5 Things to Look Forward to in Digital Marketing in 2013

As we wave goodbye to Christmas and we wrap up the 2012 reporting, we’re starting to look forward to developments in digital marketing and mobile over the coming 12 months.

Here are 6 things I’m expecting and looking forward to this year.

1. The Mobile Tipping Point

2010, 2011 and 2012 were all dubbed ‘the year of mobile.’ And while mobile did indeed become a significant consideration for any business over the last 3 years, it’s over the past 12 months that it has really matured.

There’s a very real possibility that 2013 will give us the mobile tipping point, the point at which mobile traffic becomes a larger segment than desktop traffic. We’re seeing over 40% mobile visits (including tablet, over 30% excluding tablets) for some of our clients now and given the rate of growth since 2009 it’s by no means unprecedented that by New Year’s Day 2014 mobile will be the majority.

Why’s this such good news? Because it’s exciting. As marketers we have this whole new environment in which we can reach our audience. Nobody is ever really truly offline anymore.

2. More Emphasis on Attribution Modelling

Towards the end of 2012, Google made the formerly premium-only Google Analytics attribution modelling tool available to all. This made making sense of assisted conversions data much more straightforward! We know that, typically, around half of e-commerce transactions do not take place on the first visit to a website. This means that for years many marketers were simply relying on half a story to come to conclusions about the most valuable marketing channels. With the attribution modelling tool now available to everyone and this data now much simpler to analyse and interpret, I expect more marketers will be making use of it, sharing insights and that, as a consequence, we’ll learn more about real user journeys to sale.

3. Universal Analytics

At the Google Analytics Summit in November 2012, Google announced Universal Analytics. If you thought the attribution modelling tool was exciting, then (as well as being as sad as I am) you’ll love UA. This will enable the merging of offline and online marketing and sales data as well as cross-device attribution etc.

4. Even More Adwords Extensions

At the Google Engage Box of Tricks Event in London in November 2012 (that was an awesome event!), Google announced further Adwords extensions we can expect to see this year. You may have seen some already included in the ads of selected advertisers. These include an email newsletter sign up extension (you’ve probably seen this one already) and a customer support extension which could include in-SERP live chat links etc.

5. Customer Lifetime Value Data

This is another Google Analytics announcement from the summit in 2012. This year, they’ll be working on a means of measuring the overall lifetime value (in currency) of a customer. The Google recap of this read as follows:

Google Analytics Customer Lifetime Value

Another one from the Google gift box!

These are just 5 of what will undoubtedly be scores of notable new features, functions and developments in PPC, web analytics, user web consumption and SEO. Digital marketing (or inbound marketing or whatever you want to call it!) is never static and by this time next year, we’ll undoubtedly be debating more Google algo changes, talking about another new tablet that’s driving traffic and even more insight we have available to us about what drives our customers online.