Digital marketing took a leap forward during the pandemic when many brands faced challenges. Businesses were forced to close and only interacted with customers online. With all its devastating effects the pandemic was a blessing in disguise for the digital marketing industry.

Although digital marketing is on the rise, there are still some challenges marketers face as the industry matures. 

Here are some of those challenges we think are most pertinent. 

1. Predicting Google algorithm changes

This has proved to be a challenge even in the years that passed since. In reality, we can’t fully understand every part of Google’s search algorithm. Only Google has a secret insight into how Google works.

While perfection is hard to reach due to the challenges that come with algorithm changes there are a few tips you can use to keep up.

Here are a few tips:

• Stay informed through blogs and social media platforms for any algorithm changes
• Keep up using quality content
• Create a flexible recovery strategy to help your business cope with future updates

DID YOU KNOW? Google rolls out thousands of updates every year and most of them go unnoticed.

2. Privacy & data sharing challenges

It’s no secret that data is gold in the digital marketing landscape. But with the rise of privacy laws, we need to adapt to new ways of collecting and processing data.

This means that as a digital marketer in 2022 you need to be aware of what you can and cannot do in terms of personal privacy.

According to Sheer ID, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires marketers to proactively ask for consent before collecting or tracking a user under any identity, even an IP address.

TIP: The solution is to create a personal promotion that gives buyers explicit control over when they share data and interact with the brand!

The most important question to ask yourself right now is how is your brand ensuring digital privacy for customers, leads, and website visitors. The era of ignorance is gone where brands abused and manipulated data to their liking that’s why it’s important to stay informed in this area.

So how is this a challenge to digital marketers? Well if I’m being honest most marketers spend most of their time trying to catch up with trends that they forget to take time to learn about what the customers want right now and more than ever the digital world has been desperate to be heard about their privacy concerns.

3. Generating Leads

My prediction is that we will witness fierce competition this year and beyond as more and more businesses try to assert their dominance online. This will be a big challenge for marketers as they will not be able to afford to waste time or money on content or keywords that are too broad or poorly targeted.

According to Neil Patel, “Stop Targeting Keywords and Start Targeting Customers”.

Let us not forget that the foundation of finding the right audience is a buyer persona. A buyer persona alone though is not enough. 

Luckily now we have social media and other platforms online where we can learn about our customers in real-time by polling them and keeping track of all their reviews and feedback. Only after we know our audience can we target the right keywords and stand a chance of generating quality leads

Content is the fuel for your lead generation efforts.

Conclusion

We have to embrace that we can never reach perfection in this unpredictable technological world. What’s important is to stay true to the digital culture and your brand values equally. You can also set yourself apart from the pool by keeping yourself informed with new digital marketing trends in 2022.

And if you wish to become a sought after, internationally-certified digital marketer, get qualified with the DMI Pro professional diploma program.

Written by Our Guest Blogger

Timothy Makaza

Head of Digital Marketing at Uncommon.org