At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to shut down operations entirely. A wide range of other businesses quickly pivoted to new business models that would allow them to continue operating remotely, without person-to-person interactions. Marketers' experiences over the past year have led to some significant consumer shifts. Online shopping soared, with companies like Amazon reaping big benefits. Amazon's advertising rates jumped more than 50 percent in May from a year earlier.

With the change of each year, new trends emerge or old ones change and evolve in the marketing industry. The changes that occur may be blatant, but more often, they are subtle, and you need to be looking for them to notice what they are. Determining what is trending is in a company's best interests since it gives it the ability to focus on the big issues. With social media competing with mass media, a trend could explode in a matter of hours, making it even more critical to predict the eventuality before it happens. To help, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council weigh in on the trends they expect to show up throughout 2020, to better inform marketers where they should be putting their focus.

There is no question that 2017 was an incredible year for marketing. What's even better than a banner year is fresh optimism for the next. Predictions and trends for 2018 present even more opportunities for marketers that can see the signal amongst the noise. As we continue to grow, I've been rese...

There is no question that 2017 was an incredible year for marketing. What's even better than a banner year is fresh optimism for the next. Predictions and trends for 2018 present even more opportunities for marketers that can see the signal amongst the noise. As we continue to grow, I've been researching what trends are worth considering and investing in for B2B marketers. The result is the following list: Influencer Marketing, Content Experiences, Artificial Intelligence, Data, Video, Privacy Protection, Audience Development, Voice and Purpose Driven Marketing.

In this multi-part series, we'll look at upcoming trends in marketing in 2016 you should be prepared to address. Machine learning has been a goal of computer scientists and engineers since the 1950s, but only in the last 5 years has it become accessible to more people. Prior to the democratization of machine learning, advanced technologies were limited to the biggest computer science companies and laboratories, only for corporations with the biggest budgets. In short, it's a discipline of computer science in which machines teach themselves, learn from data, and change their programming as data changes. Machine learning means machines figure out how to recognize patterns and adapt to them.