Last year, digital ad spending in Canada eclipsed traditional spending as companies catch up with the changing ways that Canadians are consuming media—and that’s only the beginning.
As we move into the second half of 2020, here are five digital marketing trends you’ll need to know.
1. Canadians are mobile-first consumers
According to reports from eMarketer, mobile now makes up nearly 1/3 of all media time. As we move away from desktops and laptops towards a greater reliance on smartphones, advertisers need to follow.
Even beyond where they’re putting their ad dollars, companies need to make sure that their websites are mobile optimized—especially for e-commerce.
2. Online customer care is crucial
Consumers have higher expectations for digital customer service today than they did a year ago and are choosing to engage with companies on social messaging channels for customer support over traditional channels (i.e. phone and email). But the experience matters more than the channel.
While 32% of consumers expect a response from companies on social media in under two hours, 31% expect a response in under 30 minutes. Compared to the average 10-hour response time for most companies, it’s clear that there’s a big gap in meeting the needs of the consumer.
Learn more about the difference between online customer service and customer care.
3. E-commerce is evolving
As more and more people choose to work from home, companies need to adapt to changes in consumer behaviour by stepping up their efforts in online product discovery and website user experience. Here’s what you can do:
Website user experience testing
When it comes to e-commerce, the ability for consumers to seamlessly navigate and interact with the website can make or break a sale—and impact your reputation. User experience testing (UX testing) will help uncover problems and opportunities to improve.
Explore new advertising options
Consider it online window shopping. Leverage digital channels and ad formats that are tailored to helping showcase products and drive consumers to your website.
Adapt to consumer trends
Times are changing and your product line needs to keep up. Whether it’s face masks or curb-side pickup, adding new products and services is key to staying relevant.
4. Rising expectations for websites
It takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for people to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they’ll leave or stay. Would your website hold up? While the design of your homepage is what drives them to stay (94% of first impressions are design related), their experience on the site is just as important:
39% of people will stop engaging with content when the images won’t load or take too long to load
Mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a task if a website isn’t optimized for mobile
55% of people would deter from a form if it included an automatic email subscription
When visitors to your website struggle to navigate your website or complete a goal (e.g. finding a specific product or piece of information), their frustration is guaranteed to impact your bottom line.
5. Digital video reigns supreme
The time spent consuming digital video compared to TV is higher in Canada than in any other country, due in part to Canadian’s heavy usage of YouTube and Netflix. So it comes as no surprise that companies are moving more of their marketing budget into the digital video bucket.
Digital video doesn’t just mean uploading your TV spot to YouTube, advertisers and content creators need to be ready with mobile-optimized videos that are produced specifically for digital channels. The dimensions, orientation and even calls to action are different for YouTube vs. Facebook. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to digital video.