6 marketing trends to look out for in 2025

The world of marketing and advertising is ever-evolving—how can anyone stay on top of the hottest trends? We get it. On top of tracking metrics, strategizing your next campaign, and A/B testing new marketing initiatives, you’ve got to keep up with marketing and advertising trends.

We’re breaking down the top six trends to expect in 2025, so you don’t have to. Keep reading to see the latest innovations in marketing.

1. Nano and micro-influencers will replace celebrity influencers

Nano and micro-influencers are similar—both have smaller followings on social media and tend to have less polished and perfect feeds. They're also much more engaged with their audiences than mega influencers, making them highly desirable for social media marketing.

While the Kardashians might have their name all over everything, marketers in 2025 will move away from mainstream celebrities and toward nano and micro-influencers.

Here's why:

• A Matter Communications survey found that only 11% of consumers prefer celebrity influencers—a 6-11% drop from 2020
  
  
• The survey also revealed that the most important attribute when learning about a product or brand was authenticity
  
  
• A HubSpot survey found that 50% of marketers saw the most success with micro-influencers, especially those with between 10k and 100k followers

With a growing consumer preference for authenticity over household names, expect brands to focus their efforts on relatable nano and micro-influencers who hold more authority in their specific industries.

Let's say you sell organic, all-natural cleaning products. Partnering with a mommy blogger with a highly engaged audience will likely create more awareness than finding a popular mega-influencer with a wide but less interested audience.

Aside from being more relatable and having a more targeted audience, nano and micro-influencers are also more affordable.

‍Plus, they have the highest engagement rates of all influencers, making a micro-influencer collaboration an easy decision.

2. Hyper-personalization will remain top of mind

Whether it's from a form, survey, or email, marketers can collect vast amounts of data on their customers to create even more personalized experiences. And customers expect it.

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A Segment study found that more than 55% of consumers will be repeat buyers after a personalized experience. The same study found that nearly 70% of businesses are increasing their investment in personalization.

‍“Retailers and consumer products companies should not forget they’ve had this long-standing relationship with their consumers, and the consumers have told these companies a lot about themselves. The question is whether you can harness that to actually tailor your offerings and engage with these consumers in a different way.” - Sajal Kohli, Senior Partner at McKinsey

Artificial intelligence (AI) and personalization

An Optimove survey shows that nearly 90% of consumers expect retailers to offer personalized recommendations. But retailers and e-commerce brands can provide hyper-personalized experiences with AI. Here's how:

• AI and machine learning analyze customer data to create personalized experiences
• Generative AI creates dynamic content that adapts based on customer preferences
• AI drafts tailored content and distributes it through email marketing, SMS, and more

The novelty of AI may have worn off, but savvy marketers are now using it to personalize the customer experience and achieve better results.

3. (Short-form) video content will reign supreme

Forty-seven seconds. Just a few years ago, attention spans were about 75 seconds, but now? "Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds,” says Dr. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine.

Thanks to shortened attention spans and the rise of TikTok and other short-form video platforms, marketers will shift content toward shorter videos, like Instagram Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts.

They'll also focus on user-generated content (UGC), which is typically short in nature, free (with permission), and more authentic than perfectly polished brand content.

While short-form video made our trends list, we think it'll stick around for a while—according to Statista, ad spending on short-form video is expected to balloon to over $145B by 2028.

 Videos under 60 seconds have an average 50% engagement rate. That rate drops to 17% with videos over 60 minutes.

To get the most out of your video content, consider these tips:

• Leverage live streams for real-time engagement—social media platforms have a wide reach, and live streams are the perfect medium for Q&A or product launches
• Put new features to use, like polls and live Q&A sessions
• Dive into the data to see what's working and where you can refine your strategy

4. Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) will make a comeback

Remember those weird-looking goggles that the gaming industry and Meta popularized almost a decade ago? Well, they're back... and savvy brands are leveraging AR and VR to create truly immersive experiences, from fashion shows to visualizing how furniture will look in your home (we're looking at you, Ikea).

The VR market is projected to grow by 27.9% from 2020 to 2025, indicating a strong comeback. AR and VR can create unforgettable brand experiences, whether it's an interactive product demo or a virtual showroom. Some of the world's leading brands are already using AR and VR, like:

• American Express. They hosted a virtual “You vs. Sharapova" event using VR where people played a virtual tennis match against Maria Sharapova.
  
  
• Pokémon Go. Circle K and Pokémon Go parent company Niantic partnered to create an interactive AR experience, driving players to grab a coffee at Circle K.

With hardware becoming more accessible, expect a surge in AR and VR brand experiences.

5. Social commerce will skyrocket

As e-commerce and social media cross paths social commerce and shoppable content will continue to gain traction.

Social commerce allows users to shop on the social networks that have integrated e-commerce, like Instagram and Facebook, without leaving the platform. This creates the seamless—and convenient—shopping experience customers are looking for.

And with users spending nearly two and a half hours a day on social platforms, marketers have a big opportunity if they can do shoppable content well.

Denis Sinelnikov, CEO of award-winning digital marketing agency Media Components, has a few tips on getting it right:

• Choose the right platform for your brand. Instagram or Pinterest are probably your best options if you're selling clothing or beauty products.
  
  
• Build your social media presence first. Then look into analytics to optimize your posting schedule for conversions.
  
  
• Have a strategy. Take the time to plan out a social commerce strategy, establishing clear goals and success metrics.
  
  
• Use built-in tools. Many social platforms have built-in tools to help make shopping your content as effortless as possible for consumers.

6. Brands will prioritize zero-party data (ZPD) collection

The most successful brands use data to guide business decisions, create personalized customer experiences, inform product roadmaps, and more. But as the demand for more data privacy and more customer personalization rises, marketers are faced with another problem: getting data from their audience while prioritizing privacy.

Enter zero-party data. ZPD—data people share with you directly and proactively—gives consumers control of the data they share and marketers the power to personalize.

So, how can you get more ZPD? Forms, quizzes, and surveys, especially interactive ones like product recommendation quizzes. 

Here are a few examples:

• Pre- and post-purchase surveys
• Polls
• Product recommendation quizzes
• Giveaways
• Customer feedback surveys

Creating interactive experiences, like product recommendations or personality quizzes, makes sharing data fun for customers and gives you a gold mine of information you can use to personalize marketing. 

What’s next?

2024 was the year of AI, and we can't wait to explore it further with personalization (we're already using it to help you create forms). But 2025 will be the year of data and doing more with it to create the exceptional experiences customers expect.

What do you think is the next big thing in marketing? Not sure? Subscribe to Informed—a monthly newsletter where we keep you up-to-date on industry trends, related opinions, tips and tricks, and other news.