Digital marketing is changing and the industry is trying to adapt whilst accepting the uncertainty.
So, let me offer an alternative approach that you could take this year.
Invite all the key decision-makers in your organization – including C-level executives as well as the heads of digital analytics, digital advertising, SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing – to an off-site meeting to help them understand how the ten digital marketing trends mentioned below will shape your digital marketing strategy for 2025.
This is no ordinary time and you need to decide if your new digital marketing strategy will enable your organization to weather the coming storm.
To give you a starting point for crucial conversations, here is my take on the top 10 digital marketing trends for 2025:
1. Digital Marketing Fundamentals
In Digital Marketing Fundamentals, I mentioned that the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs conducted a survey that found:
“Content marketers are resilient. Most have met the challenges of the pandemic head-on.”
In response to the pandemic, B2B and B2C marketers:
Increased time spent talking with customers.
Revisited their customer/buyer personas.
Reexamined the customer journey.
Changed their targeting/messaging strategy.
Changed their distribution strategy.
Adjusted their editorial calendar.
Put more resources toward social media/online communities.
Changed their website.
Changed their products/services.
Adjusted their KPIs.
Changed their content marketing metrics (e.g., set up new analytics/dashboards).
I concluded:
“Both B2B and B2C marketers totally overhauled the process for creating a content marketing plan from stem to stern. For some, 2020 was the year of quickly adapting their content marketing strategy. For others, it was the year to finally develop one.”
This is now relevant again, so replace “content” with “digital” and 2020 with 2025.
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
From a senior executive’s point of view, the increasing reliance on AI for data analysis, customer segmentation, and personalized marketing campaigns raises concerns about the balance between automation and human touch.
Some might argue that your organization should “focus” all its attention and resources on the trend of AI. To prove a point, I used a generative AI tool to crank out 10 sub-trends of this megatrend below:
Hyper-Personalization: Utilizing generative AI to craft highly tailored content and user experiences based on their behaviors, preferences, and demographics.
AI-Driven Content Creation: Automating the production of content such as blog posts, social media updates, and product descriptions using generative AI tools, enabling marketers to scale their efforts efficiently.
Voice and Conversational Marketing: Enhancing customer interactions and simplifying the purchasing process by adopting voice search optimization and conversational AI technologies like chatbots.
Predictive Analytics for Customer Insights: Leveraging data-driven insights to help marketers make informed decisions and refine their strategies in real time.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Integration: Empowering customers to visualize products in their own space before making a purchase decision.
AI-Powered Customer Journey Mapping: Using AI to analyze customer interactions, identify key touchpoints, and optimize the journey to minimize friction and boost satisfaction.
Sustainability and Ethical AI: Prioritizing sustainable marketing approaches and the responsible use of AI, ensuring transparency and accountability in AI applications.
Enhanced Data Privacy Measures: Implementing AI solutions that respect user consent and safeguard data, maintaining regulatory compliance while extracting valuable insights.
Integration of Ecommerce and Social Media: Streamlining shopping experiences directly within social platforms to boost engagement and drive sales.
AI-Enhanced Marketing Automation: Elevating campaign management through advanced automation, including features like A/B testing, real-time optimization, and personalized email strategies.
Yes, these sub-trends are driven by advancements in AI technology. And, yes, anyone can argue that AI should be considered the only digital marketing trend to focus on for 2025.
However, everyone should prepare to find the right balance between automation and the human touch. That’s what senior executives are concerned about.
3. Digital Analytics
I’d start with measurement. (No topic is more likely to get the attention of C-level executives than measuring results.)
Following an industry report, business outcomes, such as site visits, leads, and sales, have become the primary success metrics.
Since August 2007, when YouTube started offering video advertising, brands and their agencies have always prioritized reach and frequency. So, the key criteria for digital video investments has fundamentally changed.
But two-thirds of buyers, particularly smaller advertisers targeting niche audiences, cited issues across nine key areas of measurement:
Co-viewing.
Placement transparency.
Brand safety/suitability.
Viewability.
Ads served on made-for advertising sites (MFAs).
Ads served on TVs turned off.
Getting sell-side data.
Using multiple currencies.
Standard sell-side targets.
So, what should digital analytics focus on for 2025?
In a recent post on LinkedIn, Avinash Kaushik recommended:
“Marketing’s Incrementality: Business results from marketing tactics that would not have occurred otherwise.”
He added:
“It is the absolute pinnacle of proving the value of Marketing. It is the only answer a smart CFO wants (and upon receiving it will give your CMO all the budget required to capture incremental revenue/profit!).”
He concluded:
“Very few in our ecosystem are focused on measuring incrementality. One reason is it requires sophisticated thinking, and that’s often missing. Another reason is that incrementality is actually measured, but it gets killed by the org because the results are so bad.”
4. Digital Advertising
If you’re the head of digital advertising for your organization, then you need to find the right balance between AI and human touch in 2025.
For example, I said decision-makers at your organization already know that the new AI-generated holiday ads from Coca-Cola attracted a lot of criticism.
Some described the three new AI versions as “the biggest branding blunder of the year,” and others said the AI campaign “earns Coca-Cola a lump of coal.
After measuring the emotional impact of holiday ads, and comparing the current AI-generated holiday ad with the original human-created 2020 version, Ian Forrester said:
“The difference between the AI and the original was most stark in their evocation of warmth, a mainstay of Christmas advertising. The original evoked intense warmth among 33.0% of viewers, whereas the AI versions were significantly below this. So, while the AI is producing images which on the face of it seem cute and heart-warming, the human viewer to some degree discerns their synthetic nature, which detracts from their impact.”
And Barney Worfolk-Smith, added:
“Some in the advertising community who feel a sense of ominous threat will instantly adopt a negative stance. I don’t blame them, but the reality is, the toothpaste is out of the tube, so we should all have a hand on the wheel of a human AI hybrid Christmas Coke truck to have a stake in the future.”
So, if you’re not in the driver’s seat for similar human-AI experiments in 2025, then someone else probably will be.
5. SEO
If you’re the head of SEO for your organization, then you might want to read, A New Era Of SEO: Leveraging YouTube, LinkedIn, And Cross-Channel Strategies For Success.
So, I don’t need to tell you that it’s time to re-envision your career path.
Going forward, you will need to invest more time in learning four additional disciplines: digital analytics, digital advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing.
And you will also need to demonstrate critical thinking about digital marketing strategy if you ever hope to climb the ladder in your organization.
Since that article was published, Rand Fishkin, asked How big is ChatGPT’s market share of search? And, using data from SimilarWeb and Datos, Fishkin estimates that Google’s cross-platform share of search in October 2024 was over 83.5%.
YouTube’s share was almost 7.0%. ChatGPT’s share was over 4.3%. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, and Perplexity’s combined share was almost 3.4%. And Bing’s share was almost 2.0%.
So, yes, I realize SearchGPT is the latest Bright Shiny Object (BSO). But it’s still 1.6 times more important to leverage YouTube – at least for the near future.
6. Content Marketing
If you’re the head of content marketing for your organization, then you should read Why AI in Demand Generation Is No Knight In Shining Armor [New Research].
If you do, you’ll know that most demand-gen marketers feel pressured to “get good” at generative AI so they can “do more with less.”