As we look back at 2022 and ahead to 2023, we see accelerating marketing trends from new marketing technology (MarTech) platforms to shifting consumer behaviors and expectations. Marketing teams are seeing the need to adapt their strategies to meet new demands in the market.
Credera’s MarTech leaders see three top trends that are expected to shift the MarTech landscape in 2023. Our leaders agree that as marketing’s influence continues to grow, more companies will be leveraging technology to gain insights, automate processes, and personalize their customers’ experiences through the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), adapting their data and governance strategies, and the continued collaboration between marketing and technology.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence
One of the biggest marketing trends for 2023 is the rise of AI. Credera’s chief digital officer, Phil Lockhart, recently attended the Consumer Technology Association’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and witnessed how AI is entering the appliance space, hotels, healthcare, and more.
“I’m impressed with AI’s growth within various industries and optimistic about its use in MarTech this coming year,” Lockhart said.
In MarTech, AI opens a wealth of possibilities, from intelligent content creation to search engine optimization (SEO) to advertising technology (AdTech). With the recent release of ChatGPT, the most flexible AI language processor to date, an expedited shift toward dynamic marketing content and increased optimization of customer data is expected to push machine learning capabilities more prominently into the MarTech ecosystem. From a marketing standpoint, this kind of technology is revolutionary for the customer experience.
One example of ChatGPT in the marketing space is the use of a chatbot to facilitate customer questions that may be more complex than a simple FAQ solution. According to Gartner, “Organizations report a reduction of up to 70% in call, chat, and/or email inquiries after implementing a virtual customer assistant.”
ChatGPT’s use in chatbots will not only be able to answer customer questions, but also create evolving self-service guides to ensure customers have access to the most frequent questions.
“Envisioning the possibilities of how ChatGPT intersects along an omni-channel customer journey is groundbreaking to customer experience,” said Mitch McFarland, Credera’s customer experience lead. “This technology is creating use cases that were never considered before and envisioning the possibilities is exciting.”
Machine learning can further optimize customer segment creation, enhance identity resolution capabilities, and create more targeted next best actions.
“The rise of AI has made it easier than ever to produce content,” said Hannah Walsh, Credera’s intelligent content lead. “We expect to see more AI-driven content creation tools, and focus will shift toward learning how to effectively leverage AI to create quality, scalable content.”
To prepare for this new wave of automation, companies must ensure they have proper infrastructure, strong feedback loops, an understanding of vulnerabilities in the technology, and a plan to educate customers on its use. AI technology is not a new conversation in 2023, however, as its capabilities grow quickly and marketers look to increase efficiency, it will certainly become a staple in marketing departments globally.
Strengthened Data Governance & Privacy Regulations
Marketing teams are evolving how they work with customer data and prioritizing privacy compliance due to increasing data privacy regulations and consumer privacy demands. These regulations require significant changes to existing data collection and storage practices and place a greater emphasis on the need for first-party data.
Our single customer view lead, David Niepel, said, “Data privacy and transparency will remain top of mind for consumers, and in turn, remain a key component in each organization's first-party data strategy.” With the deprecation of third-party cookies, organizations are forced to drive meaningful data insights using first- and zero-party data collection.
Data clean rooms are also a rising priority for marketers in 2023 to support key advertising activities such as targeting, campaign planning, measurement, and customer insights in the new AdTech and privacy landscape.
“Data clean rooms are not the only solution marketers should consider, however, they should be high on the priority list for marketers to futureproof advertising and unlock valuable new use cases,” said AdTech lead Alyssa Furth.
Data clean rooms can be especially useful for companies that do not have much first-party data, such as consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, by providing a secure way to tap into second-party data from retailers, publishers, or other data providers to gain greater insight into their customers and make more informed marketing decisions.
The Powerful Collaboration Between Marketing & Technology
Another trend from 2022 that is being accelerated into 2023 is the rise of collaboration between marketing and technology. Data teams and marketing teams speak different languages and often do not understand each other’s challenges.
To combat this, “marketers are taking a more technical approach and building their data skills to bridge that gap, bringing the two teams closer than ever before,” said SEO lead Kyle Wahlquist. These two teams can effectively integrate data into MarTech platforms and then share insights to inform marketing strategy and tactics.
Campaign automation is one example of how technical teams can work with marketing teams to set up and maintain automated marketing campaigns, such as email marketing or social media advertising.
“Companies are no longer viewing automation as email only, but branching out to include things like mobile, social, and geolocation strategies. Automation ensures a unified view of the customer and a coordinated approach to marketing to them,” said marketing automation lead Deni Viggiano. Without collaboration between technology and marketing, automation wouldn’t be possible, leaving marketing resources to continue with tedious campaign creation tasks.
As previously mentioned, compliance and security can also benefit from interwoven technology and marketing teams. Technical teams can work with marketing teams to ensure data is handled and stored in a compliant and secure manner, and in accordance with data privacy regulations and company policies. This in turn provides the marketing team with the infrastructure and data they need to make informed decisions. If the teams remain disjointed and uncollaborative, privacy and security will be inconsistent and ineffective.
How We Can Help
At Credera, we can help organizations navigate these 2023 marketing trends across the MarTech architecture by supplying solutions and services that support the rise of artificial intelligence, data governance, and marketing and tech collaboration.
We offer MarTech strategies that enable teams to work together more seamlessly and cross-functionally, as well as partnerships with AI-powered solutions for data analysis, personalization, and automation. Additionally, we provide expertise and support for data governance and privacy including data clean room implementation, which will help ensure compliance and protect sensitive customer information.
“As we enter 2023, we are excited for the marketing technology industry to evolve and improve the entire experience of the customer from beginning to end,” said Lockhart.
By capitalizing on these solutions and services, organizations can stay ahead of the curve on the latest marketing trends and position businesses for success in the years to come.
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