In the fields of marketing, e-commerce and SEO, there’s often a tendency to announce a whole bunch of new things every year, which aren’t always what they seem.
But in 2023, it’s fair to say that there’s no shortage of new developments in marketing, and especially in digital marketing, to such an extent that they could well revolutionize communication and e-commerce as we know it today, and very quickly.
Influenced by new technologies, business trends and socio-economic contexts, let’s find out what new developments will shape the marketing landscape in 2023. 
AI
Let’s not prolong the suspense any longer: AI, with software such as ChatGPT and Midjourney at the forefront, is of course THE sensation that dominated the headlines at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.
If the marketing applications of artificial intelligence were already well known to insiders, the gigantic communication blows launched around the new software built around AI managed to reach the general public in record time, turning the heads of more than one content creator with almost infinite possibilities.
Whether it’s generating visuals, finding technical information, chatbots, analyzing and predicting data, creating scripts or even building an e-commerce site from scratch, “consumer” AI will undoubtedly be one of the most influential factors in marketing and communication, both digital and traditional, in the months and years to come.
Ethics and social-ecological responsibility
Some would say that CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) considerations, which encompass corporate commitments to ecology, ethics or equality, are nothing new in the commercial landscape.
Indeed, we’ve been talking about these elements as instruments in a company’s marketing toolbox for several years now.
But it’s really since last year and the widespread awareness of climate and ethical issues generated by a number of significant events (Covid, geopolitical tensions, greenwashing scandals…) that ethical and socio-ecological considerations on the part of consumers and companies alike have really reached the stage of maturity.
This implies that consumers are more aware of these issues, and that companies are increasingly honest in their CSR approach, whether voluntarily or forced to do so by increasingly concrete socio-ecological regulations.
That’s why communications (and business models!) that seriously and transparently integrate concepts such as the circular economy, positive impact and social inclusion in 2023 will benefit from special emphasis, and will be able to attract increasingly qualified prospects.
User experience first
Let’s turn now to SEO and search engine optimization.
Although this discipline is not an exact science, so changeable are its criteria and applied largely by robots and other algorithms, certain factors tend to influence more than others the way in which a website is visible on the web.
In 2023, this has never been truer than for the user experience.
Having a website or e-commerce store that delivers a quality user experience will therefore be far more interesting from an SEO point of view than a site that is simply optimized for keywords, meta tags and other target queries.
Google (to name but one) is increasingly focused on directing its daily users to content that is ever more relevant to them, and this involves a number of criteria that the search engine pays particular attention to.
These include: site structure and ergonomics (how easy and understandable it is to navigate a site), social proof (offers validated by customer reviews), the quality of content present (factual, well-referenced articles, inbound and outbound links to and from serious sources), the bounce rate (percentage of unique visitors who leave the site without going beyond the home page) or the interactions made on the site (several pages consulted, information gathered, conversions made…).
Streamfluencers
While the hunting ground for e-tailers in terms of influencers has hitherto been mainly on Instagram or Youtube (media outlets that mostly offer off-line content to their various communities), a new trend seems to be strongly emerging around influencers who offer live content on dedicated platforms, or “streamfluencers”.
Like Twitch, streaming platforms have experienced meteoric growth in recent years, particularly since the Covid crisis.
More and more profits are generated by broadcasting ads or product placements directly on content creators’ live streams.
This content is watched on average 27% longer than deferred content, and enables direct and immediate interaction between the creator and his audience, thus increasing the trust and qualification of prospects.
Between streaming platforms and live broadcasts on already well-established networks (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok and consors), 2023 thus sounds the trend for “streamfluencers” to highlight products and services.
Mobile marketing
It’s no longer a scoop: for several years now, the majority of online traffic and purchases have been generated on mobile devices, accounting for over 65% of total online activity by April 2023, according to SimilarWeb.
While this reality is now well known, the efforts of e-tailers and other website owners are still largely focused on desktop traffic (see article “How to optimize your Prestashop e-commerce site for mobile?”).
The creation of advertising campaigns and other communication tools tailor-made for mobile, in terms of format, options and performance, is therefore something that can really make the difference within an omnichannel marketing strategy in 2023, in order to regain significant market share.
Customization
In a world where attention is the main currency of exchange, and products and services are standardized to the extreme, integrating elements of personalization into your marketing strategy and/or business model is a way of ensuring the interest of your prospects.
Whether this means displaying certain textual or visual elements likely to appeal more to one segment of visitors than another, tailoring landing pages and emails or recommending personalized products, getting your potential customer out of the “mass” of Internet users is an increasingly winning strategy, This is especially true now that AI is becoming more and more widely available, and in the very near future it will be possible to differentiate the display of an e-commerce site in real time according to the known data of a particular visitor, so as to offer a personalized experience down to the smallest detail.
TikTok
Whether you’re a fan of the application or not, in the space of 5 years Tiktok has become one of the world’s most popular social networks, with 1.7 billion active users and a meteoric rise.
Until now, this colossal potential market wasn’t necessarily of interest to all e-tailers and online content creators, due to the low average age of Tiktok users. However, the application’s exponential increase in market share among increasingly varied (and therefore older) populations means that it is now attractive to more and more sectors.
By 2023, Tiktok will have become a digital marketing must-have for certain markets, but also a player to be watched very closely by players in markets not (yet) concerned.
A growing need to diversify marketing channels
The above examples are just a sample of the main trends that are impacting and will impact the marketing strategies of web players in 2023.
Now more than ever, with innovations such as consumer AI and applications such as Tiktok whose rise to prominence is unprecedented in the history of the internet, it’s time to keep abreast of the latest developments likely to reshuffle the cards in online commerce, and to adopt a multi-channel marketing strategy.
Using precise, predictive analysis tools, but also taking the lead in technologies that will undoubtedly find their way to marketing professionals in the near future (such as augmented/virtual reality or the Metaverse) can give the most far-sighted a decisive edge over their competitors.
I’ve been an ecommerce expert for 15 years, and I’ll be happy to help you create and develop your ecommerce site, as well as implement your communication strategy.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any special requests or questions you may have.
