The Engagement 4Cast
For years, Google Ads has been the most popular advertising platform on the Internet. And they still are. But this year, Google’s share of digital ad revenue is predicted to drop (again) to about 27% of all online ad spending. We expect this trend to accelerate, as the smart marketing dollars increasingly move to social media.
In 2022, social media ad impressions grew by more than 30%. TikTok, Linkedin, Reddit, SnapChat, Instagram and other social platforms generate about 25% of all website referral traffic.
This shift is partly driven by the increasingly sophisticated tools that are offered to advertisers. But mostly it’s because that’s where people (especially coveted demographic groups) are spending their time online.
TikTok, for example, has 50 million daily active users who use the app for an average of 1.5 hours per day. 61% of Instagram’s advertising audience is aged 18-to-34. And increasingly, those young people are using social search.
40% of Gen-Zers prefer searching TikTok or Instagram over Google, because in most cases, you can’t even search social content with Google.
Growing concerns over privacy, advancements in ad-blocking technology, the rapid expansion of influencer marketing, and the rise of artificial intelligence are all eroding Google’s traditional dominance. With search engines getting smarter, your organic search traffic is getting further diluted as search sites often provide zero-click results (SERPs) like featured snippets, instant answers, knowledge panels, and image carousels. As these trends grow, spending precious ad money on Google could be a risky option.
Sophisticated marketers are already adapting to these changes by diversifying their marketing & ad spending strategies. Large companies have been doing this for years.
But running campaigns on dozens of platforms takes quite a bit of time, and money. So what does that mean for small businesses, entrepreneurs, agencies, etc? Without a dedicated marketing specialist or a large ad budget – it is becoming imperative to find alternative ways to successfully diversify your marketing.
And lucky for these business types – trends are catching up to this need.
As an entrepreneur or small business, you will still need to brush up on your tech savviness – but there are now plenty of marketing strategies that can help you diversify and succeed, without breaking the bank.
Next week’s blog will cover 5 free ways to help drive social traffic to your site. So check back and dive into these relatively simple strategies. The best part is you can start implementing them right away.
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