Growth Marketing Trends 2023 & How To Prepare

Growth marketing has undergone significant changes in recent years due to the implementation of privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation policy. These changes have affected tracking, tagging, and data gathering practices. 

Additionally, the release of Apple's iOS 14.5 has prompted Facebook to make several changes that growth marketers have had to adapt to. In recent years, growth marketing strategies have also come to rely on collaborative influencer marketing and user-generated content (UGC) across social media platforms. 

As we move into 2023, it is expected that growth marketing will continue to evolve as solutions are found and optimizations are made in response to these transformative developments.

This list will focus on the paid acquisition aspect of growth marketing, and will highlight relevant digital marketing- and growth marketing trends that are expected to shape the days of marketers in 2023. Along with each marketing trend, there will be some tips and strategies provided to help you take advantage of them.

Omnichannel digital marketing campaigns shift away from Meta (Facebook)

Recently, there has been a growing concern among growth marketers about the risks of relying too heavily on Meta advertising for user acquisition. It has been emphasized that it is important to diversify your acquisition strategies. While many companies have traditionally allocated a large portion of their budget to Meta advertising, it is expected that 2022 will be the last year that this approach will be sufficient without also investing heavily in other channels.

In 2023, it will be important to allocate no more than 50% of your budget for growth marketing towards Meta advertising. It may be helpful to divide your budget into two categories: "evergreen channels" and "experimental channels". 

You can use the 70/30 rule as a guide, where "evergreen channels" make up 70% of the budget and "experimental channels" make up 30%. Some examples of "evergreen channels" include Meta, Google Search & Display Ads, YouTube, and SEO. "Experimental channels" may require some trial and error to identify which ones work best for your business, but some paid channels and campaign types that have been successful for others recently include: 

• Sponsored Editorial
• TikTok
• Google Performance Max
• Reddit 

While there are other options such as podcasts, radio, over-the-top (OTT), and influencer marketing that can be effective, it is recommended to prioritize the marketing channels mentioned above as they tend to be quicker to launch and can produce significant results on a medium budget. 

User-Generated Content with Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has been a trend in recent years and is expected to continue growing in 2023. 89% of digital marketers who currently engage in influencer marketing plan to increase or maintain their investment in the coming year. 

Why? Collaborating with influencers and industry leaders can help to increase brand awareness and attract new followers from the influencer's audience. If hiring a celebrity influencer with a large following is not feasible, there is no need to worry. More than half of marketers who invest in influencer marketing work with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers are social media promoters with a smaller following, typically ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands of followers. They tend to have higher levels of engagement, and their posts can be more impactful as a result. They have also established a niche in their industry and are becoming increasingly important in terms of converting leads, connecting with audiences, and increasing brand awareness. One advantage of working with micro-influencers is that they are perceived as "everyday" people, making their recommendations and opinions more trustworthy to their audience compared to those of celebrities who may be more distant and inaccessible.

Content from mico-influencers falls in the category of User-generated content (UGC) who has already played a role in growth marketing in the last 10 years, but it is expected to become even more prominent in 2023, due to the restictions mentioned above.

According to a study by TurnTo Networks: 

“…most shoppers (90 percent) report UGC influences their decisions to make a purchase, outranking all other forms of marketing, including search engines (87 percent) and promotional emails (79 percent), which came in second and third. Notably, shoppers are also willing to pay more (81 percent) and wait longer (81 percent) for products paired with UGC.”

Incorporating User-generated content in your ad creative can potentially improve performance. It may take some time to find the right influencer, introduction messages, action hooks, and key shots, but UGC has the potential to reduce your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) by as much as 40% in my experience.

How to setup your UGC / Influencer pipeline:

• Partner with an influencer agency or directly message influencers in your niche who create high-quality content and have strong engagement.
• Once you have identified a few influencers, provide them with general talking points and brand guidelines and allow them to create content.
• We recommend to obtain two or three videos from each influencer on a monthly basis. 

Updating Creatives Weekly or Biweekly

Creative content marketing will be increasingly essential to a successful growth marketing strategy in 2023. In short, if your creative team is not regularly producing new, data-driven ad content on a weekly or biweekly basis, you may notice a decline in ad performance.

Ad platforms tend to favour accounts that frequently update their creative, and these platforms are encouraging advertisers to create ads that enhance the user experience. If you advertise on Meta, TikTok, and/or YouTube, you may start to see a decrease in ad performance after two to four weeks due to creative fatigue, which is indicated by a drop in click-through rate and an increase in CPA. This is a signal from the platform that it is time to introduce new creative.

Here are the tips for maintaining a consistent flow of new ad creative:

• Repurpose existing content to create new ads: If you already have several influencer-based video ads that have been running for a while, try creating a compilation of these videos. Look for parts of each video that can be combined to create new videos. You may be able to create at least five new videos this way.
• Test consistently: Whenever you build a campaign, make sure to run a test. Have a control creative and a variation(s) to test against. Without testing, you won't be able to learn and evolve.
• Create a creative scorecard: Over time, you may start to notice patterns or themes in creative that are effective. This could be the use of a specific color, message, shot type, or intro action. Make a list of these effective attributes and assign values to their importance on a scale of 1-5. For example, if your data shows that using the color purple is a significant predictor of performance, give this attribute a score of 5. Share this scorecard with your creative team so they know the themes that should be included in your creative or any new batch of ad creative.

Focusing on Pixel Tracking

Growth marketers often have mixed feelings about pixels, but I can provide some tips to help make the relationship more positive. 

Recent advancements in paid social and paid search advertising have focused on conversion tracking, such as Meta's Conversions API and Aggregated Event Measurement tool, Google's enhanced conversions tracking, and TikTok's upgraded Pixel setup with Events API and Pixel Helper 2.0.

In the past, it may have been possible to neglect adding values to conversion events or delaying the upgrade of conversion tracking. However, in 2023, it will be necessary to keep these elements up to date in order to achieve the best results from your campaigns.

For instance, if you are creating a direct response campaign, you should use a conversion-goal campaign build and a conversion-type bid strategy. Each conversion event in your funnel should also have a corresponding value. This is relatively easy to do for ecommerce, but may be more challenging for a sales funnel. Not assigning values to events in a sales or lead-based funnel can negatively impact performance.

Here are some ways you can optimize your conversion tracking:

• Work with your analyst to calculate the average value of different steps in your funnel, such as initial lead form submissions, qualified leads, and converted leads.
• Create events for each of these steps and assign your calculated values.
• Once you have a large enough sample size and steady volume, switch your campaign bid strategies to a conversion type.
• Test different bid types against each other, such as maximize conversions, maximize value, or target cost-per-acquisition (TCPA). 

AI with landing page AB testing

Another optimization to consider for your growth marketing plan is A/B testing of landing pages. This is a broad subject that warrants further discussion, but in relation to growth marketing, there are some simple steps you can take to improve your conversion rate.

Marketers can make use of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing campaigns is by automatically creating optimized landing page copy. With tools like Persado, it is possible to generate copy that outperforms the control up to 96% of the time, eliminating the need for manual copywriting.

A good place to start is by setting up a Google Optimize account and conducting some copy and media-based tests. Mobile users should see content within the first viewport as a priority, and it is advisable to develop a few A/B tests that can be launched within a week. Even a small increase of 2% to 5% in your conversion rate can make a significant difference in your CPA and improve your return on ad spend (ROAS) over time.

Retention: Work With Existing Customers

Increasing customer retention by just 5% can significantly increase profits, anywhere from 25% to 95%. This is because it is less costly and time-consuming to retain current customers than it is to acquire new ones. Growth marketing recognises this and uses data to drive strategies that improve customer experience to increase revenue per customer.

In 2023, companies may consider offering additional services, modifying their pricing and packaging, and initiating conversations about new offerings with their most valuable customers in order to increase engagement and retention.

Personalisation in the Age of Privacy

Personalization will become even more important in your growth marketing strategy in 2023. The days of constant bombardment of ads across various channels or simply using customer names in email marketing are over. This is because customers are becoming more aware of data privacy and are expecting businesses and online platforms to take stronger measures to protect their information from being shared without their consent.

These privacy concerns are being addressed by both government regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act, and tech companies.

With stricter privacy and security rules being implemented, personalization will change and growth marketing will have to adapt. It is not yet clear exactly what this will look like, but it is important for companies to consider these developments as they plan their marketing strategies.

Here are some ways that companies can adapt their growth marketing strategies to the evolving personalization landscape:

• Collecting zero- and first-party data: This can help companies gather more accurate and comprehensive information about their customers and their needs.
• Segmenting audience and constantly evolving Ideal Customer Profiles: By dividing customers into specific groups and continually updating their Ideal Customer Profiles, companies can better understand and target each group.
• Enriching data to discern the needs of each potential customer: Adding additional layers of data can help companies gain a more detailed understanding of each individual customer's needs.
• Micro-targeting to each customer: By targeting each customer with personalized marketing efforts, companies can more effectively reach and engage each individual.

Embracing Hyper-Personalization

In an era of hyper-personalization, one-time campaigns are no longer sufficient. Customers want brands to make them feel special by being present on their preferred platforms around the clock.

To deliver hyper-personalized experiences to customers, companies need to utilize technologies such as AI and predictive analytics. Netflix is a prime example of this marketing strategy, conducting around 250 A/B tests each year to acquire new customers and increase customer loyalty. 

They use AI to make recommendations based on data collected from various sources, including viewer ratings and watch history, search history, and device type. By using an integrated data source, Netflix is able to predict recommendations that captivate viewers and accurately identify their preferences.

Producing Consistent Quality Content

There are over 500 million daily tweets, 72,000 hours of YouTube videos, 319 billion emails, and 95 million Instagram posts on the internet every day. In today's crowded and competitive digital landscape, it can be challenging to get your customers' attention and draw them to your products. One effective strategy is to create and share consistent, high-quality content. This helps to engage customers and build a loyal customer base. By consistently providing valuable content, you can not only reach your target audience, but also convert them into paying customers.

Video-based content, in particular, is an excellent choice for capturing attention in the age of 5G connectivity and short attention spans. Video is not only used by businesses, but also by affiliates and influencers to share content and build trust and credibility with their audience. In 2021, 85% of companies used video as a marketing tool, and 66% of people prefer to watch videos to learn more about products or services, compared to 18% who would read an article or other written content. Video also allows you to visually demonstrate and personalize your products with a human touch.

Podcasts are another popular way to share content and are expected to play a significant role in building brand credibility and raising brand awareness in 2023. Podcast listenership has increased threefold in the US over the past decade, and podcasts are expected to be a key component of any growth marketing strategy.

Mobile Optimization is Key

Mobile optimization and mobile marketing will be a key factor in the success of your marketing effort in the coming year. With a significant portion of website traffic coming from mobile devices and a focus on delivering mobile experiences to email subscribers and other audiences, it is crucial for businesses to prioritize the optimization of their mobile presence. This is especially important for those targeting younger generations with purchasing power, as they are heavily reliant on mobile devices for online interactions

In the coming year, it will be crucial for businesses to prioritize mobile optimization in their marketing strategies. With over half of online traffic coming from mobile devices, and a significant percentage of marketers investing in mobile design and seeing it as a successful investment, optimizing for mobile is key to reaching and engaging with millennial and Gen Z audiences. 

This includes not only mobile optimization for brand websites, but also for email campaigns and other marketing efforts.

Let's sum it up: Growth Marketing Tends 2023

Growth marketing is evolving in response to changes in privacy laws, the increasing reliance on influencer marketing and user-generated content (UGC) on social media platforms. It is important to diversify growth marketing strategies. Micro-influencers, who have a smaller following and higher levels of engagement, are becoming increasingly important for converting leads and increasing brand awareness. Personalization and artificial intelligence (AI) are also expected to play a significant role in growth marketing in 2023, as is leveraging data for targeted marketing efforts and increasing the use of video content.

To deliver hyper-personalized experiences, companies need to use AI and predictive analytics to make personalized recommendations based on data collected from various sources, as well as use machine learning to adapt to changing customer preferences.