Digital marketing as a whole has changed drastically in the recent past. There has been a vast variety of new technologies being applied to this very matter, ranging from purely front-end development related ones to big back-end based ones which were relying on complex tools coded in Python and R. The “old” way of doing digital marketing, with the content is the main focus which was supposed to be picked by Google and Facebook (mainly) algorithms, is definitely gone for good. Let’s analyse which technological strategies are being applied to the entirety of the digital marketing sector.
Big Data (and GDPR)
Big Data has become quite an important matter throughout the entire technology sector: in 2018, data has surpassed oil in terms of value, becoming effectively the most valuable possession from a business perspective. Big data has been tackled from many angles, starting from development, through the entire “blockchain phenomenon” which happened with Cryptocurrencies becoming mainstream ending, in fact, in digital marketing.
Being public domain and with the launch of the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack”, the Cambridge Analytica would be the perfect example of big data exploitation for mere marketing goals. The company had, in fact, created ad-hoc campaigns which were following data points’ guidelines, becoming a significant part of the election of Donald Trump in the US and powering up the Brexit campaign in the UK. Once public, this had to be regulated and, since the recent launch of GDPR guidelines, it’s not possible to “secretly” gather data via apps/tools or software.
Front-End Development And Technical Marketing
Front end development has become quite a big industry, with the simplification of complex programming languages like Javascript and with the “standardization” of complex HTML architectures like Schema, which have been heavily targeted by many SEO agencies in the world. Front-end development has definitely become the connection point between content-related marketing and algorithms, with an extremely big success, especially when associated with SEO.
It has been noticed, in fact, how developers have been embracing a vast variety of SEO principles when building their sites/applications. This is a very big signal of how these two worlds are colliding in this second half of 2019. We can safely expect front end development to grow even further in the nearest future on this matter, embracing more technical aspects and becoming an integrated part with almost every marketing team.
Far Bigger Awareness Of Technological Matters
In 2017, talking about machine and deep learning in marketing office would have been science fiction. 2 years later, this has become one of the biggest and most important topics of discussions in many small, medium and big offices. This is a big signal of the constantly rising awareness on these topics from marketing executives, who are more savvy tech-wise and write about stuff which, even if not properly understood, could still be valued by their readers, especially when writing blogs.
It’s safe to say that marketing has definitely become a technological matter and it’s very likely to grow on this subject even more. This, given the market signals, is definitely an exciting opportunity for the ones with a technical or coding background who want to kickstart their career in marketing. In the UK, for example, the biggest digital agency Manchester currently offers has heavily invested in coders, opening an entirely new division for data analysis.
To Conclude
It’s not just the digital segment, but marketing in general which is moving towards a far more technology-focused approach. What once was perceived as a “nerdy”, not relevant segment (technology as a whole) has become part of marketers’ day to day workflow. We’ll definitely see how this will grow in the nearest future but, given the above signals, it’s easy to understand why many analysts are saying that digital marketing and marketing as a whole will be heavily relying on technology.
With this being said, from a “working” and “employment” perspective, is fundamental for successful digital marketers to understand how new technological trends in this very matter will be used. Whatever your thoughts are, the market has spoken and the sentence is: technology will dominate every possible business sphere before the end of 2025 or thereabouts, therefore, it’s mandatory, if you want to succeed, to develop unilateral skills which could stretch your position from PR, Social Media and content to simple front end development.
