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Marketing And Retargeting Trends To Look Out For In 2022

5 min read

Written by Rebecca Barnatt-Smith

4 January, 2022

As we prepare to head into 2022, Covid-19 is not the only thing the corporate world is concerned about. As the online sphere continues to evolve with more e-commerce competitors than ever before, it’s no surprise that marketing strategies as we once knew them are beginning to transform too.

From new focuses on user experience and the rise of Gen Z domination across the social platforms, we have collated some of the most important marketing and retargeting trends to get on top of before the new year begins.

Read on to find out more about 2022’s hot marketing tips and learn how to skyrocket your campaigns in the coming months.

A Focus On User Experience

One shift that we have seen throughout the pandemic is the role of the consumer. As high street shops dwindled and the e-commerce industry boomed, the post-pandemic consumer now has a vast group of competitors to pick from when purchasing a product, making it harder for businesses to stand out in their niche.

Marketers in 2022 will no longer be focusing on convincing their customers to buy their products, they will be convincing them to stay. Gaining customer retention in 2022 will be all about creating a seamless user experience and quality service.

As you can see here, 73% of online consumers rank good quality service as the most important reason why they trust and return to brands.

Therefore it’s time to improve those UX pathways and incorporate elements of conversational marketing into your strategy in order to keep your customers satisfied. Providing a more personal experience is key. Why not try adding chatbots, feedback forms and an inbound sales team to your strategy in order to make your customers feel heard and served individually, mimicking the one-to-one communication found in physical stores?

Experts suggest that building deeper customer relationships throughout the purchasing experience not only increases customer retention but also boosts profit by 25%!

Augmented Advertising

As the marketing world continues to evolve, so does the role of new smart technologies. As we embark on a new era of virtual reality, 2022 will be the biggest year yet for new forms of augmented advertising.

Looking at the data above, we can see that the number of AR users is expected to reach 48 million by 2022, as rising platforms such as TikTok provide avenues for augmentation.

As a driving force for change within the future of social media marketing, AR’s advertising potential is being picked up by smart marketers post-pandemic as the digitalisation of customer interactions increases by a global 58%.

As physical highstreets decline, businesses are now using AR and VR to create an augmented reality for their customers that mimic physical shopping. Not only can these augmented filters allow customers to try and test products virtually, improving customer experience and online sales, but smart marketers have caught onto AR’s potential virality too.

Creating fun, AR-powered filters can significantly improve your promotion game and increase your chance of going viral amongst your younger target audiences. Take Taco-Bell for example. Using Snapchat to create this AR-powered Taco Face Filter, the company received 224 million views within just one day of releasing this fun marketing campaign.

Using AR’s trending potential within your 2022 strategy could skyrocket your social media engagement and drive new customers to your site.

Retargeting & Retention

2022 is all about improving that customer retention. With more e-commerce competitors than ever before, it’s time for marketers to focus on their retargeting skills in order to bring those sales leads back to the checkout.

Gaining loyal customers will help improve your reputation and increase brand awareness. The more customers you keep happy, the more they will share your content with friends and family over the social channels, giving you that free promotional content.

In order to start gaining those loyal customers, you first need to know more about them. Focussing on your audience retargeting strategy is vital if you want to see them make it all the way through the sales funnel.

Start incorporating smart tools into your strategy such as Finteza here, that actively plans out your retargeting campaign depending on the location, device and dates associated with your target consumers.

Having a strong understanding of your demographic is vital here as your Ad retargets are more likely to reach the right people and draw more customers to your site.

Gen Z’s Domination

Gen Z could be the stars of 2022 and they are exactly who your marketing campaigns should be watching.

In the last two decades, marketing executives have become obsessed with the millennial generation and their specific sell points, but as the once hotspots for sales leads hit their 40’s, it’s time to turn to the younger generation for your social media marketing success.

Generation Z is like no other. They are our most diverse target audience yet and the first set of digital natives that have grown up in the era of technological evolution. This makes them smarter when it comes to your Ad strategy and definitely more difficult to reach.

The key with Gen Z is to target the trends and their social media platforms. Invest your time in organic forms of marketing such as participating within a TikTok trend or consulting the influencers to drive up those swipe up engagements.

Better still, diversify your content to speak directly to their individual personality. Securing a strong connection with Gen Z is difficult, but they are a loyal audience and won’t hesitate to share your content if they feel that it speaks to their passions.

In fact, studies have revealed that 58% of this demographic are much more likely to shop with brands online that provide diverse content that speaks directly to their personality and beliefs.

A Rise In Visual Content

2022 is also the year for increasing that visual content creation.

A recent study by Cisco found that visual content such as animation and video will account for a whopping 82% of all online consumer traffic in 2022, making it more likely to spark first-page SERP rankings than any other strategy.

As you can see here, 68% of online consumers prefer to learn about a new product or service through the means of video. In order to keep in line with what consumers are looking for, it’s time for brands to primp their content marketing skills for a video-based future.

2022 Takeaways

Strap in marketers because 2022 could be the trickiest year in terms of campaign success and targeting strategy. As the online sphere continues to diversify year on year, there may be larger audiences but there are also more niches for you to target with your content.

Our advice is to think out of the box for 2022. Try new tactics and think digital. from AR to video-based visuals, 2022 will be a great year for the creatives and of course another one to remember.