This is not another ‘top trends of [insert year]’ blog post – the kind of article that makes vague predictions about technologies that are years away from widespread adoption.
This is a tactical report based on real-world events and our insights as a leading Gold Coast marketing firm. Once you finish reading, you’ll have actionable ways to leverage the 5 biggest digital marketing trends of 2024–2025.
Trend 1: The Synthetic Tsunami
ChatGPT launched in 2022. It was a seismic moment in digital marketing – and it generated a tsunami of frightening proportions.
The old barriers to creating marketing collateral (technical skill, subject matter expertise, cost, time) were washed away. With a free ChatGPT account and a basic understanding of prompt engineering, anyone could churn out perfectly average text in literal seconds. The result: digital platforms, very quickly, became saturated with synthetic content and copy.
Two years on, the tsunami hasn’t receded – and we shouldn’t expect it to. This is the new state of existence. Dry land has gone. The prevalence and increasing sophistication of generative AI means simply ‘creating content’ isn’t enough, because content is now everywhere. Mediocre works will sink below the waterline, dragging your budget (and your marketing strategy) with them.
How to Action
In many ways, generative AI has been a good thing. It’s created a threshold effect, which means your content now needs to exceed a certain level of quality to have any meaningful impact on your marketing objectives.
Of course, ‘quality’ is a nebulous phrase. To quantify it, use a framework like the kernel–chaff rubric to split content into two categories: chaff content and kernel content. Chaff content is any content not fit for purpose. In other words, if an asset you create doesn’t exceed the threshold set by generative AI, it needs to be discarded, recycled, or significantly reworked.
But what does that threshold actually look like? Well, it’s kernel content, which can be defined as being:
- Technically competent (for example, being easy to understand, free of errors, consistent in style, and so on)
- Unique (that is, having some original element not found elsewhere on the distribution channel in question, which could mean new information, a new perspective, or a new format)
- Value-adding for consumers (that is, it educates, entertains and/or inspires)
- Supportive of marketing outcomes (that is, it increases brand awareness and/or helps buyers progress in their buying journeys)
Those kernel criteria still have plenty of room for interpretation. But, by creating a clear set of standards for your content production, you can avoid producing chaff – even if those standards mean a slower publication frequency.
Trend 2: Increased Privacy Restrictions
There’s a rule of thumb that applies to innovation. An idea first becomes widespread in academia. In 5 to 7 years, it will be broadly adopted by the private sector. And, in 10 to 15 years, the public sector will finally catch up.
That’s basically what we’ve seen with data privacy. From 2011 to 2016, digital marketers had more or less free reign to collect data, track users, and exploit rapidly evolving platforms like Google and Facebook. Then, in 2016, Europe introduced the GDPR. The sun had started setting on the wild west.
Since then, governments (and Apple) have been progressively tightening data privacy regulations, which has made it harder for marketers to measure the impact of marketing activities. That’s led to concepts like dark social – the idea that most buying journeys happen ‘in the dark’ (that is, through mechanisms that can’t be tracked), which biases marketers towards investing in easily trackable channels like Google Ads.
Going into 2025, it’s more than likely that privacy regulations will continue to tighten, making it even harder to track what’s working.
How to Action
If you solely rely on software-based attribution (that is, reports from platforms like Google Analytics, Meta Ads, or Google Ads), you’re going to get inaccurate data – which will lead to inaccurate decision-making. Those platforms can only collect what privacy regulations let them and what they feel comfortable letting you access (even Google Search Console anonymises a certain percentage of queries).
To minimise your reliance on bad data, implement hybrid attribution. Under a hybrid attribution model, you’ll still use data from software platforms, but you’ll blend it with self-reported attribution (for example, having users fill out a ‘How did you hear about us?’ text field on contact forms) and sales-reported attribution (that is, having your salespeople ask how prospects heard about you, which can give you deeper qualitative insights than self-reported attribution).
You can blend all three data streams in your CRM or MAP to produce reports that show you exactly where both revenue and leads have originated from. There will be discrepancies between all three sources, but that’s a good thing – if you end up with three sets of roughly equivalent data, it means you’re not focusing enough on ‘dark’ channels (like word of mouth or organic socials) that can’t be tracked by software.
Trend 3: Heightened Social Media Regulation
Social media impacts everything from mental wellbeing to election results – which is one reason 3 of the biggest players (Meta, TikTok and X) have found themselves in the crosshairs of regulators. In the US, TikTok faces a divest-or-be-banned conundrum. X has clashed repeatedly with governments around the world, including Australia. And, under a proposed federal social media ban for minors, Meta could be about to lose access to large chunks of its Australian Gen Z and Gen Alpha markets.
For marketers, the trend is clear: social media is no longer a safe bet. Forget losing visibility to algorithm changes. Depending on how regulation evolves, brands that over-index on certain platforms could see their carefully built audiences wiped out overnight. (And, while it’s true that displaced users might follow their favourite brands into new digital spaces, those brands will face steep learning curves and competition from incumbents who have a better grasp of the new platforms’ mechanics.)
How to Action
To be clear: social media isn’t going anywhere. You should absolutely continue community-building on spaces like Instagram and LinkedIn. But you also need to be mindful that, like all third-party channels, those platforms could be impacted by factors outside your control (such as regulation).
The solution: diversify your distribution channels. Make sure you have at least one channel that you are in full control of, like an email newsletter, a podcast, or a forum on your website.
At the same time, focus on building your brand affinity on social platforms. Create kernel content that users find helpful, interesting and memorable – make your brand valuable enough that people will actively seek you out, regardless of which digital spaces you occupy.
(And, yes, we realise that’s easier said than done. We’ve helped our clients build high-performing social strategies in verticals ranging from IT services to energy analysts. For advice on conceiving or implementing yours, talk to us.)
Trend 4: Zero-Click Content
Regulators might be trying to loosen social media’s grip, but the platforms are fighting back. Almost all social media companies reward native content – that is, content that keeps users in-platform rather than referring them to third-party sites.
Instagram, for example, doesn’t allow external links in posts, and LinkedIn may or may not penalise posts that include them. Native content is also rewarded in subtler ways. Dwell time and engagement, for example, are both metrics that are naturally higher on content that doesn’t get users to click away – and both impact how your content will get shown in the future.
In marketing, that dynamic is known as zero-click content, a term coined by Amanda Natividad in 2022.
How to Action
Zero-click content is, at its heart, just marketing best practices. If someone is scrolling through Instagram, does it really make sense to try to hijack their attention and get them reading your company blog instead? It’s the equivalent of having a QR code on a highway billboard. People want marketing that meets them where they are, which equals content and ads that are natively educating, entertaining and/or inspiring.
So, if your current social media strategy revolves around taking users off platform, try something different. Pull those ideas from your latest article and rewrite them in a series of posts. Record vertical product demos instead of trying to get people to go to your online store. Create ads that teach people something and don’t just link to your brand’s latest white paper.
You do still want people to eventually come off platform, but that process should be natural, a result of them actively wanting to seek out more about your products/services/ideas. In a phrase: pull, don’t push.
