It’s that time of year again: another round of predictions for the year to come. While many articles focus heavily on AI’s role in creative processes, I’m taking a different approach with a performance marketing-centric round-up. Let’s dive in!

1. The continuing slow death of GA4

Any performance marketer who navigated their way through peak performance in 2024 will have felt the pain of Google’s GA4, especially if it was their primary source of truth. With delays in attribution, it has become almost impossible to optimize campaigns in real-time or adjust strategies quickly.

Many ecommerce brands are pivoting to real-time competitors, supplementing GA4 with platforms that offer faster insights. Google faces a critical crossroads: evolve or risk losing dominance. The pressure to adapt is growing, and the landscape will continue to shift in 2025.

2. Search GPT gets a foothold

SearchGPT made a quiet entrance in 2024, and it’s already challenging how we search for information online. Instead of scrolling through pages of links, SearchGPT provides direct, conversational responses. This shift has the potential to disrupt Google’s long-standing search model, affecting its ad revenue. Google isn’t standing idle, though. Their generative AI, Gemini, is now integrated across all platforms, including search results. Will Google’s efforts be enough to hold onto its dominance in search advertising? This is a shift that all performance marketers should keep an eye on.

3. Even more focus on privacy

In 2024, privacy became a primary concern within performance marketing. Privacy-centric measurement tools gained significant traction,with more emphasis on first-party data. Despite Google’s high-profile U-turn on third-party cookie depreciation,the drive towards privacy will only intensify.

In 2025, AI-driven privacy-first solutions will rise,enabling marketers to navigate new compliance regulations while still running effective campaigns.
Companies will need robust consent management systems to avoid penalties from platforms or regulators.
Performance marketers will need to stay agile to balance targeting with data privacy requirement

 

4. 2023, 2024, 2025 The year of (Short Form) Video!

Short-form video ads are now the norm, not the exception. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and even LinkedIn continue to evolve, allowing brands to connect with audiences in creative ways. Gone are the days of needing huge budgets for high-quality video content. Now, user-generated content (UGC) and short-form videos rule the roost. While quality remains important, creativity and consistency are key.

Google has been seeking to integrate more video into its search products, and in 2025, we expect to see video ads popping up in AI-powered search results. Performance marketers will need to focus on creating video content that resonates and drives engagement.

5. We will all care about customer happiness more

Ever since we all got through the pandemics and lockdowns there has been a drive for more, more, more – chasing the highs we saw in eCommerce sales. That has never been more apparent than it was during the peak period of 2024. Google are already reporting record searches and sales but an increasing number of companies are questioning the cost. What are returns like over the period? What types of customers do we see? Are they truly valuable customers who will come back again? Are they happy customers?

In 2025 I would expect to see this continue as companies try to balance the power of AI with the real human touch. Customers will connect with brands who show genuine understanding of them and their needs.

Lifetime value isn’t a new measure, but an evolution of this is definitely on the horizon to track happy customers who are brand advocates, who buy again, who share their reviews, who trust the brand. Historically the finance directors of the world haven’t cared about this, but will 2025 be the year they sit up and take notice of the impact this could have on the bottom line?

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Connect with the author,Hareesh Viswa, on LinkedIn.Launch is a performance marketing agency that takes a human approach. With 12 years of performance marketing experience,we specialize in delivering exceptional results for high-performing marketing teams. Get in touch if we can help with anything.