With just 12 weeks before the New Year, where we all join hands and pretend to know more than just the first verse to Auld Lang's Syne, marketers are tasked with tinkering their online marketing strategies for 2016. So what changes in digital can we expect for the year ahead?

Mobile will bridge online and offline purchasing

We are already starting to see developers utilising mobile functionality such as GPS and SMS to target customers – at times to the chagrin of mobile customers.

Nevertheless, it is a logical step for marketers to use mobile ads as a way of bridging online and offline sales.

In-store marketing will have a major role to play with mobile customers, especially now that tech companies have cracked NFC (Near-field-communication).

Digital wallets are certainly likely to be favoured by consumers purely for the convenience. It’s hardly a conundrum but the challenge is what you can offer customers your competitors don’t.

Will we see a major shift in the web design service industry?

Social media will improve s-commerce

Social advertising is still in its infancy in marketing terms, but 2016 is likely to be the year when S-Commerce reaches a maturity and starts to run faster than Forrest Gump.

Free advertising faded last year and even though you might feel like throwing rotten tomatoes at Facebook et al, the major players will take the next step towards fully-fledged S-Commerce platforms.

The buy button is a coup for starters. Paid advertising is the only way to go but could pay off if you can persuade consumers into impulse purchasing.

Video content will become the most popular advertising format

The budget for video advertising is growing year on year. Companies are forecast to splurge $5m in on video marketing in 2016 a huge chunk of which will target mobile users.

It shouldn’t really come as any surprise that video is such a popular marketing tool. The stumbling block up until now has been high costs and low-quality software. It even made Windows 8 look like a bargain.

But in these real-life sci-fi times of high-spec mobiles and cheap video recorders, it is possible for marketers with big ideas to produce video ads on a small budget. Now you have the chance to show the bargain-bin Hollywood directors what it takes to be creative.

Clean your data

The influx of data-driven tools and advertising platforms in the last half-decade has created more clutter databases than a car boot sale. And the jumble could adversely affect your marketing.

When data is stored across various tools, it can have a negative impact on your targeting, ad messaging, bidding, local SEO and a whole bunch of other stuff.

If your data is in a mess, your marketing campaign will be scruffy round the edges as well! Don’t wait for April to do a spring clean.

Story-telling content

Marketing content has always been designed to evoke emotion. And now it is taking another leap into the way writers present online content.

Just as TV is prizing huge budgets from the soapy palms of Hollywood, corporate giants such as Google and Coca-Cola have picked up on fact people want cliff-hangers not conclusions.

Incorporating story-telling techniques in marketing campaigns to create suspense keeps the audience tuned in to find out what happens next. And can makes salivating writers ask questions that snowball into online debates.

Marketing opportunities for 2016 are already in place. Companies that have been following the game and making tactical switches as and when needed will be ready. Everybody else will have to take a punt.