The only constant in digital is and always will be: change. That’s for sure! Now what marks the digital agenda for 2022? Our Dotters are more than happy to give you a brief overview of the main digital trends for the upcoming year. 

Exponential growth of ecommerce

We all know the story of 2020, the pandemic caused a massive shift in consumer buying behaviour. With customers shifting towards online, companies also massively did. While at the time screen times were soaring like never before it was somewhat easy for brands to reach their customers online. Now a year later the competition online has never been as fierce, with more players who are fighting to get the attention of the end consumer. However the attention span of the end consumer has shifted the last year, with more offline distractions, people are a bit less present online. It became far more expensive to reach your audience online. Having the right message displayed at the right time with a strong attention grabbing creative has thus never been more important!

End of the 3th party cookies is coming near.

While Apple already took some considerable measures against 3th party cookie tracking, Google recently announced they will postpone the 3th party cookie ban till somewhere near the end of 2023. However brands should start to prepare themselves for this cookieless world cause guess what? It’s coming. The ones who develop a solid strategy to acquire first party data early on in the funnel, who dare to think outside the box and find new ways to gather data and plot the customer journey will be the winners of tomorrow.

Growth of social commerce

The impact social media is having on our buying behaviour is no longer undeniable. In China more than 50% of online sales are already generated directly through social media platforms. Brands should start to treat these channels as an extension of their webshop and should think of video as an absolute must-have rather than a nice to have. 

Omnichannel is the way to grow

With customers craving real life experiences again, customer journeys tend to become more and more complex and omni-channel. When calculating ROI marketers should consider elements such as online window-shopping, and on the contrary the impact of in store experiences on online buying behaviour. 

Compete on brand proposition not on price

Customers tend to favor brands who mirror their personal values. As a brand it’s of crucial importance to educate your customers on the values you so deeply cherish. Those company values should be communicated in every single touch point in order to create a deeper and long-lasting customer relationship. Next to that sustainability must be treated as a top priority. It’s slowly but surely becoming an absolute necessity rather than an extra competitive asset. We might say if you don’t go green you’ll go red. 

Focus on customer retention

While acquisition costs of new customers are soaring, brands are obliged to look at other ways to grow. Brands should focus on strengthening their relationship with existing customers. And find tactical ways to increase their basket or buying frequency in order to increase customer-lifetime-value. On top of that, those loyal customers are the easiest and cheapest way to feed your acquisition strategy as nothing can beat word-of-mouth. Look at your customers as your brand ambassadors and find tactical ways for those brand ambassadors to spread positivity and good vibes around your brand to the largest possible audience within their personal bubble. 

So no 2022 you won’t be easy on us. But hey we Dotters are more than ready for the challenge and these digital trends!