Our Digital Marketing Predictions for 2025 - What Does the Future Hold?

Marketing success hinges on agility, creativity, and staying ahead of shifting trends in a never-ending sea of changes that challenge marketers daily. After another year of rapid progression, the pace of change will not be any less relentless in 2025. Discover our thoughts on the challenges facing marketers and what will happen in the coming year.

Read on to learn our 2025 predictions, including:

1. Data-Driven Insights, Integrated Strategies, and Smarter Spend Will Help Maximise ROI in 2025
2. Navigating 2025: Adapting SEO Strategies for Volatility, AI, and E-E-A-T Priorities
3. Decoding Data and Analytics in 2025: Harnessing GA4, AI, and Data Science Amid Privacy Shifts
4. Spiralling Costs Will Lead to Huge Efficiency Pushes
5. Google Ads Costs Will Continue to Rise in 2025, But There Is Hope
6. 2025: The Year to Prioritise Web Property Sustainability
7. AI in Digital Marketing: What to Expect in 2025
8. Social Media Marketing will Evolve Significantly

In 2025, combining data with integrated strategies and a test and optimise mindset will help businesses get more from their marketing spend, increasing efficiency and guaranteeing meaningful returns on every pound invested.

Lou Greeves, Head of Client Success 

With the UK economy expected to grow between 1.1% and 2% in 2025, businesses will continue to face pressure to make every pound count. Marketing and IT teams must focus on strategies that deliver strong results without inflating costs. Integrated strategies, like combining SEO and paid media’s ability to attract and conversion rate optimisation’s ability to convert, present a smart way for businesses to maximise impact and make budgets work harder.

However, making smart decisions requires more than just execution. Reliable, data-driven insights are key. With the right data infrastructure, teams can forecast more accurately, make informed investment decisions, and continuously optimise for better returns. McKinsey reports that 76% of executives say data-driven insights help them allocate resources more effectively.

Testing and learning in real-time is crucial. By running controlled tests like A/B and multivariate testing, businesses can optimise spend and adjust tactics based on actionable insights, not assumptions. This approach ensures smarter resource allocation and better business outcomes.

In 2025, combining data with integrated strategies and a test-and-optimise mindset will help businesses get more from their marketing spend, increase efficiency, and guarantee meaningful returns on every pound invested.

Brands will also start paying closer attention to off-page elements like link building, digital PR, and building authority through partnerships. Google’s focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust) means these elements are becoming more critical.

Will Davis, SEO Director 

The coming year in SEO will bring more challenges as search becomes increasingly volatile. Google’s frequent algorithm updates, whether focused on core ranking factors, product reviews, or new AI-driven features, will likely cause noticeable volatility in search results. Businesses will need to regularly review their content strategies and keep a close eye on performance data. If not already, the focus will need to shift towards creating content that is not just optimised for keywords but is also highly relevant and aligned with Google’s evolving quality standards.

As users become more comfortable with AI overview in search, we will see a greater shift towards bottom-of-funnel pages as the first organic touchpoint on websites. Optimising product and longtail-oriented informational pages will become a critical success factor in ensuring that sites get good CTR on queries that matter to them and their audiences.

Google will continue to be the dominant search engine despite growing competition. Despite the expanding choice, the average searcher will not (yet) be inspired to switch to an alternate platform. That said, businesses may need to broaden their strategies while still considering Google a key part of their plans. We will see more effort in ensuring the sites are integrated with other search engines on a technical level to ensure they have the best standing through passive methods.

Brands will also start paying closer attention to off-page elements like link building, digital PR, and building authority through partnerships. Google’s focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust) means these elements are becoming more critical. At the same time, technical SEO will remain a key priority. With metrics like Core Web Vitals and mobile performance playing a significant role in rankings, ensuring websites are fast, user-friendly, and accessible will be essential for staying competitive.

As brands grow accustomed to GA4's event-driven data model, we'll see a greater emphasis on measuring nuanced user behaviour and micro-conversions. With the depreciation of cookies and the shift toward first-party data, businesses will prioritise implementing robust tagging strategies and deeper integrations with CRM systems to bridge data gaps and build clearer customer journeys.

Zac Nash, Senior Data Engineer 

The coming year will bring more challenges as businesses grapple with maximising GA4's potential with increasing data privacy restrictions and consumer concerns around data collection. While GA4 adoption has improved, the platform's learning curve continues to pose difficulties for marketers, especially those who rely on accurate cross-platform attribution and data visualisation.

Teams will need to invest more in internal expertise and external consulting to fully harness GA4's capabilities, especially with Data Analysts, Engineers, and Scientists (I am not biased at all). This investment will be needed to maximise your GA4 data, as BigQuery is the only way forward.

As brands grow accustomed to GA4's event-driven data model, we'll see a greater emphasis on measuring nuanced user behaviour and micro-conversions. With the depreciation of cookies and the shift toward first-party data, businesses will prioritise implementing robust tagging strategies and deeper integrations with CRM systems to bridge data gaps and build clearer customer journeys. More data-driven models will become more commonplace among BigQuery experts, leading to more internal transparency regarding what is happening to get results. People demand answers, and black-box solutions prevent them.

Data science will become more prominent in marketing as the demand for predictive and prescriptive analytics grows. With advancements in AI, businesses will increasingly leverage machine learning models for real-time decision-making, dynamic content personalisation, and improved campaign optimisation. This trend will likely fuel the need for hybrid roles—marketers with strong data skills or data scientists with domain knowledge in marketing and again increase the need to hire experts (I swear I am not biased).

Despite the growing reliance on AI and automation, marketers will still struggle with data quality and integration. Ensuring data pipelines are clean, consistent, and unified across platforms will remain a significant hurdle. Companies will explore more composable architectures to provide flexibility in their data ecosystems and reduce reliance on single-vendor solutions. The demand for data consistency, especially within a tool like GA4, will only increase, and I am not sure Google will answer.

Finally, brands will focus more on customer lifetime value (CLV) and churn prediction as retention becomes more cost-effective than acquisition in increasingly competitive markets. With GA4's enhanced analytics tools and AI-driven insights, marketers should create more data-backed segmentation strategies that align with audience behaviours and motivations. At the same time, we'll see more brands leveraging advanced A/B testing frameworks and causation statistics to validate these strategies and refine user experiences.

As CPC rates reach the peak of affordability for paid marketers, more attention is needed to convert the traffic they’re already bringing in to justify maintaining existing spend levels. Marketers can no longer pour more money into Google to hit targets; instead, they will look to plug the holes in their conversion funnels and make their landing pages meet the needs of their audiences to a greater degree.

Jake Lambert, Head of Conversion Services 

Everything is getting more expensive, with businesses feeling the squeeze from every side. The cost of hiring is increasing with the rise in National Insurance contributions (NIC) for employers, and at the same time, Google and Meta are squeezing them for every penny. The pressure is on marketers to make the most of their budgets or, in many cases, to make the most of a reduced budget.

AI will make things more efficient as businesses become more familiar with its capabilities and limitations. It will speed up process management and automate repetitive tasks. However, a significant shift will come with how companies can be more innovative with their marketing spending.

There will be a re-emergence (it never really went away!) of personalisation and optimisation of the entire customer journey rather than thinking of things in acquisition and conversion silos.

This pressure will also spill into how businesses engage with agencies or design in-house teams. Businesses can no longer justify running two separate research projects with two different agencies, both trying to achieve the same thing (understanding the customer) but focusing on other parts of the customer journey. Instead, businesses will look to agencies who integrate and share these offerings to achieve the same, or greater, results at a reduced cost because they don’t repeat this process with each discipline but instead look at the customer holistically and optimise for the entire journey under one strategy.

Paid search costs will continue to rise. Google's Ads platform, once seen as a cost-effective channel for driving traffic, has become increasingly expensive. Conversations with businesses across various sectors reveal a shared concern—paid search is eating up more of their marketing budgets.

Adam Stafford, Founder/CEO 

As we move into 2025, the trend is clear: paid search costs will continue to rise. Google's Ads platform, once seen as a cost-effective channel for driving traffic, has become increasingly expensive. Conversations with businesses across various sectors reveal a shared concern—paid search is eating up more of their marketing budgets, leaving less room for experimentation and growth.

Driving the escalation in paid search costs and two primary forces, increased competition and Google's profitability. As a publicly traded company, Google is under constant pressure to deliver returns to shareholders. This dynamic drives changes to ad auction algorithms, minimum bid thresholds, and new ad placements that further increase the cost of participation. It's no wonder the medium continues to become increasingly expensive.

These factors have pushed many businesses to breaking point. The affordability ceiling is fast approaching for organisations heavily reliant on paid search. For most companies, a predicted 10% increase in paid search budgets next year will challenge marketing budgets like never before.

There is hope, though. While generating traffic becomes increasingly expensive, conversion becomes critical. The one lever that businesses can still control is their website's ability to convert visitors into customers. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and personalisation will come into play. Businesses can achieve better results from their existing traffic by improving website performance and creating tailored user experiences. In essence, CRO transforms your website into a more efficient sales engine, reducing the dependency on ever-costlier paid search campaigns.

Investing in CRO and personalisation offers marketing directors a clear path to controlling the ROI of paid search by boosting efficiency, mitigating rising costs, and future-proofing a longer-term strategy.

Reducing a website's carbon footprint begins with optimising performance. Faster-loading websites consume less energy. Simple steps like compressing images, minimising unnecessary scripts, and leveraging efficient hosting solutions can make a big difference.

Ash Hitchcock, Head of Front End Development 

As we enter 2025, the call for businesses to address their environmental impact is louder than ever. While many organisations have already made strides in sustainable operations, one area often flies under the radar: web property sustainability. Websites, apps, and digital platforms contribute significantly to carbon emissions, and the time to take action is now.

Every time a website loads, energy is consumed — from servers hosting the data to devices accessing it. Multiply this by the billions of daily interactions, and the environmental toll becomes clear. Research shows that the Internet accounts for 2-4% of global carbon emissions, rivalling the aviation industry. For businesses, this presents a challenge and a responsibility to act.

Reducing a website's carbon footprint begins with optimising performance. Faster-loading websites consume less energy. Simple steps like compressing images, minimising unnecessary scripts, and leveraging efficient hosting solutions can make a big difference. Additionally, embracing green hosting providers, which run data centres on renewable energy, ensures that your online presence supports sustainable practices.

Another key focus is reducing digital waste. Outdated or unused web pages and assets increase storage demands and waste energy. Conducting regular audits to remove redundant content and streamline the digital footprint can contribute to a more sustainable presence.

Sustainability isn't just good for the planet; it's good for business. Consumers increasingly favour brands that demonstrate environmental responsibility. By taking web property sustainability seriously, your business can reduce its carbon footprint, enhance its reputation, and future-proof its digital strategy.

AI-driven automation is helping marketers streamline campaign management like never before, saving time and supercharging campaign performance. From generating ad creatives to optimising in-flight campaigns, marketers have access to tools that save countless hours and improve ROI in real time.

Lee Davies, AI Engineering Director

As AI continues its meteoric rise, digital marketers in brands and agencies alike are unlocking new ways to boost creativity, optimise performance, and streamline operations. The year ahead promises exciting developments that will transform how marketers create, manage and measure campaigns. Here are my predictions on the most impactful AI developments in the year ahead, including AI-generated video content and how automation will supercharge campaign performance and hyper-personalisation.

Producing high-quality (and engaging) videos will no longer require massive budgets or production teams and will redefine creativity. AI tools like Google's Veo 2 enable stunning, 4K-resolution videos from simple prompts. For marketers, this means faster content creation, richer storytelling, and more room for experimentation. This coming year, you can expect a creative renaissance when teams can deliver cinematic video content at scale, driving deeper connections with audiences across social and paid media.

AI-driven automation is helping marketers streamline campaign management like never before, saving time and supercharging campaign performance. From generating ad creatives to optimising in-flight campaigns, marketers have access to tools that save countless hours and improve ROI in real time. In the coming year, new AI tools will appear that monitor campaigns 24/7 and adjust bids, messaging, and targeting dynamically, all based on performance data. The innovation will allow marketing teams to focus on strategy, creativity, and client relationships. These tools will enable agencies to manage more extensive campaign portfolios with greater precision and less manual effort, delivering better client results.

AI and ML are unlocking personalisation at an entirely new level. Predictive models analyse consumer behaviour to anticipate needs, delivering content that feels custom-made for each audience member. 2025 will see further innovation as we build and refine our suite of analytics tools to help us forecast what content resonates best. This level of hyper-personalisation will allow us to help our clients serve dynamic, highly targeted campaigns that drive conversions.

2025 will be the year AI becomes (the) an indispensable tool for marketers. From transforming video content to automating campaign management and enabling hyper-personalisation, AI will give brands and agencies the edge they need to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape. 

The focus will be on creating engaging, authentic, and interactive experiences. To thrive in the dynamic social media landscape of 2025, brands will need to adapt to these shifts by embracing new tools, experimenting with innovative content formats, and staying attuned to emerging trends.

Lee Colbran, Co-founder /Head of Marketing

In 2025, social media marketing is set to evolve significantly, driven by technological advancements and changing user behaviours. AI will play a central role, with platforms leveraging generative AI to enhance content creation, personalisation, and advertising strategies. These innovations, from AI-powered video editing tools to personalised content recommendations, aim to deepen user engagement and streamline marketing efforts.

Short-form video will continue to dominate, with platforms investing in creative tools, monetisation options for creators, and algorithmic enhancements to maximise reach and engagement. Video content's effectiveness in capturing attention makes it a priority for both organic posts and paid campaigns.

E-commerce integration will also grow as social platforms strive to make shopping a seamless in-app experience. Features like virtual try-ons, interactive shopping, and direct purchasing will further bridge the gap between content and commerce, aligning with consumer preferences for convenience and immediacy.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will gain traction, introducing new ways for users to interact with brands and products.. AR-powered experiences such as product try-ons and immersive storytelling will likely expand, while VR will offer shared virtual spaces for events and social interactions.

Regulatory scrutiny and user concerns over privacy and transparency will continue to shape platform strategies. Greater algorithm transparency, content moderation improvements, and ethical AI deployment will help address these challenges and maintain user trust.

The focus will be on creating engaging, authentic, and interactive experiences. To thrive in the dynamic social media landscape of 2025, brands will need to adapt to these shifts by embracing new tools, experimenting with innovative content formats, and staying attuned to emerging trends.