Anticipating Users’ Searches in 2019 (Not as Much Fortune-Telling As You Would Think)

From the sheer amount of social, pop, and political events that occurred this year, a lot of new search terms have likely been entered into Google’s search bar. Everything from “Stan ‘The Man’ Lee” to “how to vote” has given digital marketers tons of insight into how everyday users search for what they want, need, or intend to do.

And because of this, it literally pays dividends in our industry to find out what users want before they actually search for it. But how to accomplish this?

Fortune-Telling? Sorcery? Nope...just good ol’ fashioned knowledge, elbow grease and constant research of the best SEO practices.

And that’s what we want to analyze today. How brands are going to use intent signals to predict what customers will be searching for in 2019. Let our catalysts at Cobalt Digital Marketing provide you with some valuable insight.

The Focus

The ebb and flow of digital marketing, as well as the frequent shifts in SEO, can make developing a successful sales funnel challenging. That’s why, after careful consideration, leaders in the digital marketing industry are going to be focusing on three specific areas in 2019 to better anticipate user search inquiries:

1. Matching Marketing and Business Outcomes
2. Understanding a Customer’s Overall Value
3. Perfecting Automation and Machine Learning

By focusing on these three areas, digital marketers are primed to predict search intent in an effort to improve impressions, click-through-rates, and revenue in 2019.

About the Areas of Focus

1. Matching Marketing and Business Outcomes

This may seem like a no-brainer, but oftentimes, businesses fail to identify and focus on their business outcomes, instead opting to focus on metrics. While the latter is important, understanding business outcomes is more important as it leads to a better quality of marketing campaigns.

What does this mean? Well, let’s say that a well-known grocery store’s digital marketing campaign went stagnant because they chose to focus on loose, short-termed metrics and results. Finally, after pinpointing the desirable business outcome, the marketing department optimized its media - in this case, search - to meet business metrics that would ultimately match the business’ overall goals.

How? Through data-driven attribution. Data-driven attribution uses data pulled from your accounts to determine which ads, keywords, and campaigns had the greatest effect on your digital marketing campaign - and bottom line.

Matching marketing and business outcomes can give digital marketers a better idea of what customer intent is based on recent interactions and how their intent drives long-term growth.

2. Understanding a Customer’s Overall Value
Understanding your customer’s overall value — a.k.a. your customer’s lifetime value (CLV) — can help inform you of proper bidding and audience building techniques.

In its rawest form, CLV measures how much value a customer brings to your business across all of their interactions over time. By focusing on CLV, digital marketers begin to naturally attract better potential customers, promote healthier engagement, and increase customer retention.

In short, a predictable customer becomes a valued customer. Make sure they know your business appreciates the value that they bring to you.

3. Perfecting Automation and Machine Learning
As our technology grows to better serve us, gone are the days of connecting intent to marketing analysis. Machines can easily see and predict customer patterns, making it an effective way for digital marketers to predict consumer intent.

It would do you good to automate your creative, audience, bidding, attribution, and budgeting tools to improve your chances of success. A good automated bidding tool, coupled with data-driven attribution reflecting what search terms work, places a business in the perfect position to be successful in 2019.

Let Cobalt Digital Marketing lead you into 2019.

Are you ready to begin your new journey with a digital marketing team that knows how to turn your investment into revenue? Look no further than Cobalt Digital Marketing.

Contact us at 956-303-6555 to initiate our proven Cobalt Formulaᵀᴹ and begin a solid start to your digital marketing campaign in 2019.