Digital marketing trends in 2021

By G. Lara & M. Soutto

Digital marketing trends in 2021. The current situation of digital marketing.

In this post we are going to review the current situation of digital marketing on the internet and review what digital marketing strategies you can follow in 2021 combining web analysis with data analysis to obtain your own first-party data. This will help you achieve the best results for your internet business in 2021.

Digital marketing covers a very wide area, we are going to focus on analyzing the phase where you have already managed to attract users to your website or online store.

To reach this phase, we are going to assume that you have already gone through the previous work of optimizing your website so that many users discover your website and come to use it. To achieve this we have another article that may also interest you: SEO trends 2021 what's new in positioning

The current situation of digital marketing

As everything that concerns the internet is constantly changing, before we look at the main digital marketing trends 2021, let's stop and analyze the context of the current situation.

A scenario with more regulation on the privacy of users

Users are increasingly aware of the importance of maintaining the privacy of their data on the internet. Many services, including social networks, have grown enormously in number of users who use these services, but we are already realizing that they are not free, they are "paid" for but in personal data and data about your behavior on the internet.

All this data has driven data analysis and has given digital marketing a series of tools to be able to send specific ads or content to specific groups of users of whom we already know their likes or needs in advance. This has created a very effective but poorly regulated type of online advertising and has led to more and more data being collected about users. This seems to have come to an end since more restrictive laws are beginning to be passed in order to protect the user so that at least they are notified about what data will be collected, what it will be used for and who will process this data.

For this reason, new policies and regulations are being created designed to improve the online experience of consumers and respect their privacy. In Europe General Data Protection Regulation is one of the laws that provides the highest level of protection to users and their personal data in the world.

Third-party cookies will tend to disappear

In 2020 Chrome, one of the main browsers used on the internet and owned by Google, announced a new path "to make the web more private and secure for users, while helping publishers." To do so it has created the Privacy Sandbox iniciative, a privacy preservation and open standards mechanism, with the aim of maintaining a healthy and ad-supported internet in a way that will make third-party cookies obsolete.

Other browsers began blocking third-party cookies in recent years to prevent unwanted consumer tracking. Third-party cookies are partly "to blame" that those shoes that you looked at on a web page follow you on all the other web pages you browse in the format of ads on all types of shoes.

Accelerated digitization: more data analysis

The events of 2020 have accelerated the trend of digitization of many facets of our lives: work, education and personal relationships. All of this translates to more digital data available. This has also made an impact on the digital marketing trends 2021.

Digital marketing trends in 2021. Accelerated digitization: more data analysis.

Most of them are micro enterprises (fewer than 10 persons employed), which do not have the ability to access large consulting firms but still need to carry out their own digital transformation. In this context, an opportunity opens up that companies must take advantage of to be more competitive and innovative, in addition to being better prepared for the future. This also involves developing powerful marketing strategies in 2021.

Digital Marketing Trends in 2021

In this scenario of more privacy, more data available and fewer intermediaries, the time has come to bring the digital transformation to the company's own marketing, this marks part of the digital marketing trends 2021.

The importance of your own first-party data

Companies with little digital experience rely mostly on third-party data to develop their marketing campaigns. This translates into higher costs for the company and a result that is not as adjusted or personalized as can be achieved by analyzing your own first-party data.

Taking advantage of their own first-party data will allow companies to identify changes in the behavior and evolution of audience segments in order to know their customers well and know how their needs change in almost real time. This in a context of constant change is a great growth engine and therefore one of the digital marketing trends 2021.

Your website first-party data

One of the digital marketing trends 2021 is going to be the analysis of your own first-party data, this is data that you already have access to without intermediaries and with almost no added cost. The strategy will be to analyze and make better use of this data that we often overlook. This first-party data is unique for your company and available in real time, it has very valuable information about the behavior of customers and the products or services they are looking for. All this complying with the regulations and privacy laws.

Now you can vary the focus of your attention and analysis, instead of analyzing the users of your website, their tastes, demographics, etc. the focus can be on their behavior on your website or online store and start analyzing what they are looking for, buying or what interests them on the website.

To develop this new digital marketing strategy in 2021 it is time to stop and look at areas that perhaps we did not take into account, such as:

• If you have a search engine on your page, what are they looking for in your online store or real estate website?
• If you have an online store, what products are the most added to the shopping cart? Do they match the most purchased?
• Are there trends relative to the month of the year or season?
• From which section of the website do the users send a contact or request form?

Each company is unique and will have access to its unique first-party data. The key is to have the curiosity to analyze and decipher areas in which we can improve results.

Digital marketing trends in 2021. Own first-party data analysis.

Own first-party data analysis

Once we have decided on the points of the client's journey through our website that we want to focus, whether it is an online store, a real estate website or a catalog website, it is time to play detective and analyze the data.

It is time to convert this data into useful information for the growth of the company.

Now with the first-party data that you can observe on your website, you can begin to look for patterns or trends, services or products that may be missing and your customers are looking for. How to do this? A good way to start, especially in companies that are new to the digital world or marketing their own first-party data, is to look for analogies with the real world.

If you have a physical business in addition to the digital one, it will be even easier to collect your own first-party data by being able to adapt the digital business to analyze the trends that you can detect in the physical world.

What products or services have customers been asking about? This would be equivalent to analyzing the first-party search data on your website or online store.

If it were a clothing store, what kinds of clothes have been tried and not bought? the digital equivalent would be products of great interest or even added to the shopping cart or to a list of favorites (if your website has this function), but then these products have not been purchased, is there information missing? Are the shipping costs very high?

Over time and a little practice, you will see that adapting the tools on your website to collect and analyze certain first-party data that we already have but ignore can help you improve the performance of your online business.

Conclusions on digital marketing trends in 2021

The situation in 2021 of digital marketing is a scenario with more regulation on the privacy of users. What's more, users are also showing signs that they are increasingly concerned about their privacy and do not want their personal data to be exploited for digital marketing. In line with this, third-party cookies will tend to disappear, although they will be replaced with other similar mechanisms, marketing will not be the same.

Because of all this, it is time to take advantage of this accelerated digitization that has begun and will not stop here, it will bring digitization to the center of the company's growth strategy and this must include digital marketing in 2021.

The digital marketing trends 2021 tell us that the company should focus on creating its own first-party data collection and analysis tools and systems, which will result in higher quality information, lower cost and greater discovery of opportunities and trends in real time. All this to improve results and sales that will boost the quality and quantity of the company's performance.

At Ailon Webs we are professional website programmers always ready to create new and personalized tools for our clients with an ambition to improve and innovate.

Sources

• 1 European Commission. What constitutes data processing? https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/what-constitutes-data-processing_en
• 2 HTTP cookie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#Third-party_cookie
• Statistics on small and medium-sized enterprises https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Statistics_on_small_and_medium-sized_enterprises
• First-party data offers a solution for privacy and performance https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/monetization-strategies/first-party-data-transparency/
• Building a more private web: A path towards making third party cookies obsolete https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-path-towards.html
• 5 pillars of a holistic marketing measurement plan https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-and-measurement/digital-marketing-measurement-plan/