Press Release – Conversion Marketing
From more reliance on AI-driven performance campaigns, to the fast-evolving SEO/AEO space, these predictions highlight the key trends businesses need to watch and adapt to stay competitive in the year ahead.

As we shake the sand from our jandals and head into the new year, our team have had their future-predicting binoculars out, and have some insights into what could lie ahead in the world of digital marketing for 2026. From more reliance on AI-driven performance campaigns, to the fast-evolving SEO/AEO space, these predictions highlight the key trends businesses need to watch and adapt to stay competitive in the year ahead. Let’s dive in.
The days of manual keyword bidding are numbered. Search is shifting toward a model built on audience signals and AI-driven intent.
Automation is becoming the default approach for Search and Social campaigns, shifting the focus from “how to target” to “who to reach.”
AI is making it easier to create content, but it’s also making it easier to look exactly like your competitors. In 2026, and we see authenticity and humanity becoming the new premium.
We are due for a shake-up in where the 18-25 demographic spends their time.
To build and maintain genuine connections with their audiences, social media influencers will move away from focusing on posting images and reels into the feed, and more into their inbox. By this, we mean using the new broadcast channels and community features in the platforms to be able to directly message their communities more often. This way their messaging will be seen as more authentic, and likely more impactful as communities grow around individual influencers.
These predictions paint a clear picture: AI has provided a range of new targeting, analysis and creative tools, and some of them are great. But not all.
We recommend being proactive in adopting and using the tools that you see as most relevant to your marketing efforts this year. However, “keep your eyes open” – Don’t switch off your brain and assume everything you’re getting from your AI-based tools is 100% accurate, or that it doesn’t require some kind of testing before adopting across your campaigns.
Crucially, keep in mind the value of human-created content and personalisation of your brand – this is likely to become ever more valuable as AI dominates so much of the online space.
Ready to get ahead of the curve? Contact the team at Conversion Marketing to chat about your 2026 strategy.
Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz
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