Marketing moves fast. New platforms, search engine algorithm changes, and shifting buyer behavior make it hard to know what actually works—even if you’re a seasoned marketer.
In this guide, you’ll learn the top digital marketing tips that work right now. You'll learn how to:
- Appear in AI-powered search results
- Turn social media efforts into real business outcomes
- Convert more website visitors into customers
Let’s go through the list.
1. Optimize Your Content for User Prompts and Questions
One of the best modern content marketing tips is to match your content to how people naturally ask questions. Because it increases your chances of appearing in AI-generated responses and voice search results.
(You also better cater to very specific user desires—which can help improve conversion rates.)
AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode are changing the way your customers find products. Instead of typing "best headphones," they're asking full questions like "what are the best wireless headphones for working out?"
To optimize for conversational queries, start by identifying the questions and prompts your audience actually uses. Do this by checking the "People Also Ask" section in Google search results for your target keywords:
You can also go to forums like Reddit and Quora to see how people phrase their problems:
Take this a step further with Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit. Just enter your brand’s domain and head to the “Questions” tab.
You’ll see examples of real questions users in your market are typing into AI tools.
The next step is to structure your content to answer these questions directly. Use these questions throughout new content or within existing content.
2. Focus on 2-3 Social Media Platforms at Most
Focus on just a few social media platforms that your audience relies on most to ensure you have the biggest possible impact.
If you try to spread yourself too thin across every platform, you could burn through time, resources, and energy quickly without seeing many results.
Plus, not all platforms are suitable for all businesses and brands. LinkedIn is usually best for B2B, while B2C brands often see greater success on TikTok. And Instagram is typically best for younger target audiences, while Facebook is often better for older audiences.
How do you find the right platforms?
One way is to use the Audience Intelligence app.
It shows you how likely your target audience is to use each social media platform compared to a baseline level.
This information lets you focus your marketing efforts on just the social media platforms your audience actually uses. Saving your marketing budget, while also reaching more of your target customers.
3. Survey Your Customers and Prospects Regularly
Regularly surveying your existing customers and prospective customers gives you insights you can't get from analytics tools.
You'll discover the language people use to describe their problems, which helps you write better marketing copy. But you’ll also uncover new use cases for your product that you hadn't considered (and issues you might want to fix).
Here’s how to do it properly:
- Keep your surveys short and focused. Ask three to four specific questions like "What made you choose us over other options?" and "What problem were you trying to solve when you found us?"
- Save time by setting up an automated survey that triggers after a purchase or sign-up (a week after the action is a good starting point)
- Reach prospects outside of your website to tap into more of your target audience. Social media and dedicated survey tools with audience pools can help.
- Use a tool like Typeform or Google Forms to keep it simple
- Offer a small incentive like a discount code or free resource to increase response rates
Here’s an example from U.K. retailer Argos, offering the chance to win points worth £500:
4. Find Competitor Content Gaps
A content gap analysis reveals keywords your competitors rank for that you don't. These are gaps in your content coverage that you can fill to grow traffic and share of voice.
Start by identifying your top three to four direct competitors. Look at their blog content, landing pages, and other website content to get a sense of the keywords they're targeting. Then, find the gaps you’re not creating content for but where search volume exists.
Use Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool to easily spot these opportunities.
Just enter your domain and up to four competitors. Scroll down to the table and toggle the “Missing” filter.
This shows you keywords all your rivals are ranking for but you’re not.
Identify all the keywords relevant to your business, and use them to either create new content or optimize your existing content.
5. Set Up Behavior-Triggered Email Campaigns
Setting up behavior-triggered messages is among the best email marketing tips given they respond to what people actually do on your website.
In practice, that can mean someone who downloads a pricing guide gets different emails than someone who reads your blog posts. And a visitor who abandons their cart gets different messages than someone who completes a purchase.
Behavior-specific emails perform significantly better than generic newsletters because they're relevant to where each person is in their buying journey. For example, Moosend found that abandoned cart emails see open rates of up to 45%. (Most industries see typical open rates of 20%-25%.)
To get more out of your email marketing efforts, set up triggers based on specific actions like:
- Page visits
- Resource downloads
- Email opens
- Purchases
- Abandoned carts
Each trigger should start a sequence of one to three emails tailored to that behavior.
For example, an abandoned cart email sequence might look like this:
- Email 1: A simple reminder for the customer about the items in their cart
- Email 2: 24-48 hours later, a follow up reminder
- Email 3: 24-48 hours after the second email, perhaps with a discount to encourage them to buy
Many email marketing platforms offer simple drag-and-drop automation builders to set these up.
6. Leverage User-Generated Content
User generated content (UGC) is a powerful way to both improve your credibility and optimize your marketing budget.
Why?
Because:
- An impressive 82% of people are more likely to purchase from brands that use UGC in their marketing efforts
- You can use content your audience is already creating for you rather than creating everything from scratch, since your customers already share honest reviews, post photos using your products, and write about problems you helped them solve
This UGC content builds trust because it comes from real users—not your marketing department. And it saves you marketing time and dollars since it’s pretty much ready to use as is. (It’s also great for brand awareness, since your audience shares the UGC with their own networks too.)
One classic example is the “Share a Coke” campaign. Coca Cola added people’s names to the bottles and cans.
This encouraged customers to share their own photos on social media with their names and tagging their friends. To date, there are more than 624K posts on Instagram with the #shareacoke hashtag.
What if you don’t have user generated content to tap into yet?
Simply ask for it.
One method is to highlight wins or big moments for your brand and encourage your followers to get involved. Beauty brand Cocokind did this to celebrate getting their first end cap in a major retail store:
They encouraged followers to tag them in their own pictures if they saw the end cap in their local stores:
Creating a branded hashtag similar to what Coca-Cola did is another useful way to encourage UGC. Create a simple, branded hashtag and ask customers to tag you in posts about your product that you can then share on your own profiles.
Cocokind did this with #cocokindskincare, and there are now more than 11K posts with this hashtag on Instagram:
You can also run competitions and giveaways. For more ideas, check out our full guide on user-generated content.
7. Use Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are promotions that appear on other platforms for users that have already visited or interacted with your website or social media presence.
The flow looks like this for retargeting based on website interactions:
- Someone visits your website
- They have a look around, possibly clicking on a few products
- They leave your website
- They log into social media
- An ad appears for your website encouraging them to come back and buy from you—perhaps even highlighting the specific products the user viewed
Since these people already showed interest in your brand, they're more likely to convert than those visiting your site for the first time.
The key is segmenting your retargeting audiences based on what they did on your site. This way, someone who visits your pricing page gets different ads than someone who only reads a blog post to better align with where the person is in the marketing funnel.
How you set up retargeting ads depends on the platforms you want to use. For more guidance, check out our article about how retargeting works.
8. Lean on Short-Form Videos
Short-form videos consistently deliver the highest ROI for marketers compared to other content formats. They're easy to consume and perfect for mobile viewing.
Take ClickUp for example. The task management software’s most recent YouTube videos get a couple of hundred views each:
But almost all of their recent shorts have at least 1K views:
Plus, short-form videos don’t need high production value. A simple screen recording explaining a concept, a behind-the-scenes look at your business, or a quick tip related to your industry can perform better than polished commercials.
You can also benefit from content repurposing here by creating multiple short-form snippets from your existing long-form content. Like our UGC marketing tip earlier on this list, this lets you get more value out of your marketing budget.
Here are some actionable tips for creating high-performing short-form videos:
- Focus on the first three seconds, as that's when viewers often decide whether to keep watching. Start with a hook that promises value or creates curiosity.
- Batch-create videos by filming multiple clips in one session. Write down 10-15 video ideas, then shoot them all in a few hours.
- Keep a running list of frequently asked questions from customers or prospects. Then, turn each question into a short video.
- Use tools like CapCut or Instagram's built-in editing features to add captions and simple graphics that grab user attention and keep viewers engaged
- Post consistently rather than perfectly. Three amateur-looking videos per week could outperform one polished video per month. And that means you could get better results from less effort.
Further reading: Short-Form vs. Long-Form Content: Which Should You Use?
9. Track Brand Sentiment in AI Tools
Positive mentions about your brand in AI responses can drive significant traffic and leads—Semrush research shows the average LLM visitor is worth 4.4x the average traditional organic search visitor.
The number of those LLM visitors could increase dramatically as more and more users turn to AI tools to find information, products, and services. In fact, the same Semrush research suggests traffic from large language models (LLMs) will overtake traditional organic search traffic by early 2028:
Traditional brand monitoring tools miss these AI conversations entirely. You can actively test queries related to your industry and see if, where, and how your brand appears using tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
Create a list of 20-30 questions your potential customers might ask AI tools about your industry. Base these off real data where you can (like keyword data in Google Search Console or by surveying customers and prospects).
Test these regularly in multiple LLMs to understand how those tools perceive and recommend your brand.
Or, skip the guessing game and get direct sentiment analysis with Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit.
The “Perception” report highlights key areas you should improve upon. And it shows how major AI tools perceive your brand compared to your competitors.
Scroll down to see more details about your brand strengths and whether the overall sentiment is favorable.
A key part of building and maintaining positive sentiment around your brand is getting and responding to customer reviews. These are great sources of social proof, but AI tools also often lean on them to make recommendations.
Also respond to user questions on platforms like Reddit and Quora. These are some of the most commonly cited domains in AI tools. But they’re also important places your customers go to help them make buying decisions.
10. Encourage Employee Advocacy on Social Media
Employee advocacy is when your employees promote your brand, products, or services, usually through their social media profiles. This extends your reach without increasing your ad spend.
Your employees have something your marketing team doesn't: personal networks that trust them. So, when an employee shares company content or talks about their work, it reaches people who might never see your brand's official posts.
We benefit from this at Semrush. For example, we got 70+ reactions and 25+ comments on our LinkedIn post about our Q2 results:
But Semrush employee advocates shared their own posts with their audiences, too. This helped rack up more views and engagement than our brand account can reach alone.
How can your brand do the same?
Find people in your business who are active on social media and have a voice people want to listen to. Then, encourage them to share news, stories, and tips around your company.
11. Use Social Proof to Build Trust
Social proof like reviews, testimonials, and case studies, provide evidence that your brand is a good choice to make it easier for potential customers to trust you.
Depending on your brand, product, and industry, effective social proof can come in various forms. In addition to the forms we mentioned above, customer logos, use statistics, awards, and media mentions all serve as social proof.
For example, Brevo is in the B2B niche as an email marketing service provider. On the brand’s homepage, there’s a carousel of company logos representing brands that use Brevo:
This instantly tells potential customers that big businesses trust Brevo.
Further down the page, there are testimonials from real users:
And the product pages include awards and review counts from platforms like G2 and Capterra.
Along with more specific testimonials for that particular offering:
Use These Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business
You don’t need to apply all the marketing tips above at once. Instead, pick a few to start with and monitor your progress to find out what works for your business.
Not sure which metrics to track? See this guide on the most important marketing KPIs.
And to streamline your efforts even further, sign up for a Semrush free trial to access 55+ digital marketing tools.