Expert Opinion: 4 Digital Marketing Trends for 2017

January is over, and experts continue to predict trends they expect to see during the course at 2017. When it comes to digital marketing, you want a team on your side that considers every possibility and pays close attention to industry thought leaders to create the best strategy for your brand.Russell Glass, VP of Products at LinkedIn recently contributed to the conversation, and the team at PBJ thinks that his predictions are some of the most compelling yet. He recently wrote on MarTech Today about four trends we can expect to see shaping digital marketing in the coming year.

1. Expect more chatbotsDuring 2017, we will continue to see the use of chatbots by companies from various sectors that provide customers with relevant and customized experiences. In fact, a survey from Oracle indicates that 80% of sales and marketing leaders will be using chatbots by 2020.
2. Ad blocking will reach its plateauAd blocking has been a serious issue for marketing professionals, but things are expected to level out in 2017. The vast majority of people who want an ad blocker already have one and the number of individuals who seek them out in the coming months won't make much of an impact on your bottom line.
3. We’ll see more marketing technology consolidationThere were approximately 350 marketing technology companies across the country in 2012. Today, there are upwards of 3,500. To power their marketing engines, expect to see advertising giants like Google, Facebook, and Verizon/AOL to continue acquiring startups to help get the highest ROI on their ads and content.
4. Video content will be about quality, not quantitySimilar to written content, video content is going to be much more about quality than quantity in 2017. When marketing professionals started using video, is was all about views while tracking conversions came secondary. This is changing, and for a good reason. Cisco predicts that by 2020, video will account for 82% of consumer internet traffic. So instead of shooting for millions of views, marketers will start focusing on getting hundreds of thousands of quality viewers.