If you’re interested in safe bets, 2023 marketing predictions are not the topic for you. The last few years have done away with the concept of benchmarks; privacy legislation has the potential to disrupt the entire landscape; and macroeconomic instability looms over everything.

A lot will happen in 2023 that cuts against the grain of popular sentiment. Here are some predictions that may look a lot more prescient in a few months:

The economy will be good for real business

We’re already witnessing a few trends that are pointing in this direction. 

For one, funding is drying up, which means that products and services built on shaky fundamentals will concede ground to solid businesses but to fill a need or gap. 

For another, companies are focusing on profitability, which will have similar effects on the business landscape as buzz loses out to substance. 

Tracking solutions will improve

Even with those new privacy regulations swirling, 2023 will see a marked improvement in tracking solutions and workarounds, as foreshadowed by a few key trends emerging late in 2022. These trends include: first-party in-platform data integrations like the Meta Conversion API; the emergence of AI and machine learning-based media mix modeling, and better predictive modeling from the platforms themselves. 

AI will get a strong foothold in creative

Technology that produces machine-generated copy and imagery will continue to improve—and change the makeup of creative teams and their skill sets. Independent platforms are popping up to supplement emerging native capabilities from Google, Facebook and TikTok in achieving push-button creative scale across ad types and dimensions. 

There will always be room for great visual and messaging talent, but creative teams will become increasingly productive if they can leverage AI through the controls of structural organization and strategic testing.

Influencer growth will stagnate

We’ll see a pendulum swing in 2023 toward expertise and authenticity and away from celebrity aspiration, especially as Gen Z and younger millennials gain purchasing power and subsequent influence over the media mix. Influencer marketing will bear the brunt of this shift—with the exception of user-generated content, which represents a middle ground of microinfluencers who are (or pose as) actual users and customers. 

Thanks to accessible cost structures and fast-growing marketplaces where brands can find talent, UGC will continue to grow, finding alignment with emerging platforms like authenticity-forward BeReal. 

Web3 will gain haters—and traction

Underpinned by increasingly engaging technology, Web3 will gain influence in marketing, with Oculus putting Meta far ahead of its platform competitors in the early turf war. 

VR technology is more advanced and useful by the minute, with apps on Meta’s just-released Quest showing impressive inroads into fitness, language learning, painting and music. 

Yes, the overall jury is still out on Web3 and VR, and there’s genuine potential for it to sprout some dystopian offshoots, but there’s just as much potential for it to gain traction in entertainment, learning, community and beyond.