As part of our The State of Digital Marketing in 2024 report, we asked marketers where they’re currently spending their digital marketing budget and the channels they’re planning to spend more on for the year ahead.
We wanted to know more about the channels marketers found important in 2023 and which channels were going to become more prominent throughout 2024. Click the links below to jump to each channel:
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The key digital marketing channels marketers told us they were investing in throughout 2023 were social media advertising and email marketing. These activities were by far the most popular with the marketers we surveyed, with content marketing, SEO and PPC coming close behind.
We will take a deeper dive into each channel later in this blog, but social media has become a useful tool for connecting with both potential and existing customers and building a loyal fanbase for your business.
Not only this, social media advertising allows you to reach even more people who are just like your ideal customers.
Email marketing helps to nurture customers until they’re ready to buy from you or to keep in touch with customers who have already bought from you. This is highly valuable for upselling and cross-selling different products that your customers might be interested in or reminding them of your brand when they’ve been on your site and viewed particular products or services.
We then asked marketers which activities they’re looking to invest more in throughout 2024, just over a quarter said they’d be looking to spend more on social media ads.
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Let’s have a closer look at the channels marketers are investing in for 2024 and why you might need to consider them in your strategy too.
72% of marketers see a positive ROI from social media, so it’s not hard to see why it’s been such a popular channel this year and why so many marketers are looking to invest further in 2024. Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn are being used by consumers and businesses alike to engage with each other and buy and sell products and services. In fact, in 2023, it was predicted that spending on social media was predicted to reach over $268 billion. More people than ever are engaging with and buying from social media ads, so if it’s right for your business and is where your target audience is browsing and interacting with the brands they’re buying from, it’s certainly something you should be considering.
If you're targeting Gen Z, TikTok is a huge channel to look out for. Research from SproutSocial shows that 55% of TikTok users have bought something after seeing a brand on the app.
TikTok is a huge channel to watch out for, but make sure it's where your audience is browsing. If your audience isn't there, you'll be wasting budget that could be spent on other, more effective channels.
“Social media channels such as TikTok and Instagram are great for B2C businesses as they allow you to showcase your products and direct users directly to specific products. You can also utilise retargeting to show customers the products they’ve already viewed on your website to remind them of your brand and keep your business top of mind when they’re ready to buy. These channels also lend themselves to video content, which is something more consumers than ever are engaging with.
“In addition, channels such as LinkedIn allow you to connect with B2B audiences in a similar way. B2B is all about building relationships and LinkedIn provides the perfect platform to do this,” Connor Young, Digital Marketing Executive.
Nearly a quarter of our survey respondents said that content marketing will be a focus channel for them in 2024. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, there’s no escaping the importance of content within your digital marketing strategy. It forms the foundation of any digital marketing activity, whether it’s social media, SEO or PPC. Content should be used to tell your customers more about your business, the benefits you can provide and how you can solve their pain points. This is particularly important within the B2B market because the purchase journey tends to be much longer than B2C. Recent research from MarketingCharts found that 52% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy from a brand once they’ve read their content.
91% of businesses use video marketing to reach their target audience. Research shows that 88% of consumers have been convinced to purchase products after seeing a marketing video. Why? Video is quick and easy to consume. You can get your key messages across within seconds and show your customers exactly how your product or service works and how it can benefit them. Video is quickly becoming a popular method of consuming information across a wide range of channels so, by creating video content, you’re keeping up with exactly what your customers want. Once you have created one piece of content, you can share it on your website, across your social media channels and in your social ads. Plus, brands are moving towards more organic-feeling video ads which utilise influencers and customer content so this is certainly something to watch out for.
“We’re seeing video appear on more and more channels. Instagram is a visual channel that was traditionally focused on static images, but Instagram Reels mean that brands can now engage with consumers through video content on the platform.
“Video helps you to quickly communicate your brand message and show customers exactly how a product or service works. Video can (and should!) be used across the marketing funnel to build a relationship with potential and existing customers. More of our clients are coming to us and asking how we can utilise video within their digital marketing campaigns so this is definitely something to add to your content strategy if you want to grow your business in 2024,” Lucy Young, Client Account Manager.
Whilst 28% of the marketers we asked about the activities they’ve been running throughout 2023, only 8% said it’s something they’ll be looking to invest more in for 2024. This doesn’t mean that paid search isn’t something that businesses aren’t doing; it just doesn’t seem to be a huge priority over other channels, such as social media. Paid search can help you to take up more space in the search engine results. According to research, 50% of people between the ages of 18-34 can’t tell the difference between an ad and an organic search result on Google, so if you have the budget to invest in paid ads, it’s definitely worth doing.
Google is increasingly adding more automation to its Ads platform to help businesses manage performance. Even though more elements are being automated, it still doesn’t mean you can be completely hands-off - you’ll still need to monitor and manage your campaigns, but the smaller, more tedious and time-consuming tasks are taken care of.
Smart bidding is probably one of the biggest changes to look out for. It helps to monitor and manage your campaigns, but the smaller, more tedious and time-consuming tasks are taken care of.
Smart bidding is probably one of the biggest changes to look out for. It helps to monitor the performance of your campaigns and alter bids accordingly.
“Paid Search complements other digital marketing activities and ensures that your brand appears at the top of the search results when your potential customers are searching online for your products and services.
“If you’ve put a lot of work into your SEO strategy and local SEO strategy, PPC will ensure you’re taking up more space on the search results pages and help drive more traffic to your website.
“Be aware of automations on the Google Ads platform and how they can help you to drive the performance of your campaigns but be careful not to completely rely on them. You’ll still need to check in on campaigns on a regular basis to make sure they’re delivering the right results for your business within your budget,” Mark Skinner, Director.
29% of brands said they’re already investing in SEO, and a further 10% said it’s something they want to invest more in throughout 2024. Many brands can forget about or get frustrated with SEO, and it can fall down the priority list. However, it’s a highly effective strategy for your business. It’s a long-term strategy, but once you hit the top positions, SEO will continue to pay dividends for a long time in the future. Statistics show that organic search drives 53% of all traffic to a website, which is more than any other channel. So, it’s definitely something you need to be looking into if you’re not already.
Google’s focus on user experience is going to continue to be prevalent into and beyond 2024. Google wants to provide its users with the very best experience - this is part of the reason it dominates the search engine market.
There has been an increased push for the web pages that show in the search results to provide answers and meet search intent rather than just deliver a web page that doesn’t help searchers answer a question or solve a problem.
Making sure that your website provides the best experience and the information users need will help with your rankings in 2024 and beyond. Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing!
“Remember that SEO is a long-term strategy. Whilst you can make a few small changes and see an uplift in rankings after a month or so, to see a real uplift from SEO you need to have a proper strategy in place for 6-12 months.
“Once you’ve spent time creating content for your site and optimising it, the work will continue to pay off for years to come as long as you maintain your website and add new content on a regular basis.
“Whilst keywords are still going to be important and you’ll still need to create content that answers searcher’s queries, user experience is also becoming extremely important. In the past, you would have been able to upload a page, stuff it full of the same keyword, and rank highly in the search engines, now this content will be penalised. You need to really think about the keywords you’re optimising for and how your content will meet a searcher’s needs. This will be key to SEO success in 2024 and beyond,” Kezia Humphries, Content Executive.
Nearly half of all the marketers we surveyed said they were already investing in email and another 8% said they will be spending more in 2024.
Email is a hugely important tool across both B2C and B2B businesses. It can help you to build ongoing relationships with your potential and current customers and keep your business top of mind when they’re ready to buy.
According to Hubspot there are 4 billion daily email users. That’s a huge number of people to tap into and over 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.
So there’s no doubt that utilising email marketing within your digital marketing strategy is going to be important.
Personalisation will be key to email marketing in 2024. Segment your email lists and make sure you’re sending highly targeted messages to your target audience.
You’ll have to dive a little deeper into your data and understand your customer’s behaviour to get this right and it might take some refining. Being able to send abandoned cart emails, automated email journeys and emails that include products customers have already bought or might complement their existing purchase can really help to drive conversions.
The best bit is, apart from the time involved in setting up these campaigns, email is a fairly low-cost channel.
“We always highly recommend email marketing in some form to our clients. It’s an essential part of the marketing funnel and should be used to engage with both prospective and current clients.
“Understanding when someone on your email list has visited a particular product or page and having an email journey to lead them further down the funnel to purchase will help you to drive conversions for your business. Similarly, abandoned cart emails or ‘we thought you might also like’ emails can remind customers of your brand and push them to finally convert.
“However, remember that customers now expect personalisation from the emails that land in their inbox. Think of the number of emails you receive on a daily basis…how are you going to make sure that your brand stands out and grabs their attention?” Amy Ward, Director.
When choosing which digital marketing channels to invest in for 2024, knowing more about the current trends and what you need to look out for will help you to plan your strategy, you’ll also need to know who your customers are and which channels they’re using to research the products and services they’re interested in buying.
This will help you to get the most from your budget and ensure your activities will be as successful as possible. For example, social media and utilising TikTok might work well for one business but it might not work for your business.
Success in digital marketing is all about finding the channels that work for you and your audience and building a strategy that works for your business.
Download our whitepaper The State of Digital Marketing in 2024 to find out more about how brands are investing in digital marketing channels for the year ahead.
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