Digital Marketing beyond Google

The year 2000 started not just as a new year but the year after the Y2K also heard and experienced new terms such as AdWords, search optimisations, page ranking, content targeting etc. Google introduced marketers to a new world with immense possibilities and a platform to make and offer things more personal. Thus began the new age of digital advertising. Today google alone controls 11 to 12% of total media spend globally. And in India, the digital advertising share is expected to be more than 12% of the total marketing budget. But over these years, like in any field, diversification and innovation started reflecting in Online marketing also. Today digital marketing is not just Google. Along with google, marketers are now experimenting other channels such as content marketing, native ads, social media marketing, Omni-channel marketing etc. But many brands, particularly in India are still considering google ads as the primary resource to reach out to its prospects. They need to understand that rather than pushing the pop-up ads to the customers you need to be more responsible and should give value to customers. 2015 was the year when brands and agencies noticed a downfall in the CTR of ads. The same year witnessed the growth of adblockers and increase in the spend on mobile. This is the same period when growth was witnessed in Native ads and sponsored contents. Brands now started to position their offering as informative content to the prospects. They started to explain the need and benefits of the product and what prospect is missing by not having them. Even the success of your social media campaigns depends on the quality of your contents. 

The future of digital marketing is expected to bring an addition in terms of wearable technology, AR & VR into the marketing plan of brands. So if you want to stay ahead of your competitors you need to realise that your customers are everywhere not just on Google.