The advertising and marketing industry stands at the crossroads of change once again. As AI continues to redefine the way businesses interact with consumers, the landscape will be shaped by innovations in ad platforms, evolving privacy concerns, and shifts in consumer behavior. From the rise of AI-powered search engines to the emergence of synthetic media, 2025 promises both challenges and opportunities for marketers who are ready to adapt and evolve.
Success will hinge on the ability to embrace new tools thoughtfully and anticipate the ripple effects of industry changes. Marketers who can balance creativity with accountability, and innovation with ethical responsibility, will be poised to thrive in this dynamic environment. To navigate what lies ahead, dive into our fearless predictions for 2025.
AI-Powered Search Engines Will Expand Their Ad Platforms
—Kurt Anagnostopoulos, Co-founder
AI-focused search engines, like Perplexity and Search GPT, will expand their ad platforms, and advertisers will line up to participate. Perplexity has already begun placing ads with a few select advertisers, and 2025 will be the year Search GPT follows. Advertising on these platforms will be highly desirable for several reasons. First, AI-focused search engines provide highly targeted ads. Second, early adopters of AI-focused search engines typically come from more desirable segments for advertisers. Last, savvy marketers and agencies are always looking for ways to diversify their spend, reduce their reliance on other platforms (like Google and Meta), and gain a first mover’s advantage on new platforms.
Google Will Deprecate Exact and Phrase Keyword Match Types
—Beth Bauch, Senior Director, Digital Marketing
Google will deprecate Exact and Phrase keyword match types, once again further reducing options available to marketers using Google Ads. Google continues to invest heavily to improve its smart bidding algorithm, which has resulted in better matching capabilities for Broad Match keywords. And Google has revealed that Broad Match keywords are the only match type that uses all available signals in Smart bidding (such as user location, previous user searches, landing page insights) Right now, if you want to maximize the power of the Google algorithm for your campaign bidding strategies, you need to abandon Phrase and Exact match types in favor of Broad. But we think Google will soon remove the stress of making that decision by moving toward the singular match type—Broad.
If that happens, it may be a challenging transition for many marketers who, despite the improvement in Broad keyword matching, still prefer to use Exact and Phrase match keywords as their matched searches are highly relevant and typically result in higher conversion rates. It’s interesting to note that historically, one of the benefits of Broad keywords has been their lower cost-per-click. But this past year, we’ve been seeing frequent examples of Broad CPCs surpassing Exact and Phrase and because they match to more searches, spend can quickly spiral.
So, 2025 may require marketers to spend more time monitoring budgets, spend and search query quality if Google does move exclusively to Broad Match. Buckle up. It’s likely going to be a bumpy ride.
Synthetic Media and Hyper-Realistic Advertising Will Take Off
—Bella Schneider, Senior Digital Marketing Manager
AI tools in 2024 have helped brands generate affordable video content. In 2025, I predict that with the expansion of these tools, AI-generated actors will take the place of paid influencer content and be a more affordable spokesperson option for those brands unable to pay high influencer fees. This opens doors for smaller businesses and those with limited marketing budgets to apply the power of video marketing.
For example, consider a local bakery using AI to generate an ad featuring a friendly, virtual baker extolling the virtues of their fresh-baked bread. Or a startup creating a series of videos with AI-generated spokespeople explaining complex technical concepts in an engaging and accessible way.
This shift towards synthetic media could also disrupt the influencer marketing landscape. As AI-generated characters become increasingly realistic and customizable, they may offer a more cost-effective and controllable alternative to human influencers. Brands could design virtual influencers to perfectly align with their target audience and brand values, eliminating the risks associated with real-life influencers’ personal lives or evolving opinions.
However, it’s important to bear in mind the ethical implications of this technology. Clear disclosure of AI involvement in content creation will be essential to maintain trust with consumers. And, the potential for misuse, such as creating deepfakes for malicious purposes, needs to be addressed proactively through industry standards and regulations.
AI and Privacy Will Become More of an Advertising Focus
—Tim Colucci, Vice President, Digital Marketing
AI and privacy will become more of a focus in 2025. This could be via personal privacy as users realize that AI systems are using their personal data to improve the models; or on the business side by allowing AI models to create “fake” datasets that would be statistically accurate for a business’s results. Personal privacy concerns will revolve around data leaks, unauthorized use of personal information to build AI-powered models, trying to create robust identity protection tools, etc. On the business side, companies can already upload brand guidelines into a business sandbox for some AI tools (like ChatGPT) to help write ad copy. We are going to begin to see more robust AI tools for data sets that will help improve security around sensitive results (like revenue) and other sensitive information.
Social Commerce Challengers Will Take on Google
—Taylor Hart, Director, Digital Marketing
We will continue to see an increase in consumers utilizing social platforms for searching and shopping instead of Google. TikTok and Reddit ad teams have told us they have seen a large increase in searches, specifically with conversational searches, which is why both platforms came out with search keyword targeting campaigns. Regardless of whether TikTok gets banned in the United States, the TikTok effect is clear: consumers are trusting short-form videos (like YouTube Shorts) and posts on community threads from influencers/creators/strangers reviewing products/services more than a search ad on Google. Consumers increasingly value the authenticity of these platforms. People are using them as a search engine and shopping tool. Social platforms such as Instagram are now not only a discovery platforms but a direct response platform, too.
Elon Musk Will Pursue His Vision for Building Another WeChat
—Tim Colucci, Vice President, Digital Marketing
Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X0, speculation has increased that he seeks to create his own WeChat. Now, Musk is reportedly making a run at embattled TikTok. If he succeeds, he will really begin the process to build his own version of WeChat in the United States. If the sale happens, the next step we would hear about is a purchase of a marketplace followed by him announcing that X will begin to use Dogecoin as it’s “official” currency. That way, people can do everything all within his app (and share their data with Musk). Who knows what will happen to TikTok ultimately? But its potential sale to Musk is a reminder of his grander aspirations.
Standard Display Campaigns Could Be Phased Out in Favor of Demand Gen
—Héctor Ariza, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing & Analytics
Google Ads may phase out Standard Display campaigns in favor of the versatile Demand Gen campaigns. These offer advanced audience targeting, visually engaging ad formats, and ads running across YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and potentially on Google Video Partners. This shift aligns with Google’s focus on automation and consolidation, as seen with Performance Max campaigns.
Demand Gen’s capabilities and creative features might make them sufficient for many advertisers currently relying on Standard Display campaigns for granular control. However, some advertisers may find the lack of control with Demand Gen campaigns limiting. The potential phasing out of Standard Display campaigns underscores the dynamic nature of digital advertising, where platforms and tools are constantly evolving. Advertisers should experiment with Demand Gen campaigns and stay informed about Google Ads updates to adjust their strategies accordingly.
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