The Key Online Marketing Trends 2022

Table of Contents

2020 and 2021 were years with special challenges. The pandemic not only affected the private and professional lives of most people, but it also influenced online marketing. What will 2022 look like? The warriors team looks ahead and summarizes the key developments for you and ventures a look at the trends of 2022. What innovations will there be in SEO and SEA, how will web analytics develop, and what opportunities does social media marketing offer? Our best tips for you to make your online marketing fit for 2022!

Online marketing is constantly evolving, new platforms emerge, trends come and go. Some prevail, others do not. We have just celebrated our 20th anniversary as an agency and looked back on the developments we've witnessed. Today we look forward: how will online marketing change in 2022, what trends do the experts in different channels see in our team? An outlook and professional assessment.

How is the online marketing world developing in 2022?

Before we look ahead, it's worth taking a look back at 2020 and 2021. Two years in which hardly anything was as it was before. The pandemic significantly changed the private lives of most people as well as the working world. The way many teams work, for example, or the demand for certain products and services. We now have almost two years of experience on how our industry and our clients' industries have changed due to Corona. And since the pandemic will also impact the coming year, we can use these insights for our planning and our online marketing strategy for 2022.

Especially in uncertain times, reliable data is invaluable. Those who conducted correct tracking and professional web analytics in 2020 and 2021, observed their industry and analyzed their target group's behavior, are better prepared for 2022 than competitors lacking these figures and insights. This also includes having a sense of how potential customers want to be addressed during such a challenging time. What is important to your target audience? What values, needs, and questions do they have? This knowledge is invaluable for online marketing. That’s why the guideline for 2022 remains: “Data driven marketing” is a key to success.

Another trend that will continue: people expect personal outreach instead of anonymous mass communication. This applies to newsletters, as well as social media, SEA, or SEO. Since not everyone can be addressed individually, this means precise segmentation, accurate targeting, and most importantly, clearly defined target groups and customer journeys. What do users need at what time? It's less about the pure sale than building trust and a relationship with potential customers. Especially in a pandemic where emotional needs differ from previous years, personalization is more important than ever.

Besides, automation is becoming increasingly important: which processes can be automated or supported by automation? The focus of manual work in online marketing is increasingly shifting towards strategy - the profession is changing, and the demands on online marketers are rising. Interdisciplinary knowledge and an eye for the bigger picture are now almost prerequisites for successful online marketing work. It's a reason why, as a full-service agency, it’s essential for us to develop holistic strategies for our clients and work together as a team towards success. We don't see the individual disciplines as isolated but as puzzle pieces. This is not always taken for granted, but we are convinced: it’s becoming increasingly important!

Current politics and major public issues also influence content in online marketing. Customers are setting higher standards for quality and corporate values. Sustainability and inclusion are in the public focus and must be taken into account in strategy if these topics are important to your target audience. Especially polarizing questions (such as gender-neutral language - we have an answer from an SEO perspective for you) require companies to answer: what values do we stand for, what are our core messages, how do we position ourselves, and how does our target audience view it? These questions should be reflected in corporate communication and accordingly influence online marketing measures.

Just as content and processes change, our way of working is also evolving. Remote work and hybrid work models are now commonplace, and customer contacts and sales are almost exclusively online. We’re not alone in this; Digital Only Sales is one of the big trends these days. The lack of opportunities for in-person (or F2F?) contacts forces most industries to rethink - online marketing plays a crucial role in the online lead generation within the sales funnel.

Another trend, from our perspective a positive one, is Consulting Based Selling, which we also incorporate into our online marketing strategy: here too, the needs of the target group are central. The focus is less on selling a specific product or service and more on finding individual solutions for customers. In practice, this means first engaging in exchange to find out what the optimal solution for the problems or needs is. Once again: relationships and trust as a basis for sales.

SEO Trends 2022

The SEO year 2021 was shaped by numerous Google updates (Core Updates, Spam Update, etc.), primarily by the Core Web Vitals, which have played an important role in ranking since the summer. The user experience, which Google has pointed out for years as an important factor, is now representable in concrete figures and presents real challenges for many companies because not every system is equally well set up for fast performance and high user-friendliness on mobile devices. This development will continue, and systems need to keep up to respond to the rising demands.

The better Google learns to interpret search queries and the meaning behind them, the more important it is for companies to focus on the “User Intent”: what is the need or expectation behind a keyword or phrase? Is it an information need, a buying intent, or simply a desire for entertainment? Merely looking at search volume is no longer enough to qualify keywords, the intent behind them must also match the target page. What type of content and page best addresses the need - a product page, a shop category, a FAQ page, a blog post, a white paper, or a service page for example? And how do these contents and pages fit into the Customer Journey and the company's goals? Keyword-optimized landing pages are no longer enough - they must also fit the user intent.

A development we're observing and that will continue in 2022 in SEO is Google's focus on high quality and trustworthy content and publishers. Especially in potentially sensitive industries, where accurate information is particularly important (such as medicine or finance), but also in other areas, we're observing how important a strong brand is.

Technical SEO is thus not unimportant, especially in light of the Core Web Vitals it's of great importance, and the technical fundamentals, which alone had a significant positive impact in the past, are now in many cases only the foundation and no longer sufficient to significantly improve rankings across the site (apart from essential technical errors). Every company needs a holistic sustainable SEO strategy, in which technical functionality and targeted content for the target group and user intent are equally considered.

Tip: If you've already analyzed your most important keywords and planned corresponding content - consider the intent and check if the intent and content align. Plan not only technical and content search engine optimization for 2022 but also measures to strengthen your authority in your industry. Publish “thought leadership content” to demonstrate your expertise and be present on other relevant platforms as well.

SEA Trends 2022

The biggest innovation in Google Ads: Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) will be discontinued and can no longer be created from summer 2022. Instead, Google's focus is on automation. Optimization is done via algorithm, working with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Advertisers thus have significantly fewer levers for manual optimization available.

For SEA experts, this means that less and less manual work is necessary for campaign management and optimization. However, the overall strategy and alignment will become more important in this field. What is the company's goal across all online marketing measures and what role can SEA play in it? Who is the target audience, what are their intents and needs, and how can they be addressed? What does the customer journey look like? Which target pages are suitable? The connection to other online marketing channels also remains important to utilize synergy effects.

The importance of mobile access is becoming increasingly significant for SEA: all campaigns must be optimized for mobile devices. Target pages must not only be accessible on mobile but also operable. This not only prevents a high bounce rate but also a negative rating by Google.

Another current development, significant in 2022 and beyond, is the increase in voice search use. “Voice shopping” - shopping via voice-controlled inputs in devices like Alexa or Siri - may not yet be a major topic for the general public but is a future model (as predicted in a Google study back in 2019) that must be considered in SEA, as voice search works differently from traditional search.

Especially in paid online marketing channels, measurability of actions is indispensable for meaningful evaluation and derivation of measures. Current data protection regulations have changed the tracking we have known for a long time and bring new challenges. The goal must be to gather as much data as possible and integrate it into campaigns. Only if we can reliably evaluate performance and user behavior are we able to assess actions and optimize them in a targeted manner.

Tip: If you haven't considered the user journey yet, you should urgently do so and incorporate these insights into your actions. The automation of Google Ads continues to progress, and advertisers must address this topic. Those who engage early, test, and gain experience do not relinquish control to Google in one step but can learn and evaluate how successful these automated campaigns are and where room for maneuver remains.

Read more about the future of search engine marketing in this article: Search Intent & Ads Automation – the Future of Google Ads

Web Analytics Trends 2022

As previously mentioned, Data Driven Marketing remains important. The significance of professional web analytics is accordingly large: correctly set up tracking and qualified data analysis to draw the right conclusions can make a difference in using the online marketing budget efficiently. Especially in the last two years when due to the pandemic in few industries was