At the beginning of 2014, we rounded up some trends and predictions for the year in digital marketing and ecommerce.
I thought I’d dip back in and take a look at some of the most incipient trends with some simple Google searches.
NB: This is an analysis by Ben Davis, a member of the eConsultancy editorial team.
Do have a go at similar searches yourself and see what else you can dig up.
Digital transformation/omnichannel/digitisation
'Omnichannel' and 'digital transformation' have both seen increased search numbers over 12 months from September 2013.
'Omnichannel' is most popular, the word describing the idealised state of every marketing and service channel being interchangeable.
Arguably, 'omnichannel', which is a term that seems to get more pickup in the US (some in the UK seeing it as a buzzword) has broader relevance than 'digitisation' or 'digital transformation' which are phrases specifically relating to an organisational journey.
Omnichannel may have been searched for as a more confusing term, of course.
'Omnichannel' had approx. 12,100 monthly searches in July 2014 according to Google AdWords.
Customer experience
Here's one term that's most definitely in the ascendancy. As the driver of organisational change, the customer experience is becoming synonymous with the brand.
'Customer experience' had approx. 12,100 monthly searches in July 2014 according to Google AdWords.
Real time bidding/programmatic advertising/native advertising/mobile advertising
Advertising is changing rapidly, though it's only 'programmatic advertising' and 'native advertising' that have seen searches increase over the 12 months since September 2013.
'Real time bidding' has fallen off slightly and 'mobile advertising' is seeing the same volume of searches as it was a year ago.
The incredible spike in 'native advertising' searches likely corresponds to Stephen Colbert's skewering of the topic on his US TV show.
'Programmatic advertising' had approx. 2,900 searches in July 2014 according to Google AdWords.
Real time bidding/programmatic advertising
Here's a close up of that RTB and programmatic comparison to show you how 'programmatic advertising' seems to have been popularised.
Content curation/content production/owned media
These terms come from an incredibly popular area of marketing - content marketing. However, there's not much change to see here.
A slight increase in 'content curation' searches and a decrease in searches for 'owned media' suggests what some see as the decreasing relevance of the paid/owned/earned model.
'Owned media' had approx. 1,600 searches in July 2014 according to Google AdWords.
Service delivery/digital first/mobile first
Three fairly static search terms here when it comes to volume. It's likely that while we may see more and more digital first and mobile first solutions, these have been talked about in the literature for the last few years and therfore search volumes have not been seen to increase.
'mobile first' had approx. 8,100 searches in July 2014 according to Google AdWords.
NB: This is an analysis by Ben Davis, a member of the eConsultancy editorial team. It originally appeared on the blog here.
NB2: Search image via Shutterstock.