Having spent time understanding and clarifying demographic targeting, you will pay back your business, and manipulating the algorithms will not help you.
Algorithms began to determine a significant part of modern marketing strategies. The Google search engine algorithm determines which websites are most effective in relevant search results, driving search engine optimization and related strategies. Facebook and other social networking sites use algorithms to determine the types of content that their users prefer by defining strategies in SMM and content marketing.
Over time, these algorithms become more complex; technology companies implementing them collect more data, improve their processes and deliberately complicate the “game” using a patented and new tactic. Although you can try to break these new updates, it's hard to say for sure how they function at a basic level.
Algorithms will become even more complex in the future. So, how should you prepare to adjust your strategies to adapt to this.
The future of marketing algorithms
You need to understand how the algorithms are likely to evolve. It is worth remembering several key areas of development, most of which are due to more advanced artificial intelligence, improved and large amounts of data.
• Removing human control. Today, most advanced marketing related algorithms are based on supervised learning or the process of using people to control and manage machine learning systems. However, next-generation algorithms are likely to rely on themselves. For example, the Google RankBrain update is self-adaptive to improve its ability to “understand” the meaning of complex user queries. Accordingly, it will be more difficult to guess what factors the algorithm takes into account, since even the people who developed it will not have directive control over how it develops.
• Prevention of manipulation. Marketers love finding ways to increase their chances of being supported by publicly available algorithms. SEO and all related sub-strategies are aimed at optimizing content, page titles, inbound links and many other factors to make web pages more authoritative in the eyes of Google. Of course, Google condemns overt manipulation of ranking and has many built-in algorithmic factors to test and punish such schemes. But their algorithms may not do much in their current state. Future versions will be so effective at detecting manipulative or unnatural content that another check is not needed.
• Flexibility. Perhaps the most important factor to consider is the flexibility and customizability of future algorithms. Currently, you are used to using the version of Google search, which can be very different from the "standard" version of Google search; Google includes many factors, including your location and search history. In the near future, the algorithms will be highly individualized everywhere, and it will be difficult to predict at a high level, otherwise you will have to "pay for the game", spending advertising dollars on the ability to target hyperspecific audiences.
What does this mean for marketers
So what does this mean for your marketing campaigns? To get started, don’t start to worry about your current marketing efforts becoming obsolete. Algorithms, like any technology, are gradually changing, and you will have many opportunities to improve your approach and adapt to new changes before they become unrecognizable.
In addition to this, there are several steps you can take to prepare for the future:
• Keep up with tech blogs and individual developers. Many technology companies have an official blog (for example, Google), and at least a few developers who occasionally post messages about new and upcoming changes. Stay tuned for these content releases to keep abreast of new developments and get new information right from the source. You will receive updates as they become available.
• Avoid manipulation. Any effort you make to take advantage of the algorithm should be as natural and valuable as possible to users. If you want your content and product lists to be forever green, you cannot risk becoming a victim of any future update designed to weed out manipulative content. When developing new material, carefully follow the wording, formatting, and intentions.
• Refine your demographic targeting. Future algorithms will take into account individual preferences, so understanding your target audience as an integrated “group” will not be enough. Obviously, you cannot recognize each of your customers individually, but you can do more to understand the individual types of users that make up your main groups, including what content and products they need most.
Algorithms are already complicated. In the future, they will be even more effective and even more obscure. However, if you focus on the needs of the audience, you can stay ahead of the competition and the next generation algorithms will only be conducive to your business.
