Digital Marketing is a staple for some of the most successful businesses in the world and as the pandemic continues, it will become more important to have a Digital Strategy that achieves your objective. To ensure you are building your strategy effectively, we have put together a guide to help you stay on top. Here are 4 trends to be aware of going into the fourth quarter of the year:

Desktop Usage Is Up

For the past 5 years most marketers have directed focus to mobile friendly designs and strategies; however, an interesting swing is developing as the pandemic continues. With nearly 30% of the workforce working remotely, it is no surprise that desktop usage and desktop sessions on websites are up dramatically. This is not to say that all the focus should go back to desktops, but a 22% average increase in traffic derived from desktops cannot be ignored. Make sure your marketing includes strategies for both desktop and mobile usage.

Users Plan To Make More Purchases Online

According to Forbes, “U.S. retailers’ online year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth is up 68% as of mid-April, surpassing an earlier peak of 49% in early January.” This means that people are not only searching for retail products online, but actually making the decision to purchase. While some stores have begun to reopen, many people are more comfortable making a purchase online and remaining socially distanced, versus interacting with others at a physical location. Another statistic to be aware of for online purchases comes from Google, the company reports that 74% of shoppers will be purchasing more online this holiday season than they have previously. In addition, according to Salesforce CRM’s quarterly Shopping Index, the number of purchases made through social media apps during the second quarter of this year was up 99% compared to the same time period last year. If you don’t currently have an e-commerce option on your site, these stats prove that it may be a great time to invest in building one out.

digital marketing graph

Source: https://ccinsight.org/

Organic Traffic Has Gone Down For Most Industries

Needless to say, many industries have been hit hard during the pandemic, including travel, construction, manufacturing, and real estate to name a few. These industries have also seen a decrease in organic traffic to their sites. However, others such as finance, food, and healthcare have all seen an increase in traffic due to the nature of what we are experiencing.

WordStream puts it like this:

“In a time marked by so many questions and a significant uptick in at-home pursuits, search volume certainly has (increased), but with a focus on health, news, and other highly relevant industries. As a result, this has caused a decline in traffic to nonessential business websites (many of which are small businesses)—from both paid and organic results.”

While there is less organic traffic overall, this does leave a great opportunity to buy traffic via paid digital advertising. If organic traffic is down, businesses will need to spend to secure the additional traffic they want. Both Google and Facebook are great options to begin advertising your business online right now.

Political Ads May Limit Ad Space

As we get closer to the upcoming presidential election in November, political campaigns will be spending an unprecedented amount on digital advertising. There are many projections on what the total spend for political campaigns may be, with most putting the total spend between $6.5 – $10 BILLION! That is a huge amount of money and will undoubtably limit space for advertising on radio and tv as there is only so much time in the day. Normally in political years, advertisers know their ads will be “pre-empted” or moved back, due to political ads spending more money -this will be no different in 2020. As spots are depleted over the next months leading up to the election, it may be smart to hold off on a TV or broadcast spend and move that budget over to digital advertising instead.

Staying on top of digital marketing trends during this time can be a tall task. However, if you take into account the trends we have laid out, you will be on your way to creating a successful campaign. Even though the pandemic has changed the way digital marketers approach their overall strategy, it has also created a multitude of opportunities to test and readjust for the future.