New year, new marketing tactics: what to expect in 2025

Whenever we write our yearly predictions blogs, we usually comment on how busy the past year has been for us digital marketers. But this year, we really mean it. 2024 was full of new developments and technologies, keeping us on our toes as navigated an ever-changing digital landscape.

A good marketing strategy means being proactive rather than reactive where possible, which is why we’re taking our learnings from 2024 and carrying them with us to 2025. This means we’re looking at the year ahead and preparing for whatever comes next, utilising the foundations we already have in place. 

If you want to read about a specific channel, then click on the links below:

• Paid Media
• Data & Analytics
• Organic
• Digital Strategy

paid media

2024 has been a significant year for Paid Media. AI and automation have become integral parts of campaign management, enabling advertisers to achieve better results and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. Couple this with an ever-increasing spotlight on data privacy and the management of cookies, and 2025 is set to provide even more exciting developments. 

Preparing for a cookie-less future

While Google cancelled its deprecation of cookies, privacy still remains at the forefront of businesses’ minds. With the 2024 deadline for Google Consent Mode v2 and conversations around user data still in the air, marketers are still adjusting to reporting with less data. We expect this to continue throughout 2025. 

Last year, we supported our clients as they made the change to Google Consent Mode, complying with the latest legislation and having the best set up in place for their reports. 

If you’re not sure exactly what this means – Google Consent Mode v2 works by sending cookieless pings or signals to the Google server to communicate consent state and user activity when marketing cookies are declined. This allows us to model behaviour without infringing on user privacy. 

Our Paid Media wizard Sam Gosling has seen an average drop of around 15% in tracked conversions across clients – which should be seen as a good thing, as this confirms their compliance. As a way of working around this, he’s been collaborating closely with clients, exchanging monthly data to match up performance and making adjustments based on these data-driven assumptions. 

But what does this all mean for 2025? As we’ve mentioned, Google has taken a U-turn on its plan to remove cookies – but that doesn’t mean the dust has settled. Instead, the search engine giant is taking a new ‘opt-in’ approach, putting the user in firm control while keeping us marketers on our toes. This means that businesses will still need to adjust their strategies to find the best solution – and we’re already in a strong position.

“Implement a Google-certified Cookie Management Platform (CMP) to stay compliant. Expect to see a drop off in performance based on GA4 and ad platforms, but sharing conversion and revenue data from different sources can help to work out what is moving the dials.’ – Sam Gosling

Google’s Performance Max and Facebook’s Advantage+

Google and Microsoft Ads both now lean heavily on Performance Max as a key campaign type, utilising creative, product feeds and audience data to cover multiple inventory spaces whilst achieving a set goal. 

While these campaigns have helped level up lead generation accounts by expanding reach and elevating monthly enquiries, they’ve been an invaluable step-up for e-commerce sites helping to deliver multi-channel ads, which drive revenue at volume and within strict ROAS targets.

Dan has been experimenting with these campaigns:

“Moving away from standard and smart shopping to embrace Performance Max strategies has been a very wise choice for our clients. For most clients, these campaigns have become the top drivers of revenue against other paid channels and activities, with some clients seeing an average return of over 1,200%” 

Similarly, Advantage+ has become an equivalent campaign type with Meta Ads, embracing more automation alongside inputted data and creatives. For e-commerce clients, this has been equally transformative, with some seeing a 95% increase in website purchases from an Advantage+ campaign alone.

As these platforms push businesses to make the most of these ad types, it’s worth keeping in mind that they’re not a one-size-fits-all approach to advertising. Before embedding a new channel into your marketing strategy, you should take the time to investigate your audience, budgets and campaign goals to ensure you can really maximise these ad types. 

Read more about Performance Max in our guide, or speak to our team if you have any questions. 

Making the most of Google’s Merchant Centre Next

Google Merchant Center Next (GMC Next) is a redesigned version of Google Merchant Center that offers several improvements to help enhance campaigns. The newer, simpler version of the platform launched in the second half of last year, meaning our team is having – and will continue to have – some fun trying out its new features. 

GMC Next comes with more automation, improved product management, new insights reports and even generative AI imagery tools. We at Loom have been particularly enjoying the latter feature, placing product images in a lifestyle setting rather than a plain background. 

Our Google Shopping expert Romy has shared her findings:

“By changing product images using this feature, we were able to split test the performance of lifestyle vs product images. The impact on performance was impressive, seeing a 100% increase in click through rate, a 40% increase in return on ad spend and a 116% increase in revenue. Due to an increase in performance, we also saw a 31% decrease in cost per clicks.”

Data & Analytics

We at Loom are led by data – it forms the basis of our strategies, it’s what helps us spot opportunities for our clients to capitalise on and informs us of the success of our marketing activity. So, while our Data & Analytics service is still a relatively new offering for our agency, data has always been at the core of our business. 

2024 certainly kept us on our toes, but with our data expert Lukas at the helm, our clients have come out unscathed and in a strong position for 2025. 

New ways of measuring success

2024 has brought us many changes in terms of data measurement. Some of the changes included:

• Consent Mode v2 (as explained above)
• Modelled conversions in the Google stack
• The increased capability of and adoption of enhanced conversions
• Advanced matching – a feature in Google Ads that collects data from your website (such as information inputted into a contact form) and matches this to Google’s user base. 

The goal of these changes was to increase conversions that can be attributed to ad campaigns, with the limits on cookie usage moving more people to solutions like server-side GTM and Conversion APIs, an interface used by various platforms to send data to third-party servers without being capped by cookies. 

We spent a lot of time in Q1 of 2024 ensuring our clients’ cookie banners were working in a compliant way, and were set up to use consent mode to get modelled data in GA4. We’ve been seeing the benefits of increased measurement of ad performance through enhanced conversions and Conversion APIs. A big focus at the start of 2025 will be leveraging Google’s new Profit on Ad Spend features, allowing advertisers to measure profit and optimise towards it in their ad campaigns, rather than just revenue. 

organic

2024 was a big year for the SEO industry. From ever-changing search results, evolving buyer journeys and new updates and features causing disruption, our SEO and content specialists had a busy year. 

And that’s not set to change anytime soon. Google has confirmed that search will ‘change profoundly’ in 2025, meaning that our team is gearing up for whatever the search giant has in store. 

Taking advantage of new organic opportunities

One of the many new features that rolled out across search engine results pages (SERPs) was organic Merchant Centre Listings. These listings are the rows of image cards you’ve likely spotted on Google, listing the product price, brand and number of reviews beneath the image. This feature is more than just a new way of displaying products – they’re an exciting opportunity for e-commerce businesses. 

As SERPs become increasingly visual, you need to take up as much space on the results page as possible to succeed in search. Our Tech SEO expert Jack has been making the most of these listings and seeing fantastic results. 

For one of our clients, Jack implemented product schema to help ensure Google Merchant Center can easily retrieve product data, meaning that the client’s products were more likely to be shown. As a result, the client saw their clicks and impressions jump from over 1k to over 3k, and from 89k to 220k, respectively, in just three months. 

“This is something that was a huge focus at Brighton SEO in October and a great opportunity for organic. For this reason, it’s important that we continue to monitor schema for e-commerce websites to ensure the best chance of appearing in product listings. 

“This is part of a wider change from Google, including new features within the SERP. We’re  excited for this opportunity to serve more engaging content to users, and serve users the right type of content for their queries”

SEO is a long game, but being quick to adapt to evolving landscapes is key. A robust, future-focused strategy ensures that you have a strong foundation to help you capitalise on new opportunities quickly, as you’re already following best practices and focusing on what users want to see. Shema is not a new tactic, but was valuable for these Merchant Centre Listings. Strategies like this are the reason why our team is prepared for whatever opportunities may occur in 2025. 

The importance of trust

Trust was a hot topic throughout 2024. Google has been criticised for prioritising low-quality content in the SERPs, and the company itself has been caught up in a lawsuit over its dominance of the search market. With these conversations floating around, it’s no wonder some businesses – and users – have been feeling a little hard done by. 

In an age of misinformation, people want to know that they can turn to your business whenever they need a particular product, service or guidance. Google has tried tackling spammy content with algorithm updates but this can only go so far – businesses also have to play their part. And content has a significant role to play in this. 

At Loom, we’ve always believed in the power of content. We know how frustrating it can be when you click through multiple websites and struggle to find the answer you’re looking for, and it’s not something we want our clients’ customers to experience. A robust, future-focused content strategy is vital for surviving in such a competitive and sometimes questionable space.

“Content is about more than just ranking for keywords – it’s using your brand’s voice and adding to your overall image. If you want to show your expertise and showcase what your business is really about, then content is how you do just that. Seeing these little snippets of your brand’s personality and credentials is what helps build trust between you and your customers.” – Chloe Price

So, as these ‘trust’ conversations continue into 2025, what can you do to cut through the noise? Know how to speak to your users, and write for them, not search. We at Loom immerse ourselves in industries and know our clients’ businesses inside and out, allowing us to create content that resonates and is completely unique. We use content audits to measure trust signals and other EEAT signals, and are trialling AI content to see how well these tools perform when paired with those valuable expert insights. 

As a result of our long-term content strategies, many of our clients are now appearing in AI Overviews. This allowed one particular client to rank amongst government websites and other authoritative sources for a niche yet competitive topic, driving almost 30k impressions – and counting – for this guide since its publication.

Focus on long-tail SEARCH TERMS

Long-tail keywords are often overlooked because they have a lower search volume than short-tail keywords. A few things in the search space have changed, which means that we should be focussing on these more specific, lower volume terms.

The way people search and consume content has led to the demand for information that’s been boiled down to immediate answers. Targeting long-tail keywords that can be answered specifically and succinctly serves this search behaviour. Voice search has also continued to increase. Searches are made via long-tail queries, as opposed to short-tail terms that people have traditionally used when typing. Targeting this form of search requires digging into these specific queries. 

Changes in the SERPs now mean that a lot of real estate is given to summary content. AI overviews and featured snippets occupy a lot of scrolling space. These can be served and targeted by focussing on those question-based keywords. 

Using long-tail search terms can help you create thorough content that will be better understood by Google’s Natural Language Processing. We’ll be using long-tail content in our strategies and targeting them through blogs, People Also Asks, etc. We’ll be paying close attention to those hyper-specific 0-volume terms that are often ignored to see if they can serve our clients by answering end-of-funnel queries or separating content from that of competitors.

“In an increasingly competitive and busy search space, targeting long-tail keywords is going to become more and more important for achieving results for clients.” – Hugh Tucker

The changing nature of evergreen content

The May 2024 Google leak highlighted the need to constantly update your content, with content freshness marked as one of the key ranking factors. 

This suggests a different way of looking at the longstanding concept of evergreen content. Originally, evergreen was used to describe content that remained relevant long after publication. As we’ve discovered this year, though, evergreen content needs to be consistently updated to continue ranking. 

Quality matters, but so does relevance and accuracy, which requires a vigilant reassessment of existing evergreen content. If your content is outdated, you risk decreasing trust and engagement, while signalling to Google that your site is inactive. 

Content audits have always been an essential part of how we work. We’re now more vigilant than ever about how we conduct content audits, ensuring that pages are kept fresh with relevant studies, industry changes and thought leadership. Many of our clients have optimisation streams embedded into their content strategies, ensuring that they retain their presence in key search areas and stay topically relevant. 

One client, for example, saw a 118% increase in active users and a 117% increase in page views across the US following a blog optimisation in 2024. This blog was one of the first to be optimised on this website, and since then we spend each month reworking and updating existing content on their site. 

“The world is moving at a rapid pace. Breaking news, studies, trends and changing perspectives will all have an impact on how your content is perceived. High quality content that’s tweaked to reflect these changes doesn’t just get new eyes on your site, but signals trustworthiness and a passion for what you do in a world where belief in what we see online is at an all time low.” – Jonathan Morris

Digital strategy

With all that’s happened over the last year, you may be feeling overwhelmed. For many businesses, the current climate includes pressure from various stakeholders, questions around reporting and having to justify why you should – or shouldn’t be – hopping on the latest trend or channel. 

We at Loom like to think of ourselves as an extension of your marketing team. We understand your own painpoints and can help you overcome any challenges you’re facing. In times like this, our Digital Strategy experts like to take a step back and remind ourselves of what we’re aiming to achieve for your business, and what exactly that involves in today’s marketing landscape. As you look forward to 2025, remember that we’re always here to help. 

Reporting on your success

With stricter compliance around cookies across all client accounts, the way that we measure performance has had to pivot to assess the holistic success of our marketing efforts.

GA4 changes impacted the type of data collected in 2023, and with Consent Mode V2 introduced earlier in the year, the amount of data businesses are able to collect via platforms, such as GA4, has been significantly reduced. Some clients saw between a 40-60% drop in overall trackable traffic. 

This has only added to the pressure for digital marketers, who need to show return on investment, as well as some sort of attribution to various stakeholders and ensure wider teams are bought into their marketing efforts. But this is where collaboration can be valuable for all involved. Good agencies will have the expertise required to help you weather any storm, and internal sales teams can help fill in any gaps in reporting by providing their own data. 

Ellen is the go-to for many of our clients, keeping everyone up to speed and doing what she can to help businesses succeed. This has led to improved reporting, relying even more on platforms such as Google Search Console and combining these insights with Analytics data to create a clear picture of success. 

“While the initial drop in traffic can leave you in a panic, remember the reason for the recent changes. Businesses need to respect users’ demands and comply with the latest data legislation, and while this may have impacted reporting, it’s not the end of the world. Collaborating with different teams and stakeholders is key to piecing together the puzzle and clearly demonstrating the success of your marketing efforts.”

Search beyond google

2024 saw continued struggles for Google as it clung to its dominant position in the market. Google finds itself in a perfect storm, which we have summarised below. 

Users are increasingly frustrated with Google’s continuing decline in the quality of its own search results. The ever-changing search engine results pages are returning less relevant search results due to Google’s appetite to please advertisers, mixed with spurious SEO tactics. 

Search has started to move to other platforms (such as TikTok) where users are finding more useful results, in platforms that they’re already consuming content in. 

AI is also challenging Google and the search landscape. Several high-profile search results in AI overviews have led to high scrutiny of the information. Brands are also frustrated that AI overviews don’t provide the same opportunity for traffic as the traditional ‘blue links’. They also increase the risk of Google becoming flooded with low quality content, giving them a huge task of sorting through what is genuinely good, credible information, and what isn’t. And finally, AI search engines or Large Language Models will eventually start to compete for a more significant share in the search engine market. October saw Search GPT launched, and Perplexity and Claude had already started to gain traction. 

Finally, Google is under more pressure than ever from a regulatory standpoint. With pressure growing on Google to make changes to relinquish some of its monopoly.

“At Loom, we embrace the changing digital landscape. We’re an entrepreneurial bunch and we are agile enough to respond quickly to capitalise on new opportunities. 

Over the past few years, and especially this year, we have been trialling new platforms to help drive continued success for our clients. These include Reddit, StackAdapt, TikTok, Meta. Increasing awareness on these platforms helps our clients to reach new audiences, often at a more affordable price.” – Karen Pearce

think long term

2024 was dominated by AI and significant changes in Google search engine results pages (SERPs). It was also the year that businesses and their customers began to really feel the pinch. With Google algorithm rollouts, complete with bugs, and new search features to contend with, the industry went into overdrive. There was speculation, theories, and data analysis at every turn. 

This was something of a double-edged sword, where businesses scrutinised the work of their agencies and expected better results with similar or reduced budgets. And agencies were faced with an evolving organic landscape.  

At Loom, we spent more time understanding developments in the space and evolving our strategies accordingly. Standing still and complacency is the enemy, especially in a time of uncertainty. 

We adjusted content strategies to consider AI Overviews and leverage existing articles. We also appraised the strategic value of channels at different stages in the buying journey to make sure we delivered value to our clients.

With budgets tighter and customers struggling with the cost of living, every pound in 2025 counts more than ever. We expect businesses to interrogate ROI around each channel more – is it working? What could be done better? 

The real value will be in strategic thought. We’d urge businesses to share more, work more closely with us and be less reactive. Longer term strategies and trust are key.

“With businesses facing more and more challenges, it’s easy to be reactive and look for quick solutions or marketing silver bullets. Those businesses in 2025 that are willing to collaborate and focus on longer term strategic goals will be in the best position come the end of the year.” – Tom Spooner

A look at 2025

While 2025 is set to be another busy year, our team’s hard work has helped prevent our clients from landing on the back foot. From new reporting methods and channels to more visual search results, we’re proud of all we achieved last year and are ready for whatever’s next. 

If you have any concerns about the year ahead or feel that your digital marketing strategy is in need of a refresh, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team. We’ll be happy to help.