RACE Digital Marketing Trends from 2025 to 2026

 

Dr Dave Chaffey’s annual review of the marketing trends that will matter for B2C and B2B marketers in 2026

In my review this year, I'll be again be aiming to keep it practical for marketers since I will recommend trends to review across the customer lifecycle based on our RACE planning framework. I'll cover all the key media channels and tactics such as those in the lifecycle visual above.

As well as practical marketing tactics covered under RACE, I will start with strategic marketing trends covered under Plan.

Plan marketing trends

Plan-related trends cover how marketing is managed, and within digital marketing, deploying the latest marketing technology is a large part of this. It's no surprise that Martech trends for 2026 will be dominated by AI for marketing.

I've long used Gartner Hype Cycles to inform my commentary on digital marketing trends, with the latest release a good starting point for assessing macro trends in digital marketing.  This 2025 Gartner Digital Marketing Hype Cycle has been syndicated by Tealium.

It's notable for the dominance of AI-related technologies. Key AI-related trends suggested by this visual to me are:

• Using AI agents for marketing - this has probably been THE trend for 2025 and will continue as the trend through 2026
• Answer Engine Optimization - this relates to SEO and gaining visibility in Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Also a major trend, but established for several years now.
• Generative AI for marketing - this trend was kickstarted in 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT and has continued with ongoing hype since then. It's interesting that Gartner now places GenAI in the Trough of Disillusionment, and I believe realizing the limitations of GenAI for automated copywriting will be a major trend within marketing within 2026. We have seen a huge increase in the volume of 'AI-slop' generated in the service of automating marketing, but many marketers are realizing that such content is all too often generic and so not sufficiently engaging to gain engagement from readers, so won't get cut-through in the search engine or social media algorithms. So I think there will be more focus placed on generating authentic copy and video by micro and employee influencers in 2026.
• Digital Twins of a Customer - these are mainly relevant for larger businesses and have been discussed for many years, but the advanced in LLMs has made their use more practical, but widespread adoption is still 5-10 years out according to Gartner
• Managing customer privacy and consent - a particular concern in large organizations and related to the decreasing use of cookies for tracking customer journeys.

This example of an agent shows how B2B sector businesses who are investing in AI can create a 'next-level' agent which are a big advance from frustrating text chatbots we've been familiar with for the past few years. When using this agent I found it was well-trained on sector stats and business case studies, so was an excellent, positive introduction to the company. It also is designed to hand-off from top-of-funnel interactions (Act) onto human interactions (Convert) both through the meeting prompt and the dialogue.

In the last part of the article I will drill down into more detail on what makes those relevant to marketers when I review each part of RACE. Before we do, here is a good place to recommend taking a look at our updated Digital Marketing Tools wheel. We update this each year to help marketers review their MarTech stack. Naturally we now include GenAI related tools in this. Here's an extract:

Key issues for managing use of AI in marketing in 2026

Before we get to our tactical recommendations for each part of RACE, as the final part of Plan, I have recently identified these five top-level use-cases of managing AI for marketing strategy to support marketing activities:

• 1. Marketing content generation. This is the main use of GenAI tools now - prompting to create marketing copy and visuals that can be used for marketing collateral in the main digital marketing channels such as search, social, email and web marketing.
• 2. Marketing agents for customer service. These are the well established chatbots which answer customer service questions to reduce the customer service. Large Language models have really enhanced the quality of these. Businesses can use OpenAI GPTs which are based on ChatGPT to give customers access to knowledge bases, although there are more specialist tools for these. For example, I have built a Digital marketing strategy expert agent to give our members' personalized advice on how to use Smart Insights' RACE Framework to improve their digital marketing based on my expertise and Smart Insights templates.
• 3. Marketing strategy and planning. Our research has shown that a surprising number of marketers are already using ChatGPT to prepare their plans from analysis to strategy and action. I will look at some more examples in this article.
• 4. Marketing analysis and reporting. Since their launch, ChatGPT, Gemini and Co-Pilot have introduced new capabilities to interact with spreadsheets and other documents to summarize data which can help with reducing time to create monthly reports.
• 5. AI Marketing workflow automation. This is where there is arguably the most interest in using GenAI for marketing currently. AI workflow automation tools such as n8n - see AI workflow for marketing categories - can repeat standard marketing activities to save time and costs, although, for me there are big questions about the brand trust and engagement of what is created. If you don't know about this tool, it is similar to established no-code / low-code tools like Zapier which are now used for integrating different apps and LLMs using APIs.

It's cool that the LLMs know RACE and we're now seeing more people searching for the RACE marketing framework in Google - I think because LLMs often recommend it in their citations. This is how Gemini acted in response to my prompt. I couldn't have put it better myself 😉

I'm delighted to put on my creator hat and craft an outline for a long-form post on "Digital marketing trends for 2026," specifically for the Smart Insights audience. The RACE Framework is all about providing a practical, data-driven approach to marketing, and a trend report must follow the same ethos. The outline below is designed to be a comprehensive guide, structured by the core stages of the framework to help marketers not just understand, but also *apply* these trends to their own businesses.

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Plan: The Strategic Foundation for 2026

This is the most critical stage. Before you jump on any trend, you need to understand your business context. The “Plan” stage is about setting objectives, defining your audience, and auditing your current capabilities.

• 1.1 The AI-Powered Marketing Strategy:
  • Trend: Predictive analytics and generative AI for strategic planning.
  • Actionable Insight: Go beyond using AI for content creation. Focus on using it to analyze market data, forecast consumer behavior, and identify high-potential customer segments before they even know they’re interested. This will allow for more precise budgeting and resource allocation.
  • Key Question: How can AI help us model our customers’ future needs and optimize our marketing mix for maximum ROI?
• 1.2 The Privacy-First Imperative:
  • Trend: The demise of the third-party cookie and the rise of first-party data.
  • Actionable Insight: Your plan for 2026 must be built on a foundation of ethical data collection. Focus on creating value-added experiences (e.g., exclusive content, tools, or services) that encourage consumers to willingly share their data. This is no longer a “nice-to-have” but a strategic necessity.
  • Key Question: What value can we offer to our audience in exchange for their first-party data, and how will we build trust around its use?
• 1.3 The Hybrid Marketing Model:
  • Trend: Integrating physical and digital experiences.
  • Actionable Insight: Plan for a seamless omnichannel experience. This isn’t just about a QR code on a poster. Think about using augmented reality (AR) to enhance a physical product or creating in-store events that are live-streamed to your online community.
  • Key Question: How can we use digital trends to amplify our physical presence and vice versa, creating a unified brand experience?

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Reach: Building a Wider, Smarter Audience

The goal here is to increase brand visibility and drive traffic to your owned media platforms (website, social profiles, etc.). For 2026, this is achieved through smarter targeting and more engaging formats.

• • • 2.1 The Conversational Search Revolution:
      • Trend: Search in the era of AI assistants. Search is being redefined. Generative AI assistants from Google (AIOs), OpenAI, and others are replacing the classic “10 blue links” with conversational answers. However, AIOs have had less impact in e-commerce than other sectors. But that could be due to change as by 2026, many product searches begin in chat interfaces, not browsers.
      • Actionable Insight: Optimize content for natural language queries. Shift your SEO strategy from single keywords to long-tail, question-based phrases. Create content that answers specific user questions directly and concisely, as this is what voice assistants will prioritize.
      • Key Tactic: Develop a robust FAQ section or blog content that addresses common conversational queries.

        However, don't 'throw the baby out with the bath water' since established SEO techniques are still effective despite large reported declines in Google Organic Search since AIOs and AI mode were introduced. In most sectors and especially retail, referrals from organic links still dominate those from Gen AI tools. This post from SEO expert Aleya Solis - shows the need the not to get drunk on the AI GEO Kool Aid.

• • • 2.2 Interactive and Shoppable Video:
      • Trend: Short-form video content evolves beyond passive viewing. Video remains dominant, but its role has expanded through the funnel from awareness (Reach) to direct commerce (Act and Convert). Shoppable video, already mainstream in Asia, is now integrated across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and emerging platforms.
      • Actionable Insight: Don’t just make videos; make them interactive. Integrate shoppable links directly into your reels on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Use live-streamed events for real-time product launches, Q&As, and exclusive promotions to create a sense of urgency.
      • Key Tactic: Experiment with short-form video formats that include polls, quizzes, or click-to-buy functionality.
    • 2.3 Creator-Driven Partnerships:
      • Trend: A shift from one-off influencer campaigns to long-term creator relationships. Something Smart Insights has advocated for a long-time as 'strategic influencer marketing'
      • Actionable Insight: Focus on building authentic, long-term partnerships with creators who genuinely align with your brand values. This builds trust with their audience and allows for more integrated, co-created content that feels less like an advertisement.
      • Key Tactic: Identify micro-influencers and creators with highly engaged niche audiences and work with them on a quarterly or annual basis.
    • 2.4 The Algorithmic Challenge: A Human-in-the-Loop Approach:
  • • Trend: The proliferation of advanced AI-powered bidding and optimization algorithms from platforms like Google (e.g., Performance Max) and Meta (e.g., Advantage+). These systems, while powerful, operate as “black boxes” that can unintentionally degrade ROI if not managed strategically.
    • Actionable Insight: In 2026, the key to success isn’t simply “setting and forgetting” these algorithms. Marketers and agencies must adopt a human-in-the-loop approach. This involves a new skill set focused on prompt engineering for paid media, providing the AI with high-quality audience signals and creative assets, and then critically analyzing its outputs. It’s about auditing the algorithm’s decisions and course-correcting when its models fail to deliver against core business objectives, rather than just raw volume. The best teams will know when to step in and when to let the algorithm run.
    • Key Question: How can we ensure our business goals and strategic insights are the guiding input for these powerful AI systems, rather than allowing the platform’s algorithm to become the de facto strategy?

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Act: Encouraging Interaction and Engagement

Once you have their attention, the “Act” stage is about getting visitors to interact with your content and express interest.

• • • 3.1 The Rise of Gamification and Immersive Experiences (AR/VR):
      • Trend: Using game-like elements and virtual worlds to drive engagement. Increasingly referred to as XR, or Extended Reality, is an umbrella term for technologies that merge the physical and digital worlds to create immersive experiences, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
      • Actionable Insight: Turn the customer journey into a fun experience. Implement interactive quizzes, digital scratch cards, or augmented reality filters that allow users to virtually “try on” products. Explore the potential of the metaverse for creating branded virtual spaces or events.
      • Key Tactic: Develop a “gamified” onboarding process for new users or a loyalty program that rewards engagement with points or badges.

        In my books I recommend students take a look at Zappar for the latest approaches. They have evolved from an agency to also offer tools for developing XR experiences - see their XR hub for examples.

• • • 3.2 Hyper-Personalised & Dynamic Content:
      • Trend: Using AI to generate and deliver content tailored to the individual user.
      • Actionable Insight: Move beyond personalization based on a user’s name. Use AI to dynamically change website content, ad copy, and email subject lines based on a visitor’s real-time behavior, location, and past interactions.
      • Key Tactic: Implement AI-driven content management systems that can A/B test and optimize content variations on the fly for different audience segments.
    • 3.3 The Power of Employee Advocacy:
      • Trend: In a fragmented media environment, owned communities are becoming a vital growth lever. Platforms like Discord, Slack, and brand-owned apps enable direct dialogue and peer-to-peer support.
      • Actionable Insight: Invest in community as a channel. Encourage members to co-create, share knowledge, and amplify your brand.
      • Key Tactic: Run exclusive AMAs, product betas, or member-only events to make your community feel like insiders and brand partners.
    • 3.4 The Power of Employee Advocacy:
      • Trend: Leveraging employees as brand advocates on social media. (Part of Engage also)
      • Actionable Insight: Empower your team to tell your brand’s story. Provide them with social media training and a content library to share. Authentic, personal posts from employees often outperform corporate messaging and build trust.
      • Key Tactic: Create a formal employee advocacy program with clear guidelines and incentives for participation.

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Convert: Turning Interactions Into Sales

This is the point of conversion, whether it’s a sale, a lead, or a new subscriber. In 2026, conversion is all about friction reduction and social proof.

• • • 4.1 Frictionless Checkout (or at least reduced friction 😉)
      • Trend: Customers expect instant, secure checkout. Biometrics, embedded finance, and one-tap payments are now baseline.
      • Actionable Insight: Reduce steps in your funnel relentlessly. Every second shaved off increases conversion rates.
      • Key Tactic: Enable biometric one-tap checkout integrated with wallets like Apple Pay and PayPal OneTouch.
    • 4.2 Social Commerce adoption increases:
      • Trend: The integration of e-commerce directly within social media platforms.
      • Actionable Insight: Optimize your social media presence for direct-to-app conversions. Use features like Instagram and Facebook Shops, TikTok’s in-app purchasing, and live-stream shopping events. By 2026, TikTok Shop, Instagram Checkout, and similar features are fully mainstream. Customers expect seamless in-app purchasing.
      • Key Tactic: Streamline the path to purchase to as few clicks as possible, allowing customers to buy without ever leaving their social feed.
    • 4.3 AI-Powered Conversational Commerce and CRO:
      • Trend: The use of sophisticated chatbots and virtual assistants for sales and customer service. Conversion rate optimisation has shifted from manual A/B testing to predictive CRO. AI can now anticipate drop-off and serve the highest-converting version automatically.
      • Actionable Insight: Deploy AI-driven chatbots that can handle common customer queries, recommend products, and even process orders. This provides 24/7 support and reduces the load on your human sales team, making conversions more efficient.
      • Key Tactic: Train your chatbots on your product catalog and customer data to provide truly personalized and helpful recommendations.
    • 4.4 Authenticity and Trust Signals:
      • Trend: As AI-generated content floods the web, trust is the new currency. Customers look for authenticity before buying.
      • Actionable Insight: Conversion in 2026 will be driven by trust. Use transparent privacy policies, display user-generated content (UGC), and prominently feature customer reviews and case studies on your product pages.
      • Key Tactic: Actively encourage and showcase customer reviews and testimonials. Consider a “review and reward” program to boost UGC.

        Add “AI disclosure tags” and verified customer reviews prominently on product pages to build confidence at the decision point.

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Engage: Fostering Long-Term Loyalty

The final and most important stage is about building customer loyalty and advocacy. The focus for 2026 is on nurturing long-term relationships.

• • • 5.1 Community-Led Growth:
      • Trend: Building dedicated brand communities as a core marketing channel.
      • Actionable Insight: Move beyond a simple email list. Create private communities on platforms like Discord, Slack, or even your own branded app. This allows for direct communication, feedback, and peer-to-peer support, transforming customers into brand advocates.
      • Key Tactic: Host exclusive Q&As, webinars, or events for your community members to make them feel valued and connected.
    • 5.2 Membership and Subscription Models
      • Trend: Despite subscription fatigue, customers still pay for exclusive access. Brands are diversifying with tiered memberships and value-added services or providing 'lifetime' one-off subscriptions. I recently purchased one on Babbel (Duolingo competitor) rather than a subscription since it seems better value.
      • Actionable Insight: Design memberships around community, access, and experience, not discounts alone.
      • Key Tactic: Offer a premium tier with early access to launches, exclusive content, and personalised concierge service.
    • 5.3 AI-Powered Customer Lifecycle Nurturing:
      • Trend: Using AI to predict churn and personalize post-purchase communications.
      • Actionable Insight: Use AI and machine learning to analyze customer behavior and identify signals that a customer might be at risk of leaving. Use this information to trigger automated, personalized re-engagement campaigns with tailored offers or content.
      • Key Tactic: Implement a post-purchase email series that is dynamically adjusted based on a customer’s product use, purchase history, and engagement with previous emails.
    • 5.4 The Sustainability Story:
      • Trend: Customers expect brands to be transparent about their environmental and social impact.
      • Actionable Insight: Your “Engage” strategy should include communicating your brand’s sustainability efforts and values. Share behind-the-scenes stories, report on your progress, and involve customers in your mission. This builds a deeper connection and enhances brand loyalty.
      • Key Tactic: Create a “digital sustainability report” or a content series that details your eco-friendly practices, and share it with your customer base.

By Dave Chaffey

https://tinyurl.com/3ax58xav

Latest Gartner Hype Cycles for Digital Marketing: 2009-2024

 

Evaluating technology options for innovation in marketing - do you know your Hype Cycles?

If you're involved in marketing strategy development, you will be constantly making judgments and reviewing with colleagues which digital technology innovations are most relevant to your organization. The Gartner Hype Cycle, which is published each year is a good tool to use to find out about both newly emerging innovations and more established marketing technology that could be relevant.

In this article, we compare different examples of the well-established Gartner Hype Cycle tools which serve to highlight the adoption of new technology services within marketing technology.

Gartner publishes many different hype cycles reviewing the adoption curves for different types of technologies, but as a digital strategist, I am most interested in those focusing on digital marketing technologies. A summary of the report with the infographic is published annually and I have been monitoring them and sharing them for over 10 years in this post.  You can compare the newest to the latest at the end. The methodology is described later in the post.

Through the updates you can see how technology trends have changed as techniques like content marketing and personalization have moved along the Hype Cycle.

The latest digital marketing hype cycles

The 2024 Gartner Hype Cycle highlights three transformative trends in digital marketing: generative AI, privacy-focused technologies, and the rise of  'super apps':

We have been sharing Gartner's digital marketing hype cycles for over 10 years now, since their structure provide an efficient structure for reviewing the latest technology. Their latest 2024 includes Digital Twins of the customer which we listened to several marketers mentioning their value at a recent workshop.

Using digital twins of the customer (DToC) allows you to create accurate, dynamic models of individual customers or segments, which can support personalized marketing. By leveraging these virtual profiles, you can:

1.⁠ ⁠Enhance Personalization - Use real-time insights from DToC models to tailor content, product recommendations, and engagement strategies based on predicted customer behavior.

2.⁠ ⁠Optimize Customer Journeys - Adjust campaigns and user flows dynamically, ensuring customers are guided toward products or services that fit their preferences.

3.⁠ ⁠Predict Needs and Trends - Run simulations to anticipate future customer needs, adjust to market trends, and proactively address pain points, making your brand more responsive and relevant.

Integrating DToC into your strategy helps in delivering value by predicting and meeting customer needs more accurately and building more engaging, data-informed campaigns.

Although IBM has been promoting its DTOC for its enterprise customers for several years now, there are new technologies emerging which are more accessible to other businesses.

For example, Pathmonk is on example of MarTech that uses AI based on Digital Twins.

You can see it it in action and results by visiting their customer stories page.

Unlike traditional personalization, which often relies on predefined rules or segments, Pathmonk’s AI-powered solution continuously learns from real-time visitor behavior. It dynamically adapts the content and experiences shown without needing manual input or updates. This means every interaction is based on the latest data, making personalization smarter, more relevant, and more effective at converting visitors.

Gartner's 2023 Emerging Technologies hype cycle, showed the importance of Generative AI (as exemplified by the popularity ChatGPT).

This takes the familiar form of a hype cycle from emerging technologies on the left through to more established technologies for which the plateau on the right will be reached and some point in the future with the forecasts shown by the colour within the circle. More detail explaining the hype cycle concept is given later in this article.

My analysis of the 2022 digital marketing hype cycle

For me, the main takeaways from the latest hype cycle are:

1. Digital twin of a customer (DToC) is an interesting new concept introduced by Gartner this year. They define the DToC as:

"A digital twin of a customer (DToC) is a dynamic virtual representation of a customer that simulates and learns to emulate and anticipate behavior. Customers can be individuals,​ persona​s, groups of people or​ machines.​ DToC gives marketers a flexible approach to anticipating a customer’s state of mind".

You can see this is a tool used for modeling the impact of changes to targeting and proposition before implementation. So it seems to be a form of predictive analytics based on AI. Although it's an interesting concept, it is likely to remain a niche application since most businesses will be more concerned with introducing or improving personalization to introduce improve conversion.

If you want to learn more, sample vendors are given as Absolutdata; Arrayworks; Fetch.ai; Salesforce and Tanjo.

2. Multichannel Marketing Hubs (clouds) of which email automation and personalization are part are now a core technology platform for many businesses and this is confirmed since these have already reached the plateau along with Conversational marketing which previously featured, but has now been removed since these are now part of the mainstream. It's likely you have these in place, the question is, what is the maturity of the implementation, how well are they customized to improve targeting and response? Which brings us to...

3. Tools to increase communications relevance through targeting. Tools to target such as Personalization engines and personification are now in the trough with personalization engines forecast to reach the plateau in 2-5 years. However, many would argue that in sectors such as retail, travel and financial services recommendations tools are already relevant.

4. Artificial Intelligence for marketing is in the 'trough of disillusionment'. This fits findings from our research on managing digital marketing amongst marketers which shows a relative lack of enthusiasm for adoption of AI and Machine Learning despite the number of vendors offering AI solutions. Our research also showed that many businesses are at a low-level of maturity in their digital marketing, with only the c10-20% of businesses who have the scale and skills to deploy AI currently using it. Surveying these larger organizations in 2021 Forrester found higher levels of adoption with 52% of marketers Gartner surveyed in 2021 using AI and ML, with another 38% in the planning or piloting stages with AI/ML. However, only 17% have deployed AI across all aspects of their marketing technology stacks. You can read more about the applications of AI in our infographic on 15 applications of AI for marketing.

5. Consumer consent and preference management technologies are often part of hubs/clouds/marketing automation, but are defined as a separate category by Gartner since they consider them a strategic investment with dedicated tools available for larger businesses.

6. Fewer new innovations than in previous years since the innovation trigger part of the marketing curve is sparse suggesting relatively few genuine new technologies are emerging. Indeed, I'm sure visual search has previously appeared here. It's not relevant to most businesses and I'm surprised that Augmented / Virtual Reality isn't highlighted on these curves since they are being adopted more widely. This suggests to me a maturity in tools has been reached and genuinely new techniques will be rare in future. This is suggested by our Digital marketing tools wheel (free download) which identifies 30 categories of technology.

To review which of the technologies are most relevant Gartner also share a visualisation to summarize the most relevant tools to consider as part of your marketing technology stack. The tools on the top left are most relevant here. For most small to mid-size organisations, those in the 'high benefit' row such as Hubs, ABM and Personalization are most relevant.

Understanding the stages of the Gartner Hype Cycle model for technology innovation

You may well be aware of the Gartner Technology Hype cycle concept since they have been published for over 10 years, but over time they have added a comprehensive range of hype cycles covering technology applications like e-commerce, CRM and ERP. Many of these are only available to subscribers, but Gartner does share some of the broader hype cycles through their blog/press releases and we share them here to raise awareness of these useful tools.

Here is the generic Gartner model of adoption of technology innovations showing adoption at different points in the product lifecycle.

It raises interesting questions for when businesses should adopt new technology:

Many of the early deployment 'Innovation Trigger' techniques are less relevant for marketers compared to those related to AI which is now at the 'Peak of Inflated expectations'. One that caught my eye is Conversational User Interfaces. This is a useful application for marketers to consider since it includes using marketing chatbot examples, which we have featured on our blog this year. It also includes voice interactions through the likes of Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Alexa/Echo.

Other technologies include marketing applications of machine learning which platforms like Google. Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Salesforce are deploying, with their mega budgets and research teams are working on integrating into their services. They include, for example, Augmented Reality, Cognitive Expert Advisors (described above as AI Chatbots), Smart Data discovery (of which Predictive Analytics is one approach) and IoT integration including the Connected Home.

For reference: comparing hype cycles through time

For those who are interested to review technology predictions against what actually happens in terms of popularity of deployment, here is a comparison for hype cycles from previous years that I have curated as I have updated this post. Note that some years Gartner only make the emerging technologies hype cycle available and not the marketing hype cycles.

2021 Digital marketing hype cycle

2021: The latest digital marketing Hype Cycle

For reference, this is the 2021 Digital Marketing Hype Cycle published by Gartner. If you're new to these Hype Cycles see the section later in this post explaining the stages of the Gartner Hype Cycle model for technology innovation.

This matrix shows that despite the hype of AI for marketing, mainstream adoption is a long time into the future. For current investment cycles, it's more important to review pans within the next 5 years and in particular the next two years including integrated marketing hubs and influencer marketing.

2020 Digital marketing hype cycle

Here is the chart from Gartner of the 2020 digital marketing hype cycle.

For comparison, this is the advertising hype cycle :

2019 digital marketing and advertising hype cycle

In August 2019 Gartner published their latest digital marketing and advertising Hype Cycle including their recommendations on 22 technologies marketers should focus on in the year ahead. Gartner's hype cycle for digital marketing is particularly useful for Smart Insights readers to consider their investments in marketing technology in the year(s) ahead.

You can see that of the technologies on the Innovation Trigger slope, many aren't expected to become mainstream for 5 to 10 years. Of those forecast to hit the mainstream within the next 2 to 5 years, the three most significant for marketers to consider are personification, real-time and conversational marketing.

Real-time marketing covers a range of established techniques such as marketing automation and personalization in response to customer behaviour, e.g. consumption of media, content or responding to messaging. It's likely that you're already using this if your business has high digital maturity. I think what is new here is a more unified approach to managing relevance across the customer lifecycle using common platforms such as marketing clouds and Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) which also feature in the Gartner hype cycle.

In their article, the personification of digital marketing they define personification as:

"Enabling marketers to deliver targeted digital experiences to individuals based on their inferred membership in a characteristic customer segment rather than on their personal identity".

Personification in digital marketing has been promoted by Gartner since 1995 since as an approach where improved relevance can be delivered by providing segment-based communications. This is distinct from 1:1 communications based on an individuals' identity where permission hasn't been gained. You can see this is closely related to personalization.

The review also highlights the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence which in their opinion, "AI continues to seduce marketers". They say that unrelenting vendor hype shows no sign of slowing, yet AI hype in marketing heavily outweighs actual adoption.

They define the use of AI for marketing as follows and also highlight Conversational Marketing as a significant trend from their hype cycle.

• AI for marketing comprises systems that change behaviors without being explicitly programmed based on data collected, usage analysis and other observations for marketing use cases. Unprecedented insight, intuition and scale fueled by AI will help marketers deliver relevant experiences to prospects and customers with increasing effectiveness and efficiency.

• Conversational marketing technologies enable interactions between companies and customers that mimic human dialogue and do so at scale. This category is near the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase.

It's good to see the latter included since in previous years I commented that Conversational UI doesn't feature prominently. Conversational marketing is more commonly known as 'chatbots', but I think it's useful to generalize it, because it has wider implications for replacing other forms of communication such as Messaging Apps gradually replacing email marketing and the use of interactive live support on-site such as the Intercom service we use and similar services like Drift which are developing chatbots which can be used for B2B and B2C. Smart speaker use is also included within the category.

Other on-the-rise technologies on the 'Innovation Trigger' part of the hype cycle to consider for investment include:

• Blockchain for advertising
• Consent management (closely related to identity management)
• Visual search for marketing
• Real-Time Marketing [Personalization, not real-time PR]
• Personification
• Augmented and Virtual Reality marketing
• Header bidding (Programmatic) and Programmatic TV buying
• Customer journey analytics
• Conversational Marketing
• Multichannel marketing hubs
• Multichannel marketing hubs

Personally, I disagree that AR and VR are on the rise and I would place them as heading swiftly into the 'trough of disillusionment'.

2018 digital marketing hype cycle (Source)

2017 emerging technologies hype cycle

2016 emerging technologies hypecycle

The Digital Marketing hype cycle for 2015

This report showcased some really interesting trends. Wearables are currently ascending the peak of inflated expectations, and with all the hype around them, they could have quite a long fall into the trough of disillusionment. Mobile advertising is now headed straight for the plateau of productivity, which is where it will rightfully sit given most web traffic now comes from mobile.

The 2015 Hype Cycle report identified 5 mega-trends that will play out over the next few years. These were:

•  1: Digital Business Moves Toward the Peak of Inflated Expectations
•  2: IoT, Mobility and Smart Machines Rapidly Approach the Peak
•  3: Digital Marketing and Digital Workplace Quickly Move Up
•  4: Analytics Are at the Peak
•  5: Big Data and Cloud Make Big Moves Toward the Trough of Disillusionment

Let's see how these compare to the 3 mega-trends predicted by 2014's report:

• Brain-Computer interface
• Virtual Reality
• Virtual Personal Assistants and Smart Advisors 

Brain-computer interfaces still seem a while away for most of us, but there has been big strides in the interfaces, especially for controlling robotic limbs for people who have lost their legs or arms. VR was also a big trend of 2015, as was virtual personal assistants, with Facebook launching 'M' in beta, and Siri, Google now and Cortana all battling for market share.

The Digital marketing Hype cycle for 2014

The emerging technologies trend report is the best known Gartner hype cycle but is in fact, one of many hype cycles covering activities from Big Data to e-commerce.  Also, this year Gartner has released this report specifically on Digital Marketing which will be of particular interest to Smart Insights readers.

Gartner Hype Cycles for technology and marketing in 2013

For reference and comparison to previous years., we have included the Gartner technology maturity adoption curves from previous years. In July 2013 Gartner released their Digital Marketing Hype Cycle - you can see some interesting commentary in this Slideshare kindly recommended by Jon Clements in the comments to this post and we added this in December since it's sure to be of interest to Smart Insights readers.  We cover many of these in our 2014 digital marketing trends post. Digital marketing specialists may be surprised to see some established techniques such as content marketing, attribution, responsive design and mobile analytics only at the innovation trigger stage although some of these are reaching the peak of the hype cycle.

In August 2013, Gartner followed with its Latest 2013 Hype Cycle of emerging technologies. If you don't know it, this is one of the best ways to find out about the upcoming technologies which may affect digital marketing.

Marketers who follow new technology will not be surprised to see Big Data nearing the Peak of Inflated Expectations along with wearable technology. Scary-sounding new technologies to watch include the Brain-computer interface, Human Augmentation, and Neurobusiness.

For reference, we also have the 2010 and 2009 models from when I first wrote this post. It's interesting that those rising up the "peak of inflated expectations" currently those looking most relevant for marketing are Video search, Augmented Reality, IP TV are not mainstream still, probably consigned to the "Trough of Disillusionment".

Gartner Hype Cycle 2009

Here is my summary of the 5 stages of diffusion of innovation used by Gartner - it can be useful for explaining to colleagues your strategy when you have adopted a "wait and see" approach because you don't want to waste time implementing a solution that never gets out of the "trough of disillusionment". Alternately, in digital marketing, many smaller, nimble companies have gained an edge amongst early adopters of an approach such as social media or Web 2.0.

1 Technology Trigger - The first phase of a hype cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other events that generates significant press and interest.

2 Peak of Inflated Expectations - In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of technology, but there are typically more failures.

3 Trough of Disillusionment - Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

4 Slope of Enlightenment - Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5 Plateau of Productivity - A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in the second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

Selecting alternatives for marketing innovation

Selecting amongst hundreds of alternative projects is a challenge I commonly hear when talking to digital strategists. One approach I have developed when consulting, to help with this, is the matrix below which we describe along with other alternatives in our guide and template to justifying digital marketing investments. Of course, this structured approach won't fit the culture of all organizations, but even a simple unscored version of this is useful within a workshop to help discuss the relative merits of different digital projects.

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