For many businesses, 2021 goals will be geared towards continuing to find ways to innovate online in order to make up for lost time and money during the pandemic. With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout still in its early stages, it’ll be a long time until the global economy is back to normal. In regards to paid digital marketing, we know that what worked in 2018 or 2019 may not work the same way in 2021. With this in mind, we’re going to look at three emerging and growing trends for 2021; what they are and how your business can adopt them to stay ahead of the game.

New King of Ads: Short Videos

People’s boredom levels have increased during quarantine, and many have turned to short-form video for entertainment: TikTok is now the preferred platform for Gen Z, Snapchat implemented a major redesign, and Facebook launched Instagram Reels to get in on the action. Given the boost in social media consumption for all generations, digital marketers should redirect budgets to these channels in 2021.

Given the love for all things quick and catchy, marketers looking to target younger customers must invest in their short-form video strategy and execution. TikTok for Business launched earlier this year and is set to expand its paid promotion and advertising options in 2021 — in other words, marketers should start studying up on this elusive platform now.

Developing short-form videos may seem deceptively simple, but balancing branded messaging with the carefree tone associated with short-form videos will require customer research, strategy, and creativity. On average, Gen Z has an 8-second attention span — it’s time to start experimenting with how to best communicate your brand purpose, product values, and CTA in a short and snappy way.

New User Privacy Protections Act Could Impact Targeting

On November 17, 2020, the federal government proposed dramatic changes to how Canada will enforce privacy law, forming in a new legal board to protect individuals’ personal information – and to regulate organizations’ privacy practices. Bill C-11: the Digital Charter Implementation Act creates the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) to replace the federal Personal Information and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA), and codify in law an organizations’ obligations in regards to the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. The proposal would modernize, and in certain respects toughen, Canadian private sector privacy law by enhancing transparency and control over personal information held by businesses, and imposing new, harsher sanctions for non-compliance.

In particular, new rules about data sharing include, to obtain valid consent under the CPPA, an organization must provide individuals with certain information before the individual can agree to having his or her data collected. Specifically, the information that organizations must provide includes the purpose(s) of the collection, use, and disclosure, the “reasonably foreseeable consequences of the collection, use or disclosure,” the types of personal information involved, and the “names of any third parties or types of third parties to which the organization may disclose the personal information. ”

In short, Facebook may be unable to share some vital information needed for targeting a specific audience when running paid ads.

Automated and Smart Bidding in Google Ads

To get the best possible results from a Google Ads campaign, Ads specialists analyze every piece of data and continuously tweak and adjust keywords, bids, and ad phrasing. While this obsessive attention to detail gets results, it’s exhausting.

Automated bidding strategies allow Google to use machine learning to analyze the tremendous amount of data it has on its users to adjust your bids in real-time. Ads specialists can embrace automated strategies while still being in complete control. Automated bidding isn’t anything new – Smart Bidding made its debut in 2016 – but most business owners aren’t aware of what it is or what it does.

It’s important to note that there are still plenty of human strategies involved in optimizing PPC performance. You can’t just set it and forget it and expect results – you still need to test everything, including a/b testing automated bid strategies against each other.