With mind-boggling growth rate of worldwide Mobile users, Mobile marketing is somewhat the key to success. Owning to this quite a revolution has taken place in the marketing ecosystem in the past few years. Marketers have joined the mobile marketing bandwagon to clutch lucrative profits and paying much more attention to the needs and wants of mobile users. However, they are yet to witness greater changes and challenges. The astute marketers have predicted that mobile marketing, in 2018, would experience various inflection points that would change the way mobile marketing is done. One of the major changes that are expected in 2018 are mobile-first indexing, which Google is all set to rule out shortly. This is certainly going to create a stir among the marketer community. Moreover, Progressive Web Apps would offer the best of both web and apps for mobile users, which will open gates to new opportunities. And this is not all; personalized mobile marketing is also all set to take a futuristic leap with AI and Machine Learning.

All of this leads us to one conclusion: the coming twelve months have a lot in store for the marketers. In order to formulate a strong mobile marketing strategy, it is imperative to follow the Mobile Marketing Trends for 2018. These trends would help the marketers strategize their marketing plans for the coming months and create meaningful moments for the consumers in the mobile space. So, without wasting any more time, let’s discuss the 5 mobile marketing trends to look out in 2018.

·Takeover By Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages
With more than 53% mobile site visitors abandoning pages taking longer than 3 seconds to load, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages act as a boon for website owners. The AMPs were launched by Google 2 years ago and have shown an exponential growth from having few pages to 4 billion AMP pages presently. And this number is predicted to increase in 2018.

 
The biggest challenge for mobile website owners is speed and these Accelerated Mobile Pages offer a perfect solution by loading in less than half a second. In addition to that, AMPs have also been proven to boost the site traffic by 10% and double the time spent on the page. Marketers would collaborate with web developers and designers to make a switch to these AMPs in 2018 for leveraging the benefits offered by these fast-loading pages.

· Surge In Progressive Web Apps
Progressive Web Apps aka PWAs are expected to take on the mobile marketing world in 2018. PWAs are an amalgamation of the best of web and the best of applications. Sites with PWAs can be added to the home screen of the user as an app and browsed without surfing any search engine again.
In 2018, there would be a visible surge in Progressive Web Apps for mobile marketing. It would not be wrong to say that marketers have realized that PWAs can cater the demands of the users and also help in offering a personalized experience. These are reliable, fast to load, and engaging, and can even help in boosting conversions. AliExpress, for example, accepted that its conversions across all browsers increased by 104% and on iOS by 82% just by switching tow PWAs. More marketers would switch to PWAs for effective mobile website design.

· Hyper Local Searches On The Rise
The number of mobile web searches using the ‘Near Me’ or ‘Nearby’ feature has burgeoned by around 147% annually. In fact, a study concluded that 76% mobile users visit the business store within a day of their local search and more than 26% of these searches result in sales.
While local searches have been in the marketing game for quite some time, hyper local searches would become the ruling trend for mobile marketers in 2018. Google’s geo-targeting, Apple Maps-integrated ad units for locality and other such booming technologies would lead to geo-conquest. Marketers would be seen targeting the ads and promotional activities around their competitor locations to conquer their competitor’s territory along with their own locality.

· Increased Dependency On Mobile Payments
The year 2017 witnessed the 20th anniversary of the first mobile payment. Fast forward to 2018, mobile payments are becoming an integral part of various business ventures. Not just the mobile app market, but Google has also placed immense trust in mobile technology in the past few years, leading to an exponential increase in security. This has increased the dependency of online businesses on mobile payments.
Today, hundreds of banking apps, UPI apps, mobile e-payment apps, and mobile wallets etc., have come to the fore. The mobile payments industry exceeded the $700 billion threshold in 2017. In 2018, more companies would depend on these payment technologies and incorporate them into their websites and applications. Marketers would leverage this opportunity to provide a hassle-free and trustworthy payment gateway to the potential buyers.

· Personalization With Artificial Intelligence
Personalization would continue to be the buzzword in 2018. Artificial Intelligence would become more intelligent in 2018 and shape the way marketers interact and engage with their audience.

According to a research by Tractica Projects, the virtual digital assistance fueled by Artificial Intelligence would reach out to more than 3.3 billion mobile devices by the end of 2020. Be it Siri, Alexa, Cortana or the Google Now, virtual assistance offered by the Artificial Intelligence-run assistants would be the top thing influencing marketers in planning their marketing strategies. Mobile apps and websites with in-built chatbots and other automated processes would offer instantaneous results and a personalized experience to the potential buyers; thus, pushing the buyer further down the sales funnel.

Digital mobile marketing is changing the face and new mediums like WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram etc., are coming to the fore. Among all these new technologies and mobile mediums, it is imperative for the mobile marketers to keep a close tab on the leading mobile marketing trends. Following these trends in mobile marketing strategy can empower it and make it more effective for increased ROI.

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