets drawn in this ever changing canter forward in which we have no choice but to embrace.