As you start making your goals for the New Year, have a look at these digital marketing trends which are going to take over the online world in 2016. If you intend to enjoy that competitive edge this year, you will have to think about adopting some of these trends:

Social Ads

There is going to be a remarkable increase in Online advertising this year. Digital ad spend has grown by 17.2% so far. It is going to grow by 13.5% this year and by 2017 it would have even surpassed the television. It is time you started making use of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram to engage with your target audience and promote your business in the online world. Action-oriented ad formats are the way to go. Make maximum use of Facebook Click-to-Website ads and Twitter Lead Generation ads and prompt people to take the action that you want them to take and therefore, it is no wonder why digital marketing companies are including social ads into their SEO packages so that their clients marketing campaign gain some edge.

Facebook Messenger for Business

Facebook launched its Messenger for Business in March 2015. This was mainly an extension of the messenger system that all of us use to keep in touch with our friends, family members and acquaintances, optimized for B2B and B2C conversations. The 40% growth that Facebook Messenger has achieved over the past one year has proved that businesses are going to see a lot of benefit from this new version. This can help you offer personalized interactions through customer service, keep you customers updated about the status of their orders and send push notifications whenever you have a new promotional offer coming up. You can even install it on your website as a live-chat box.

Podcasts

Most Americans listen to podcasts at least six times a week. Try to zero in on a few popular podcast programs such as “Wait Wait… Don’t tell me” and TED Radio Hour and leverage your ad space on them. In fact some of the big brands such as Netflix and GE have even launched their very own podcast productions that are slowly gaining popularity.

Native Advertising

During a time where ad blockers can rip your advertising goals to shreds, native advertising can work like a boon. Native ads generally appear, read and even feel like informational or non-promotional content, which is why ad blockers may not actually block their display. This is where you can benefit by making native advertising an important part of your online or digital marketing campaign in 2016. Don’t forget to include in your overall seo packages to get the desired impacts.

Personalized PPC

The internet today has more information about you than any of your close acquaintances. So far PPC was all about using the right keywords. However, this may not really work anymore, looking at all the irrelevant site visits and clicks this strategy is generating. Unless you come up with a flawless keyword strategy, you might end up spending too much on PPC. What you need to do in 2016 is to extract information about your users from Google and use it to personalize your PPC campaign for your audience. This you can do through the Customer Match system that Google launched during September 2015. You will find this even on Twitter and Facebook. It is all about connecting with the right people at the right time with the right messages.

The digital space is going to grow and innovate, amazing your minds all the time. The above trends can help you use this space in the best way possible throughout 2016.