The Mid-Year Digital Marketing Check-Up: Top 2024 Trends
Undoubtedly, we are living in very interesting digital marketing times, aren’t we all feeling it? This article comes at mid-year to make a quick check-up of what others are doing and why? Are you missing out on a digital marketing trend for your business? Here is the state of Digital Marketing at the halfway point of the year 2024.
We have surveyed the industry, reached out to our clients, and even contacted pillars in the digital marketing industry. We interviewed a broad sample of people, such as CEOs, Digital Nomads, Digital Marketing Analysts, SEOs, CMOs, Product Managers, and PPC specialists. The goal was to gain some concrete insights about their activities, stray away from the generic theoretical rehashed articles, and we must tell you, we weren’t disappointed.
The findings are profound, and what you’ll read will likely differ from the usual.
The Rise of AI
Rarely has a trend had such a penetrative effect on the industry. AI is impossible to ignore, and our survey revealed interesting insights about what others are doing with AI.
Are you using it properly in your digital marketing efforts? Is it properly integrated?
Nearly 80% of our participants reported that they weren’t able to fully automate content creation using AI. That insight speaks volumes. Only 6.7% believe that it can be done, while the remaining think it will be possible in the future.
This aligns with the growing trend of authenticity and the need for truly creative content over content perceived as dull.
The secret to excellent AI usage is making it invisible. The power comes in the framework building, the first and second drafts, the revisions and edits to tone of voice, the brainstorming, and the automation of routine tasks.
Lexi Carter, Director of Marketing at Southern Utah University
The State of AI solutions in the industry
We were curious about the martech AI stack as their main engine. With the rise of AI companies based on semantic layers provided with LLM, we asked which solutions are professional using. Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT takes the king’s share with 76.7% of martech market. 9.3% are using Gemini, and 7% are using multiple solutions, including the first two. While the remaining are spread thin across diverse other solutions (Self-Hosted LLM & other proprietary solutions).
How useful is AI for Digital Marketers?
We wondered how useful AI is for Digital Marketers and asked them the question. Fear not, it is likely the same state as it is for you. The results were moderate only.
62.2% mentioned that AI was of moderate assistance in their martech stack, while 35.6% reported it greatly helped them in their business activities, and 2.2% not at all.
That was rather surprising and unsurprising at the same time. It is still early days and its usefulness is likely to grow in the future.
AI definitely has its place, but few really know where and how.
By reviewing the written answers, the content creation venue, which seemed the most suitable use, turned out to be a massive disappointment.
A small amount were able to scale their content posting quality while reducing the hard work.
In a nutshell, the state of Artificial Intelligence for this year is rather “let’s wait and see” with a glimpse of trust in future capacities.
Is SEO Dying This Time?
SEO is dying in 2024, and Google is being brought to its doom.
Our candidates knew better, a lot better. In fact, 84.4% of our participants increased their SEO efforts this year.
Over the years, SEO has grown in complexity and technicality, as any subject does. The increasing technical demands make entry harder, yet worthwhile.
“The integration of AI in digital marketing will not only streamline operations but also bring about more dynamic and responsive marketing tactics. This technology will allow for real-time optimization of ads and content, making SEO and social media marketing more robust and results-oriented. As social media platforms increasingly favor genuine content, marketers will need to adapt by fostering real connections and providing value to their audiences.”
Once again, SEO is certainly not dead but is evolving. Most of our interview candidates agree that something is brewing, likely involving AI recommendations for results and excerpts. It is a wait-and-see situation while we benefit from the technical leap forward.
As long as people search, there will be SEO, and it is here to stay. Additionally, the recent Google leaks provide much to consider for SEO strategies.
The Social Media Constant but Landscape is changing – and rapidly
Back in the days the throne was for Instagram. It sat at the top of the trend for quite a few years as way to do affiliate marketing. The time has passed, the competition increased leaving room for the new comer.
The questions we asked was: “Which Social Media Platform yields the most significant Digital Marketing benefits according to you?”
In this game, LinkedIn is taking the crown through the social media kingdoms amongst our candidates with a whopping 34.1% poll rate.
A significant reservation is to state, to be honest in our finding, which was mentioned by several professional agencies: There isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of network, and it is naturally niche dependent.
Yet a striking fact. None of the participants reported X (Twitter) as a place where they yield the most. Poll sample may not be sufficiently representative to make an assertive conclusion about the state of the social market on a global level but it seems to confirms a generic trend of thoughts about the fall of Twitter past its acquisition from a business perspective. (Business Insider)
The 2024 PPC Landscape
With the recent March 2024 Content Quality update of Google, AI generated results, increasing SEO complexity PPC remains a praised option to drive traffic for our clients businesses, or their clients.
“Our digital marketing efforts in 2024 have mostly involved scaling back our use of AI for content and using it for internal work like analytics and managing PPC work.”
Nick Valentino, VP of Market Operations of Bellhop
There have been some severe conversation on the PPC subreddit about recent changes in the Facebook algorithm which seems to have changed. While there isn’t any public statement about it, the ROAS were harder to reach to say the least.
It was reflected in our polls most likely due to the recent changes which may not reflect the full year.
It remains a strong venue for most of our participants (agencies/small businesses mainly) but in a significantly lesser fashion than SEO.
Conclusion
With the significant boost in productivities, and budget cut in most of the marketing departments (source Gartner study), there is a significant shift toward the essence of the work.
Among all the interviewed, everyone was absolutely excited by the changes brought with the rise of AI. Among the answers, a background trend that seemed to deliver consistent results.
– Be Creative, with authenticity.
As Dana Zacharias, a Google Ads/Digital performance specialist, mentioned:
“Personally, I don’t think we have even realized the biggest digital marketing opportunity of 2024. But in this moment, it is all about creative. If you aren’t delivering the best creative that your consumers will actually appreciate, you’re wasting money.”
We can’t wait to hear from you and learn what you think of the digital marketing landscape and where it is headed.
We will conclude this article with a topical word map of all the participants textual answers. The word cloud is induced by the questions naturally but somewhat summarizing beautifully. Digital marketing in 2024 is about:
Last and not least, we would like to thank our clients and the participants for answering our questions and sharing their valuable insights about their activities. A warm and sincere thank you.
