Emerging tech in digital marketing: What's trending vs. what works?

Digital marketing is constantly evolving with new technologies. Trends and rumours about emerging technologies from the likes of Google and ChatGPT, and their effect on digital marketing, are part of a constant news stream.

But what’s actually useful? If you’re a marketer looking to go beyond basic buzzwords and select only the most useful new tools available to level up your campaigns and genuinely improve your ROI.

This article cuts through the noise to focus on what’s emerging, what works now, and what may work in the future. Instead of getting swept up in trends, let’s take a look at what’s delivering results:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Augmented Reality (AR)
• Virtual Reality (VR)
• Conversational AI & chatbots
• Shoppable media & social commerce

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

So what’s on the menu of recent AI releases for the savvy digital marketer? Here’s what matters now:

Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)
RSAs are the latest in ad creation, powered by machine learning, RSAs dynamically test headline and description combinations based on your manual input, or information gleaned from your most relevant URL.

In many ways, they are a replacement for the outdated but trusted Expanded Text Ads, which offered variation and more detail to customers as they shopped online.

Creative variations at scale
With personalisation and relevancy at the heart of digital marketing, modern producers of marketing technology are hyper-aware of the need to scale these refined changes. Tools like Meta Advantage+ and Google Performance Max auto-generate content variations to save you hours of manual input.

Predictive audience targeting
Alongside tools to assist in ad creation, you also have options to aid your audience build out. AI segments your audiences based on intent and behaviour patterns, reducing guesswork. It then builds out predictive audiences based on its findings.

AI-driven performance insights
Platforms now summarise your campaign insights (e.g., "Why did this ad underperform?") This enables quicker decision-making without digging into granular data, and can be a quick way to get a summary of updates in a split-second.

How to use it
There’s a temptation to do too little or too much with AI. Our advice? Let AI manage creative testing and audience refinement, but human input should still guide your tone, strategy, and brand consistency throughout. After all; you’re the real expert here. Use performance insights to inform any content changes, especially in content-heavy campaigns.

The trick is in the balance of it all. Let AI do some of the heavy lifting, but ensure that you retain total final control over your campaigns at every stage of your optimisation and creation.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Aside from the buzzwords of AI is its partner in evolution; AR. This niche of digital marketing is something that isn’t being explored as extensively by the majority of digital marketers. But where does its future lie?

Limitations
In our experience, novelty often drives interest in AR more than effectiveness. Most AR campaigns see short-term spikes of interaction, not sustained ROI. It’s also prone to over-engineering, resulting in audiences that either skip or abandon the novelty altogether. 

AR still needs integration into existing performance ecosystems like ecommerce to be truly useful. It’s still quite separate from most user’s lives, making it difficult to encourage first-time users to interact with it.

The future of AR in ecommerce
AR creation is already becoming more accessible via platforms like Snapchat’s Lens Studio, TikTok’s Effect House, and Meta’s Spark Studio.

Visual brands with healthy budgets to invest in this technology have had some great success with AR. IKEA has become well known for its AR app, which places furniture into customers' homes virtually. While the beauty industry is thriving with its use of AR virtual colour matching and makeup try-ons, with even highstreet brands like No7 getting in on the action.

Virtual Reality (VR)

VR offers immersive storytelling for brands willing to set budget aside for creativity, but still remains out of reach for daily digital campaigns.

Why it’s mostly hype (for now)
While VR has had several moments in the spotlight, it has significant limitations including high development costs. Any bespoke VR content is expensive and time-intensive to produce, meaning most companies don’t have the budget available to set aside.

Outside of tech-focused sub-cultures, headset ownership is niche, meaning most users don’t have the available kit to even participate. However, some VR options are being tested with mobile phones that double-up as headsets. 

From a marketing perspective, it’s difficult to measure ROI from a VR campaign, unless it is used in a broader experiential strategy.

Conversational AI & chatbots

The conversational nature of AI is largely what draws so many users to interact with it. While conversational AI isn’t new, it’s now widely adopted (and effective) for service and lead generation. There’s also the ability to personalise its tone of voice to reflect both your brand and your intended audience, making it an extension of your overall marketing and branding efforts.

Effective ways to use chatbots
We’d recommend using chatbots as a speedy way to interact with users with entry level concerns and communications. The detailed, more specific and niche contact should remain person to person, ensuring clear communication throughout. Here are a few ways to consider integrating chatbots into your brand’s online presence:

• Pre-qualifying your leads before handing over to an account manager.

• Automating simple FAQs to save time and reduce bounce.

• 24/7 customer contact points without needing live agents around the clock.

Tips
Ensure any bots hand over to real humans when required, and avoid over-automating. Chatbots may be useful, but customers are always happier to hear from a human.

Consider trialing your bots and testing multiple different providers to find your best match in quality and user experience.

Shoppable media & social commerce

It’s not hard to see why shoppable media and social commerce are such a good match for the latest digital marketing options, especially considering how quickly technology has evolved over the past 15 years.

The latest evolution involves platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest merging content and commerce.

It’s based on integrations that are built into the existing social apps, for example TikTok Shop, Instagram Checkout, and Pinterest Product Pins allow users to buy without leaving the platform.

This shortens the customer journey from content discovery to transaction in a single interface, and has a proven track record with Gen Z and Millennials, where online, mobile shopping is the norm.

Conclusion

Any new tool that you experiment with should make your marketing smarter, faster and more efficient. If it’s not helping you convert, reach new engaged audiences or scale at speed, it’s not the right match for your campaign.

But if you test these emerging tech tools with purpose, carefully measuring what matters most to your campaign and marketing goals; you’ll be on the right path with some very new technologies. If you chase performance over novelty, you’ll soon find what works, going beyond trends and headlines, uncovering innovative ways to level up against your competitors in PPC and SEO.