2017 has an exciting year where smart home technologies such as Google Home and Alexa took root. Digital marketing also superseded traditional media advertising, while the market rewarded strong customer service and innovation as well.

Several new marketing trends are likely to shape the way brands communicate to their clients in the year 2018. Here are the top 2018 marketing trends to watch for:

AI takes charge of website messaging

Marketers have adopted artificial intelligence in communicating with their customers. Tools like Drift and Intercom lead the way. Many brands will embrace AI live chats to improve their customer service in 2018.

Quantitative-based marketing takes root

Companies like Kraft and Unilever are jumping from ‘soft skills’ marketing to data-science based marketing for their brands. Many organizations will use data-based quantitative marketing to grow.

Marketers will turn attention to augmented-reality (AR) content

We expect to see more of AR branded and sponsored content. New devices, like the iPhone X and iPhone 8, were manufactured with augmented reality in mind. They will be key to experimenting with this type of marketing.

Brands will be keen on personalization

Account-based marketing (ABM) was created to enable brands to provide tailored content to specific accounts. Many more brands are adopting the ABM principles. Soon, marketers will use such platforms as Optimizely and Adobe to recommend specific content to specific accounts.

There will be an increase in voice-optimized content

In 2016 20 percent of the online searches was done by voice. This number is set to increase to 50% by the year 2020. Marketers are expected to optimize content for voice search as they did for mobile and web 2.0. Voice search surfaces more long-tail content as internet users speak more than they type on the search bar.

Instagram will surpass Facebook in popularity

According to Instagram, there are an average 800 million users every month. Instagram Stories, the app’s latest feature, has become very popular, surpassing Snapchat a year after it went live. None of its new tools failed to capture user interest. Many brands view Instagram as having better engagement than other social media platforms. Therefore, many of them will use it for their social media marketing strategy effectively surpassing Facebook as the most popular social media platform.

Many brands will use privacy protection to gain competitive advantage

Cybersecurity has become a matter of great concern around the world. 2017 has had a fair share of data breaches, including the Equifax breach. In the year 2018 and going forward, customers will reward products that take important steps to safeguard their privacy.

Many leading brands will invest more in live events

Marketers now recognize that live events are an effective marketing channel. More than two-thirds of the leading brands will increase the number of live events they hold in 2018.