2024 was quite a year. When we polled our agency about highlights of 2024, some common responses included “The Summer Olympics,” “Caitlin Clark breaking the all-time NCAA scoring record,” “An election year finally wrapping up,” and our internal teams getting on the same page with a new project management tool (that last one was just for us).
However, 2024 was a year of gigantic changes in the digital world too, especially in social media and search. Many platforms changed or grew right under our noses, and the impact of new technologies have shifted the way we think of media strategy and execution. So let’s dive right into it: here are the biggest digital trends we saw this year and a preview of what we might see in 2025.
1. AI Leading The Way
While the proliferation and impact of AI has been central to our industry for the last few years, this year AI’s presence in digital advertising platforms has been undeniable. Meta, for example, after years of touting how specific you could get with ad targeting, has really doubled down on running broad, simple campaign setups. They’ve even started advertising these techniques directly to marketers (yes, unfortunately, these are the types of ads we marketers see on our feeds!). Facebook can “enhance” your ad creative with AI generated backgrounds, music choices, faux 3D animation, and write alternate copy for you.
Of course, this comes at a cost. Facebook opts you into most of these “enhancements” and we’ll usually have to manually turn them off; even the AI generated copy text will auto-select itself when building ads. But it’s still unclear what true value these enhancements serve and Facebook is a black box in many of these respects, which is why we carefully review which enhancements actually make sense for our clients on a case by case level. So far, we haven’t found these additions smart enough to apply at a blanket level yet, so they often end up creating headaches for us and our clients. It turns out, most brands don’t want completely random music playing on their ads! Who knew?
Google has seismically changed how it delivers search results, now aggregating answers to questions in an AI generated “answer” that appears above everything else on the SERP. This makes SEO even more important, but certainly might tick off advertisers who bid for a top spot (the same advertisers who deliver more than 90% of Google’s revenue)!
And as for those ahem… helpful “Ask Meta AI” buttons you see sometimes under ads and posts on your mobile feed? Just search Reddit and you’ll find post after post asking how to turn them off. Plus, brands themselves have no control as to what questions appear underneath their content. If there is a minor scandal affecting your brand, or some misinformation floating around out there, you probably don’t want Meta suggesting that commenters start talking about it!
Needless to say, the industry is definitely in a “throw everything at the wall” era of experimental AI, but we do expect these programs to get smarter over time and do more to embrace brand standards. That’s why we recommend always having one hand on the wheel with a trusted media partner to help guide you in the direction of what is actually beneficial to your business – and to help you steer away from useless “ features” that damage your brand and your performance.
2. Platforms Changing And Growing
This year saw a surprising amount of sea change in the social media industry in 2024. From the most recent data we can gather, many of the major platforms saw growth YoY or at least stayed steady, including mainstays like Facebook and Instagram. Specialty networks like LinkedIn have seen record revenue from subscriptions and ad revenue. For some B2B businesses, they might find a lot more value from individualized strategies on a business-focused network than mass awareness on Instagram.
Even newcomers like Blue Sky, created in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of X/Twitter as a “friendly” alternative, and Mark Zuckerberg’s own Threads app (which has yet to implement ads) have seen users in the tens of millions so far. No one knows what platforms will dominate the zeitgeist in 2025, but our bet is that these platforms continue to evolve around the type of content that resonates with users. Speaking of…
3. Video Continues to Dominate
With the dominance of TikTok in the early days of the pandemic (back when we thought it would all be over in 2 weeks), legacy platforms rushed to keep pace. Instagram launched Reels and others embraced lengthy video uploads.
Now, video is an essential tool in any organic or paid playbook and we recommend it be a key part of any client’s strategy. Studies have shown that the same message distributed in video form sticks much more with people and is much more likely to be shared. Not only does it open up more native placements for your ads, but Meta will track watch time data that you can then retarget against!
And it doesn’t have to be a huge lift or a Hollywood production, which is probably the number one question we get from clients. In fact, the best-performing video ads actually feel organic and authentic rather than highly-produced. A simple interview with a key employee, a product highlight, or a walkthrough of your store is sometimes enough to capture a user’s attention. The reason? Most native user-generated content on these platforms is served by amateur content creators, who may not have giant budgets, commercial directors, or actors. They may just be grabbing their phone and hitting “record.” By matching the type of content you create to the native space it will occupy, you can keep user attention much longer - maybe they won’t even realize they are watching an ad!
4. In Platform Shopping
Many platforms, including Meta and Facebook, have experimented with in-platform shopping in the past, but both platforms added a lot of features and optimized the way that social users shop recently,
Instagram Shops now require brands to allow purchasing directly on Facebook and Instagram in order to even use the “Shops” feature. Ad campaigns on both Tiktok and Facebook can algorithmically send users to the shop directly, bypassing your website entirely.
In our tests, we have usually found that large ad campaigns can generate 5-10% of their sales from the platforms, which reduces the friction needed to load a site, add something to the cart, and input all of their payment methods from scratch. Better yet, if you are using a popular backend like Shopify, all of these connections are automatic and the orders funnel directly into your Shopify UI!
There’s a delicate balance between TikTok being convenient versus feeling too much like those stands in the middle of the mall trying to constantly sell you something. But ultimately, any features that give your customers more easy ways to buy your products is a good thing.
5. Ain’t No Party Like a 1st-Party Party
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about what the future of privacy might look like, especially since Google scrapped plans to deprecate cookies mid-way through the year. And as governments domestic and abroad continue to advance data privacy with new legislation, it just reinforces something we say to our clients all the time: 1st-party data is essential to your marketing strategy.
Whether they come from opt-in email lists, your CRM, or loyalty programs, your customers are your customers. As long as you disclose marketing intent in your privacy policy you can use these lists to find new customers who “lookalike” yours, or to retarget your best (or lapsed) customers with special offers. Facebook’s AI audience algorithms might be able to find people to deliver ads to, but only you own your customer file.
—
So there you have it, the most important digital trends of 2024. The world of digital advertising is more complicated than it ever has been, making it critical to have a guide for best ROI. Reach out to see how we can help you navigate this changing landscape for you or your brand!