As digital marketers, like our team, we recognize the importance of staying ahead of trends to deliver the right services and strategies for our clients. Each member of our marketing team researches and selects the best insights to help you plan your marketing strategy for the year.
Let's dive into the top 5 digital marketing trends that can help you seamlessly achieve your goals in 2025.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence, a system that handles tasks that typically need a human mind for completion, is a game-changer for automating processes. Popular applications in marketing today include content generation, PPC ads, web design, chatbots for customer service and optimization of campaigns. For a content generation, AI programs are capable of generating news headlines based on articles, topics to consider and even full articles.
But one of our favourite applications in the AI marketing realm is programmatic advertising. With this automated buying and selling approach for digital advertising, our strategists can set up client ads to be served to the right target audiences based on algorithms and data, reaching people when they are more likely to convert.
Voice Search
From Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri to Google Home, voice search capabilities continue to grow in popularity. About 35% of U.S. adults own a smart speaker and use it regularly at home. And by the time of 2032, the forecasted market size of speech and voice recognition for 2032 in the global world might hit 83 billion dollars which is a huge growth for this category.
How can you make your brand more discoverable through voice search?
If you’re doing really good, ongoing SEO work, you’ll be priming your website for voice search. Focus on structured data markup and inverted pyramid writing. Plus, be sure to develop content with a solid readability score and a focus on long-tail, question-based keywords that you know your customer base is asking for.
Interactive Content
The options here are vast, and audiences want to take action and feel immersed in an experience. Start by keeping an eye on augmented reality, shoppable posts on social media and 360-degree videos.
1. Augmented Reality
Companies like Aircard are creating app-less AR campaigns that make messages appear on print flyers, while companies like IKEA are launching apps that enable users to see how a piece of furniture would look in their home before purchasing it. Reports show that 42% of shoppers believe the try-before-you-buy option of AR would help their decision process. As for virtual reality, its cumbersome headset requirement can be a deterrent for audiences, so just keep it on your radar for now.
2. Shoppable Posts
Pay attention to what you can do beyond just pushing out messaging on social media, now that users are regularly shopping on these networks. For instance, 72% of Instagram users have bought a product on Instagram. And a survey of Pinterest users revealed that 70% of them use Pinterest to explore new products. For marketers, these posts are about as easy to build out as they are for users to click and shop.
3. 360-Degree Videos
These videos, in which 360-degree views are recorded on a device like a GoPro, feel more accessible to audiences than virtual reality at the moment since all they need is a screen to experience them. Additionally, viewers can use a cursor to choose the angle they’re viewing as the video plays. Hubspot reports that the most popular videos in this category showcase travel destinations and various unique experiences. Expect higher viewer engagement with 360-degree videos than with standard videos.
Marketing Mix Models
Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is a powerful analytical tool that helps businesses understand the true impact of their marketing investments. By analyzing historical data, MMM quantifies the contribution of each marketing channel to key performance indicators (KPIs) like sales and revenue. Here's how MMM benefits businesses:
Data-driven decision making with actionable insights.
Predictive forecasting by analyzing past trends and identifying key drivers.
Enhanced marketing effectiveness helps identify areas for improvement in marketing campaigns
Improved resource allocation by understanding the true value of each marketing channel.
Social Listening
Social listening should be more than just collecting data since it must produce actionable insights. Marketers these days should leverage it to deeply understand their audience, refine campaigns, and identify market gaps for product innovation. It aids in proactive crisis management by monitoring potential threats and quickly mitigating impacts. Additionally, social listening enhances sales by identifying and engaging with potential customers to generate leads and close deals.
According to Hootsuite, 62% of marketers currently use social listening. By 2025, teams proficient in this discipline will gain credibility and larger budgets by delivering actionable insights, tangible results, and measurable returns.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of artificial intelligence?
AI involves using software to input data and generate feedback based on that data. Without initial data input, AI cannot analyze results or provide answers. Presently, AI is integrated into tools like Midjourney, ChatGPT, and Gemini. For those concerned about AI replacing jobs, it's important to note that while these tools offer smooth and efficient responses, they still require human input to function effectively.
What is augmented reality used for?
Augmented reality (AR) blends digital content with the real world in real time. Through software, apps, and devices like AR glasses, digital elements are superimposed onto physical surroundings. Users see their actual environment enhanced with computer-generated information, which can alter their perception of the natural world or offer them extra details.
What is a Shoppable post?
According to Hootsuite, shoppable post means any kind of post on Facebook or Instagram, including feed posts, stories, reels or live broadcast, that allow the audience to purchase through Facebook Shops or Instagram Shops by tapping on the items that are featured on the post and checkout natively within the app.
What is 360-degree video format?
360 video is a spherical video format which, when viewed on a virtual reality headset, gives viewers the illusion of 'being there'. It's generally a non-interactive format and it can be seen in 2D or 3D. Most web browsers now support 360, so videos are also viewable in a 'magic window' format on YouTube and Facebook.
What is social listening?
Social listening is the strategy for marketers to monitor and collect all online conversations from social platforms and forums on a chosen topic which will get meaningful insights from various groups of people whether they are target or not to improve the marketing tactic and plan.
Do we still need influencers these days?
You can still go with influencer marketing but first, you need to plan carefully. Since the influencers have potential to influence people who follow them, you need to create the strategies that convince them to trust you, not just knowing your brand. Also, don’t forget to set a user-generated content as a standard for every content.
What is the best definition of personalization?
Personalization is the act of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate a specific individual or group. As the name suggests, personalization is centered on the person, fulfilling a particular customer's needs and reflecting them in the product or service.
What is online-to-offline marketing?
Online-to-offline (O2O) commerce is a business strategy that draws potential customers from online channels to make purchases in physical stores. This type of strategy incorporates techniques used in online marketing with those used in brick-and-mortar marketing.
Need Digital Marketing Help in 2025?
Does your brand need a marketing lift as you move into this new year? Our team at Sphere is here to talk through any of these digital marketing trends for 2025, and more. Contact us today.
