It’s necessary to know the digital advertising and marketing developments of 2022 (listed here are ours). But the factor is, from a small enterprise standpoint, a few of them are directional developments that point out the place “mainstream” advertising and marketing is headed, however not the place mainstream is at the moment at.
I’m you, NFTs.
NFTs ☝️
Now, a portion of your technique ought to embrace preparation for the longer term and even some early adoption, however you additionally have to know what’s going to convey you outcomes now.
Like, this yr.This month.Maybe even this week
Which is why I’ve written this information on the 19 greatest advertising and marketing methods for 2022—based mostly on the realities of at the moment— that may convey outcomes now, for any enterprise.
The 19 greatest advertising and marketing methods for 2022
Here’s your desk of contents:
To soar to a subject:
To soar to a method:
The greatest paid promoting methods for 2022
It ought to be no shock right here that every of those paid media methods is targeted on privateness. But don’t overlook concerning the tried-and-true greatest practices right here, like having a powerful account construction and utilizing a cross-channel technique (not simply multi-channel).
1. Use Facebook lead advertisements to gather zero-party information
Third-party cookies, that are of their last days, enable advert platforms to string numerous totally different information collectively into insights—each in your viewers or to supply customized audiences to focus on—with respect to their hobbies, occupation, earnings, marital standing, inside ideas and extra. Just kidding on that final one (however am I?).
And if you happen to’re considering hey, that sounds rather a lot like Facebook advert concentrating on choices, you’re proper.
This is info folks give out of their public profiles and exercise. And as such, Facebook lead advertisements—the place the shape can auto-populate based mostly on the person’s profile, and the place a person would possibly really feel extra inclined to present out that info—are instantly extra interesting now.
When given straight by the person, it’s referred to as zero-party information—the purest and most pristine information in all of the land.
You received’t understand how a lot you don’t learn about your viewers till third-party cookies are gone, and by then it will likely be too late.
So begin collecting first [and zero]-party data now. To use Facebook lead ads in this manner in 2022:
You can also use our Free Facebook Ads Performance Grader to find and fix missed opportunities.
2. Create custom Facebook Page audiences
Here’s another underdog strategy.
When creating a custom audience in Facebook Ads, you can target users based on their interaction with your sources (like your website, customer list, app activity, offline activity) after clicking an ad, or with Facebook sources (your videos, lead forms, Facebook Page, and more).
Historically, “Your Sources” has been the popular pick, but with the Facebook pixel losing power and website data losing accuracy, “Facebook Sources” are coming in for the privacy-friendly Facebook ad targeting win.
Remember, iOS users can prevent Facebook from tracking them outside of the app, so the data you see in Ads Manager is incomplete. And incomplete data can actually be worse than no data at all if it leads you in the wrong direction.
Incomplete data can be worse than no data at all if it leads you in the wrong direction.
Your best bet with Facebook advertising this year is to switch over to Facebook’s sources.
You can even retarget users who have filled out your lead form. But the Facebook Page activity option in particular is key. Here, you can treat Page visitors just as you would treat your website visitors, serving them particular ads based on whether they:
- Liked, followed, or engaged with your Page
- Engaged with any post or ad
- Clicked any CTA button
- Sent you a message
- Saved your Page or any post.
To get started, jump straight to strategy #3 in this post on lesser-used Facebook ad strategies that will give you a competitive edge and then start driving traffic to your Facebook Page.
3. Prep for expanded textual content advertisements takeoff
The ETD for ETAs is June 30, 2022 ✈️
After today, you won’t be able to edit or create new expanded textual content advertisements (ETAS), and responsive search advertisements (RSAs) would be the solely normal search advert you possibly can create. We cover the story here.
What this does not mean is that you should stop creating ETAs now and wait until June to run responsive search ads (RSAs).
What this does mean is that you should do these things now:
- Test and create ETAs that you want to continue running after June 30 (they’ll still run, you will just only be able to pause or run them).
- Make use of the granular reporting with ETAs while you can.
- Start running RSAs now so you can set new benchmarks.
- Learn how to pin strategically
To create ETAs, start a new responsive search ad and click where it says “Use expanded text ads instead.”
Now is not the time to sit back and watch! Prepare for the sunsetting of ETAs so you can do that when they take off for good. We cover all the ways to prepare for the sunsetting of ETAs here.
Now is not the time to sit back and watch. Put the work in now so you can do that when ETAs take off for good.
4. Run Performance Max campaigns
Performance Max campaigns jumped out of beta and into the hands of all advertisers at the end of 2021. These campaign types offer the automation benefits of Smart campaigns, the dynamic nature of responsive ads, and the multi-placement targeting of social ads—all in one.
The reason why they will be important to familiarize with in 2022 is that Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be folded into Performance Max this year (not to mention the direction we’re inevitably headed with automation in Google Ads).
With Performance Max, you provide one set of assets (images, videos, logos, headlines, etc.) and Google will mix and match those assets to show ads across all of its channels, including Search (which includes Shopping and Local), Display, Discover, Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
To get started, use Google’s Performance Max campaign guide (which we included in our round-up of the very best Google Ads coaching programs for all ranges).
Are you making errors in Google Ads? Find out with the free Google Ads Grader.
5. Improve conversion monitoring with Google Ads enhanced conversions
You can set up enhanced conversions manually with Tag Manager or sitewide tagging, or via API. Google provides instructions here.
The greatest search engine optimization methods for 2022
Just some basic housekeeping: Creating helpful, E-A-T, and fresh content that answers your audience’s questions is and always will be the best SEO strategy. Period.
6. MUMify your content
In May of 2021, Google introduced us to MUM—Multitask Unified Model. The purpose of this search expertise is to scale back the variety of queries an individual has to carry out. So as a substitute of performing a number of searches, like:
- “How to prepare to hike mount fuji,” after which
- “Mount adams vs mount fuji hiking,” after which
- “Weather in mt fuji in the fall”
…an individual can ask Google a query in the identical approach they’d ask a human.
“I’ve hiked Mt. Adams and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?”
Google will then construct a outcome that solutions all of that, which might be comprised of various sources and media codecs. On prime of that, MUM is aware of 75 totally different languages, so if the very best reply to that query is in Russian, Google can now join that info to the searcher.
Pretty loopy, proper?
And completely not one thing that may occur in 2022.
So why is it on this publish? Because for MUM means following the identical search engine optimization greatest practices we’ve harped on for years. So mainly, that is only a cool new approach to let you know to:
- Write long-form content material that targets long-tail query key phrases. No, don’t goal complicated questions just like the one above. These key phrase analysis instruments will allow you to.
- Organize your content material. Organize your H2s and H3s accordingly so Google can floor outcomes (extra on this shortly).
- Diversify your content material. MUM can supply solutions from textual content, photos, movies, and extra, so create totally different media for evergreen subjects that may begin constructing site visitors and authority now.
- Use structured information. Schema markup helps Google to obviously perceive the knowledge and knowledge varieties you’re offering.
- Optimize for [ 😬 cringe 😬 cringe 😬 cringe] voice search. I do know I do know. It’s been in each advertising and marketing developments record for the previous three years. But it’s true. No one goes to sort that lengthy query above right into a search bar. They’re going to talk it. So you’ve acquired to optimize for voice search.
7. Video schema
Speakin’ o’ schema…Google dropped two new video schema markup varieties in 2021: Click markup and Seek markup—the previous of which lets you create and talk your individual timestamps in your movies to Google Search outcomes.
You’ve most likely seen Clip markup in motion if you happen to’ve Googled a “how to” question and acquired a loopy particular video outcome like under:
We know that YouTube is among the hottest social media platforms. We know that video is the best way to go. And we all know that schema is MUM-friendly. So video schema ought to be in your 2022 search engine optimization technique. No ifs, ands, or buts. (You may need to try these YouTube search engine optimization suggestions.)
8. Optimize for passage rating (type of)
This comes from Brian Deans’ Guide to SEO in 2022 and honest warning: It’s one more cool new 2022 approach of telling you to do one thing we’ve been telling you to do for years.
With the passage rating replace, Google can now think about not simply the relevancy of a web page—but in addition a piece of content material inside a web page—to a given question. So the entire common Google rating components nonetheless apply, however your pages now have much more alternatives to indicate up on the nice previous [and by old I mean at the leading edge of search technology] first web page of Google.
The greatest approach to optimize for passage rating? Use your H2s and H3s to prepare your publish into crystal clear sections. Each of your H2s ought to cowl a particular subtopic (which ought to occur naturally in case your H2s are totally different long-tail variations on the goal key phrase).
Illustration impressed by Brian’s.
For instance, in my publish on How to Get on the First Page of Google, I’ve a number of separate sections, indicated by H2s (not all proven within the illustration above).
- Why is the primary web page of Google necessary
- Benefits of getting on the primary web page of Google
- How to make use of your web site to get on the primary web page of Google
- How to make use of your enterprise listings to get on the primary web page of Google
- How to get on the primary web page of Google [recap]
So as a substitute of simply having only one H2 with 10 H3s, I’ve 5 H2s with 10 H3s. Not solely does this give me a number of alternatives to place the key phrase in an H2, but it surely additionally 1) makes the content material extra digestible and a pair of) creates these discreet sections Brian recommends.
If you already know search engine optimization fundamentals, it is best to already be doing this. But you would possibly need to do an search engine marketing audit to seek out alternatives to do that elsewhere.
MUM and passage rating simply give us cool new methods of telling you to do issues we’ve been harping on for years.
9. Technical search engine optimization [the easy kind]
The content material facet of search engine optimization is supreme, however with the web page expertise replace and mobile-first indexing of 2021 and the instruments we’ve accessible at the moment, there’s lots you are able to do by yourself when it comes to technical search engine optimization. If you’re unfamiliar, a brand new set of rating components referred to as Core Web Vitals got here out final yr with the web page expertise replace.
Core Web Vitals in plain English:
- LCP (Largest contentful paint) = How lengthy it takes the biggest content material asset on a web page to load.
- FID (First enter delay) = How lengthy it takes for your website to register a person’s first faucet or click on in your web page.
- CLS (Cumulative structure shift) = How steady the web page is (i.e. are there any sudden actions on the web page like parts shifting round if you pinch/zoom/scroll, disruptive popups, and many others.).
You can use Google Search Console to examine your Core Web Vitals. Many of the suggestions for enhancing your Core Web Vitals would require a developer, however..
Here are some technical search engine optimization optimizations for 2022 that you are able to do by yourself:
- Compress pictures utilizing a free compressor instrument (Tinypng.com is my absolute favourite).
- Resize your pictures so they don’t seem to be wider than the utmost column width of your website.
- Implement remark moderation for your weblog to stop spammy hyperlinks.
You also can use the free LOCALiQ website grader to establish extra alternatives to enhance your web site’s technical and content material search engine optimization.
Get your own SEO report (social and ads too!) with the free LOCALiQ website grader.
The greatest social media advertising and marketing methods for 2022
I’ve one v. particular social media technique (if you happen to’re ecommerce), sandwiched by two v. broad social media methods to prioritize in your record this yr. You can discover the entire record of 2022 social media marketing trends here.
10. Social native search engine optimization
The factor concerning the huge audiences on social media is that they’re not simply audiences. They’re additionally posting their very own content material, ceaselessly rising the scale of the whirlpool your content material can get misplaced in. Organic attain simply retains getting additional and additional, effectively, out of attain.
We actually have a whole course dedicated to local social media marketing however listed here are some starter suggestions:
- Treat your profiles like listings (Facebook particularly—it’s one of many prime on-line enterprise directories).
- Add your enterprise to Facebook Places so that you (and others) can tag your location in posts.
- Use location-based hashtags on Instagram and Twitter.
- Share native information articles on Facebook.
- Share business insights from influencers in your geographic neighborhood on LinkedIn.
Facebook is correct up there with Google as one of many greatest native enterprise directories.
11. Shoppable stay streams
Now this is among the 2022 digital marketing trends that may really feel too far off to you, but it surely’s not. Not solely is stay streamed content material rising, but it surely generates 27% extra minutes of watch time per viewing than on-demand video. On prime of that, Instagram—which already revolutionized the web buying expertise with shoppable posts, Stories, and Reels—launched shoppable Lives in September, making this advertising and marketing technique simpler than ever.
To create an Instagram Live Shopping session, right here’s what to do:
- Set up a Facebook or Instagram store and allow Instagram checkout.
- Make positive merchandise are in your catalog three days earlier than you go stay.
- Tap on “Your Story,” choose “Live,” after which discover the buying bag icon.
- Add merchandise out of your catalog.
- When you’re prepared, go stay after which use that very same icon to pin gadgets to your video.
- Save your stay video—customers can nonetheless store from the saved model
You can also watch Instagram’s video tutorial here.
This functionality is being developed on Facebook and is already accessible for YouTube Live. And this isn’t simply for huge manufacturers. See #4 in our greatest of small enterprise advertising and marketing roundup.
12. No, not TikTok
So right here’s the factor about TikTok. As a social media platform, it’s huge. Very huge. As a social media advertising and marketing platform, it’s not all that nice.
YET.
But the Tok just isn’t going to adapt to social media marketing. Social media advertising and marketing will conform to the Tok. I imply, Instagram informed us over the summer season that It is now seeking to shift focus to “full screen, immersive, entertaining, mobile-first video” content material. In different phrases, TikTokitize itself.
This doesn’t essentially imply you have to begin advertising and marketing or promoting on TikTok (though in case your viewers consists of entertainment-seeking teenagers with sense of rhythm, then sure, you do). What it does imply is you have to have a TikTok-inspired content material technique. And what does that imply?I’ll provide you with one trace:
Entertainment.
Short, entertaining content material. This means:
You don’t have to market on TikTok (except your viewers suits the invoice), however you do have to have a TikTok-inspired content material technique.
The greatest electronic mail advertising and marketing methods for 2022
While search engine optimization and PPC hit some turbulent patches final yr, electronic mail advertising and marketing was simply cruising alongside, residing its greatest life. That is, till This autumn when Apple dropped the MPP bomb on us…
13. Close the door on open charges
For the uninitiated, MPP stands for Mail Privacy Protection, which rolled out with the Apple iOS 15 replace. With this function iOS customers can block your means to assemble correct open information (i.e., if, when, the place, or what number of instances they opened your advertising and marketing emails). In brief, Apple will open a person’s electronic mail, regardless—in a proxy server—in order that any monitoring pixels within the electronic mail obtain there, and never the person’s gadget. Then, if a person decides to open the e-mail, they are going to be opening the cached model.
Email monitoring software program can’t distinguish between proxied and non-proxied opens. The outcome? Inflated open charges and lacking or incorrect open information (like location, time of open, variety of instances opened, and extra). We share iOS 15-friendly email marketing strategies here, but the key takeaways are as follows:
- A/B test elements in the body of your emails, not subject lines.
- If you do test subject lines, declare winners based on something like click-through rate or purchases (not open rate).
- Nix any email flows or dynamic content campaigns that are based on open-related data and rebuild them based on other triggers.
Proxied opens due to Mail Privacy Protection will tell you that your user opened your email even if they didn’t. Not good.
14. Email preference centers
Now we know that open data isn’t everything, but it still can tell us a lot about our audience—where they’re located, what types of content and topics they like, when they’re most likely to read your email, how frequently they want to receive emails from you, and more.
But there is a workaround. Instead of gleaning these insights, you can ask your audience themselves. When they sign up for your emails, create a preference center so you can get it directly from the [audience member]’s mouth.
You can even use them as a part of your unsubscribe flow.
15. Plain text emails
So plain text isn’t a retro trend (like the early aughts in our 2022 landing page trends). You should still send out branded, HTML emails but you should also send out a plain text version along with it. Why?
- Plain text-dependent devices are ever on the rise, like smartwatches, voice assistants, and screen readers.
- Spam filters really want to see that plain text.
- Some people do, in fact, prefer them. They’re simpler, they load faster, and you can see all of the links it contains right there in front of you.
Most email automation platforms will give you the option to generate a plain text version of your email, but you’ll still need to optimize it. Here are some tips and an image example, courtesy of Litmus:
- Use all caps or symbols to separate sections.
- Don’t add linebreaks to maintain the textual content slender. The textual content ought to resize to suit the display screen of any gadget.
- Do add linebreaks to separate sections with whitespace.
- Use hyphens to create bullets.
- Keep hyperlinks to a minimal.
The best content marketing strategies for 2022
The TLDR for this section? Pretend you’re a hipster content restaurant. Make lots of content. Content that is delicious-looking (attractive), easy to digest (skimmable), free of fillers (fluff and words you can’t pronounce) satisfies your readers (quality and interesting information), and suitable for different preferences and requirements (accessible). Here are three ways to make that happen.
16. Meaningful. Multimedia. Meta. ← (not the metaverse)
We know that it’s important to break up the text in your blog posts with images, but there’s a right and a wrong way to do it.
Your images should be such that if they’re the only thing the reader looks at in the post, they can still get value from it.
- Meaningful images: Nix the empty stock images and graphics in your blog posts. Your images should be such that your reader can get value if images are the only thing they look at. Illustrate the concept, visualize the data, provide a real-life example, or (my favorite) make a meme analogy.
An image depicting the surrounding text on this page, of an image depicting the surrounding text of a page. 🤯
- A multimedia approach: Don’t just use images. Add videos (maybe the short clips you created from strategy #12?), podcasts, and more to your posts (more on this in a moment). Not only do people have different preferences on different channels, but MUM is going to allow Google to surface information across multiple media formats. So you can add value now while also building SEO equity for the future.
- Meta: Sit back down, metaverse, with your augmented reality and virtual nonsense. We’re referring to just plain old SEO metadata here. Use your meta tags and schema markup to clearly spell out for Google what you’re saying and in what form. This will improve your SEO and make your content MUM-friendly.
17. Accessible & inclusive content
The other reason to use metadata? Accessibility. Title tags, H1s, H2s, and image alt text are all used by screen readers so that those with visual impairments won’t just hear what’s on a page, but understand it.
Some accessibility tips:
- For visual impairment: Use meta tags (as just mentioned), proper color contrast, and font size for those with visual impairments.
- For cognitive or reading impairments: Use images to convey information
- For hearing impairments: Include the transcripts or key takeaways of a podcast or video.
And accessibility is just one way of making your content more inclusive. You’ll also want to represent all races and abilities in not just your visuals, but in the examples and hypotheticals in your blog posts too.
18. Use Canva
Not only will multi-media content help you to store up MUM-friendly content, but it will also keep you competitive. It’s getting easier and easier to create great content these days, and the more your audience sees it elsewhere, the more they will expect it from you. Which brings me to the next strategy.
For starters, neither WordStream nor I am affiliated with Canva in any way. And I have yet to find a free tool as great as Canva (but if you know of one, let me know in the comments). Hence the super-specific strategy.
Canva is perfect for:
- Marketers who have no design experience.
- Small businesses that don’t have a designer.
- Big businesses who wish they could clone their designer (like us).
You can make everything with Canva, from email signatures and branded graphics to Facebook ads and Stories templates. And most importantly, you can mark up images with arrows, labels, and boxes so you can create those meaningful visuals I talked about above.
RELATED: How to Use Canva in 7 Simple Steps
Good visible content material is an expectation now. So it’s now not nice visuals that may make you stand out, however mediocre ones, and never in the best way you need.
19. Conversational copywriting
Here’s your last advertising and marketing technique summed up in a single picture:
Click to enlarge
And right here it’s, typed out for search engine optimization functions and accessibility.
Not conversational
One factor to keep away from in 2022 is writing too formally. This means utilizing correct grammar at all times. It additionally means not various sentence size. It additionally means being repetitive, utilizing complicated or boring phrases, or being too critical. However, it isn’t laborious to discover ways to write conversationally. This entails going in opposition to conventional grammar, however it would allow you to to draw clients. Here are some methods to write down conversational copy.
Conversational
What’s one of the simplest ways to show off your readers in 2022?
By utilizing company blady bla or writing like a robotic. Clinging tightly to correct grammar (you’re gonna should unlearn some issues), utilizing phrases which are both too fancy or too boring, and taking your self too significantly. But it’s simple to get the dangle of. Here are some useful suggestions that’ll get your readers smiling and subscribing:
- Use contractions
- Ask questions
- Vary sentence size
- Make up phrases
- Use fascinating (not fancy) phrases
- Put facet feedback in parentheses
- Write incomplete sentences
- Start sentences with “and” and “but”
- Be pleasant with alliteration, rhyming, puns, and extra.
- Use emojis
We’ve acquired extra tips about the best way to write like a human being right here.
These are the very best advertising and marketing methods for 2022
This isn’t an inventory of rising developments to control. It’s the realities of at the moment and precisely the best way to use them to your benefit. So I don’t suggest “considering” these methods. I like to recommend leaping into them like your enterprise may slip behind your rivals if you happen to don’t. Because it would. Let’s recap with the record.
The greatest advertising and marketing methods for 2022 are:
- Facebook lead advertisements
- Facebook Page retargeting
- ETA farewell prep
- Performance Max
- MUMified content material
- Video markup
- Passage rating
- Technical search engine optimization
- Social for native
- Instagram Live Shopping
- Entertaining content material
- Facebook Page promotion
- Goodbye open charges
- Email desire facilities
- Plain textual content emails
- Meaningful multimedia content material
- Accessible & inclusive content material
- Canva for high quality visuals
- Conversational copywriting