Here’s how you can prepare for digital marketing shifts.

The Biggest Challenges Marketers May Face In 2023

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2020, Apple announced iOS 14 and new privacy features. As a result, marketers have less data to use to understand customers and personalize marketing efforts. However, that announcement was just the start.

Now, we’re looking toward a cookieless future. Google is planning to make cookies a thing of the past by the end of 2024. We need to start preparing in 2023 for the change.

How To Get The Upper Hand

If you know about stocks and investing, you know that the strongest portfolios are usually the most diverse. No expert investor will throw all of their resources into one stock, because if that stock fails, they’ll lose everything.

Marketers can learn from investors. Throwing all of your marketing budget into one or two strategies puts your business at risk. Instead, diversify your approach. For example, keep running your ads because they’ll still be relevant without cookies, but also invest in email marketing.

The most effective content marketing strategies work together to fill in the gaps where some strategies are weak or where you aren’t reaching customers. By using diverse strategiesin tandem, you reach the most customers and aren’t impacted as significantly by changes.

Four Strategies To Excel At Marketing In 2023

Here are four strategies to add to your arsenal of digital marketing tools to ensure that you continue reaching customers in a more restrictive digital world:

1. Gather First-Party Data

First-party data will likely be the most valuable source of information in 2023 as third-party data continues to go the way of the dinosaurs. Instead of purchasing information from outside companies, rely on your own assets to gather customer data. According to a Gartner survey, 79% of consumers want more control over their personal information and its use. You will benefit from respecting customers’ privacy and turning to first-party data instead of using outside data.

Some valuable sources of first-party data include:

• Website visitor tracking.

• Digital forms and surveys.

• Social media interactions.

• Customer service interactions.

• Marketing email and text message responses.

2. Run Pay-Per-Click Ads With First-Party Data

Many e-commerce retailers rely on Google and social media ads to retarget and create an ad funnel. For example, imagine a customer stopped by your website and looked at new dresses but left. Retailers retarget by showing ads on other sites to entice the customer back.However, Apple’s privacy updates are making that more difficult, and cookieless browsing will only make it harder.

Thankfully, retargeting through ads is still possible.

Many marketers are turning to services like Google’s Customer Match, or Facebook’s Custom Audiences. These solutions use a custom audience list that businesses create with first-party data and match that list to users on the ad platform. That way, companies can deliver personalized ads to customers based on first-party data to create an ad funnel.

3. Focus On Email And Text Message Marketing

Email and text message marketing are two of the most valuable first-party data sources. Through these marketing channels, you can target specific customers and segments. For example, you can divide your email list by location and send out location-specific promotions to customers. According to research by eMarketer, most consumers prefer personalized emails based on behaviors like purchase history.

Then, you can track which customers open emails and text messages and how they respond to the content. This data will allow you to customize marketing to current customers based on behaviors, like how they respond to certain promotions.

4. Work With Brand Ambassadors And Influencers

Brand ambassadors and influencers will likely play a crucial role in 2023 as companies continue to find creative ways to reach their target audiences without the help of cookies and data-tracking tools. In 2022, more than 75% of brand marketers planned to budget for influencer marketing. You can choose an influencer with a niche audience to help you reach your target market.

Brand ambassadors and influencers promote businesses more personally than a traditional ad that pops up on someone’s social media feed. Brand ambassadors are friendly and familiar faces offering product recommendations, which boosts your brand’s authenticity.

In India, Twitter timelines and WhatsApp forwards are chock-full of claims that coronavirus can be treated by homoeopathic drugs promoted by the ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, yoga & naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and homoeopathy). 

In January, the ministry released a public advisory claiming that homoeopathic drugs can be used for the prevention of infection. However, it was later confirmed as false news by the fact-checking website AltNews. There are no vaccines available to cure coronavirus infection, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

In addition to this, social media platforms also have videos promoting cow dung and cow urine as a cure for coronavirus, which has been propagated as gospel for the Hindi heartland. Many such claims of home-made remedies supposedly meant to cure coronavirus are rampant across social media platforms. We found plenty of examples of Twitter and Facebook, which violate the so-called policies in place to stop the spread of misinformation, but these posts have not been taken down.

Social Media’s Efforts To Curb Fake News

In response to the coronavirus misinformation spree, internet giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube had pledged to work with WHO and third-party fact-checking platforms to regulate online content and fish out fake news and misinformation regarding the coronavirus. 

Twitter launched a search prompt for India in collaboration with the ministry of health and family welfare and the World Health Organisation (WHO). This will mean that all Twitter searches for coronavirus or any related terms, will be shown flash links to WHO’s website.

Google, Facebook, and YouTube will also be following the same process. The step will ensure that users are getting their information from more reliable sources. Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers are also reported to have started removing content with claims that have been debunked by WHO and local health authorities. Chinese short video app TikTok too started asking its users to verify facts about coronavirus with trusted sources, by flashing warnings in eight Indian languages. Moreover, the platform is also asking its users to report any content that violates TikTik’s community guidelines.

But how effective are these measures? Beyond searches, links and articles claiming to cure coronavirus have become very commonplace in India. Last week, an Ola driver sent us a video in response to questions about the steps being taken by the company to promote awareness about the infection and the disease. The video showed a religious leader providing home remedies and cures to the coronavirus infection. Such videos are being forwarded with glee by unsuspecting users.

As schools and offices shut down, all international and national business events are being cancelled, there is an obvious panic around the spread of coronavirus, which is being exploited by those looking to capitalise on the panic. In times of such pandemics, the impact of people believing each and every piece of information found online can have severe consequences. For example, the panic has resulted in a shortage of face masks and hand sanitisers — both of which are less than ideal in the fight against the epidemic 

This also raises the question of intermediary liability — should social media companies be held responsible for the spread of false information or does the buck stop with the users? 

The Indian government had proposed a draft of IT intermediary guidelines of December 2018. Under which, it proposed social media sites to remove any “illegal” content within 24 hours, upon being notified by court order or a government agency. 

This article republished from Inc42

The requirement comes as governments around the world are trying to hold social media companies more accountable for the content that circulates on their platforms, whether it’s fake news, child porn, racist invective or terrorism-related content. India’s new guidelines go further than most other countries’ by requiring blanket cooperation with government inquiries, no warrant or judicial order required.

India proposed these guidelines in Dec. 2018 and asked for public comment. The Internet and Mobile Association of India, a trade group that counts Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google among its members, responded that the requirements “would be a violation of the right to privacy recognized by the Supreme Court.”

But the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is expected to publish the new rules later this month without major changes, according to a government official familiar with the matter.

“The guidelines for intermediaries are under process,” said N.N. Kaul, the media adviser to the minister of electronics & information technology. “We cannot comment on the guidelines or changes till they are published.”

The provisions in the earlier draft had required platforms such as Google’s YouTube or ByteDance Inc.’s TikTok, Facebook or its Instagram and WhatsApp apps, to help the government trace the origins of a post within 72 hours of a request. The companies would also have to preserve their records for at least 180 days to aid government investigators, establish a brick-and-mortar operation within India and appoint both a grievance officer to deal with user complaints and a government liaison. The Ministry is still finalizing the language and content.

The rules cover all social media and messaging apps with more than 5 million users. India, with 1.3 billion people, has about 500 million internet users. It isn’t clear whether the identities of foreign users would be subject to the Indian government’s inquiries.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have been frustrated by tech companies that have refused to identify users, unlock devices or generally cooperate with government investigations, particularly in cases relating to terrorism.

In India, where the internet — and fake news — are still relatively new phenomenon, a false report of rampant child abduction and organ harvesting circulated widely via WhatsApp, leading to mob violence and over three dozen fatal lynchings in 2017 and 2018.

WhatsApp refused a request from the government to reveal the origins of the rumors, citing its promise of privacy and end-to-end encryption for its 400 million Indian users. It instead offered to fund research into preventing the spread of fake news and mounted a public education campaign in the country, its biggest global market.

WhatsApp will “not compromise on security because that would make people less safe,” it said in a statement Wednesday, adding its global user base had reached over 2 billion. “For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues — without sacrificing privacy.”

At the same time, tech companies and civil rights groups say the new rules are an invitation to abuse and censorship, as well as a burdensome requirement on new and growing companies.

In an open letter to India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, executives from Mozilla Corp., GitHub Inc. and Cloudflare Inc. said the guidelines could lead to “automated censorship” and “increase surveillance.“ In order to be able to trace the originator of content, platforms would basically be required to surveil their users, undermine encryption, and harm the fundamental right to privacy of Indian users, they said.

Companies such as Mozilla or Wikipedia wouldn’t fall under the new rules, the government official said. Browsers, operating systems, and online repositories of knowledge, software development platforms, are all exempt. Only social media platforms and messaging apps will be covered.

Republished from Fortune