By Jessica Hawthorne-Castro

As we close out 2024, we’re facing a marketing industry that is changing faster than ever. To stay ahead, it’s crucial to evaluate shifts in consumer behaviour and media trends that are redefining advertising and marketing strategies.

With 2025 on the horizon, here are five significant trends I think will influence the industry and shape strategies, as well as the opportunities and areas for improvement they present with the impact of artificial intelligence.

1. Visual Content Will Remain A Dominant Force

Visual content—especially video—continues to remain king when it comes to consumer engagement. Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels are fuelling the popularity of short-form videos, which are highly effective in capturing and retaining user attention. About 62% of consumers have watched videos to learn more about brands, discover how their products or services work, and identify benefits they might not have learned about in the text-based description.

To capitalize on this demand, consider boosting your video production capabilities and focus on authentic, informative videos that align with consumer preferences. Video content that delivers quick, engaging and valuable insights will help your brand stay visible and relevant in crowded digital spaces.

With the assistance of AI-driven video editing, you can produce personalized content that caters to individual consumer preferences more efficiently and at a lower cost. On the other hand, relying solely on AI tools for video creation may reduce authenticity, which can affect brand trust, so make sure you find the right balance between AI and human effort.

2. UGC Will Enhance Brand Authenticity

User-generated content (UGC) has become a vital asset for building brand trust. Consumers increasingly look to peers for genuine product evaluations, with 99.9% of consumers reading reviews before making an online purchase. With this in mind, consider UGC not just as a tool for engagement but as an authentic storytelling engine that creates a deeper connection with your consumers and builds trust.

By featuring customer reviews and encouraging social media shares, you can strengthen connections with consumers and cultivate a loyal customer base by making users part of your brand’s story.

AI sentiment analysis can provide insights into consumer attitudes, allowing you to align with positive user tendencies and drive engagement. Depending on AI for UGC poses some risks, though. AI systems might misinterpret context, leading to the promotion of content that doesn’t align with your brand’s image and potentially causing concerns with brand alignment and customer perceptions.

3. AI-Powered Personalization Will Be A Driving Force

AI, specifically generative AI, will likely play a transformative role in delivering hyper-personalized marketing experiences, moving beyond simple segmentation. This will allow you to tailor content to each person’s preferences, habits and buying patterns. Gartner predicts that next year, 30% of large organizations’ outbound marketing messages will be “synthetically generated,” helping companies deliver new, personalized content faster than ever before.

This level of personalization can deepen customer relationships and drive business growth by making marketing messages feel tailored and timely. As more brands adopt generative AI, they will have new tools for reaching customers in more meaningful and relevant ways.

Generative AI tools allow for a wide range of tailored marketing strategies that can help deepen brand-consumer relationships. The challenge with AI-driven personalization is acquiring significant amounts of consumer data without overstepping on privacy. You must carefully navigate this challenge to avoid breaking consumer trust.

4. The Integration Of Advanced Analytics Will Expand

AI’s integration into marketing technology is evolving beyond ad placements, especially in programmatic advertising. This transformation has added sophistication and smart targeting to customers, and it is no longer just about automating ad placements. Brand awareness, engagement and performance are more integrated across marketing and media executions and optimizations. AI now facilitates deeper insights into campaign paths, including conversion or acquisition tracking, lifetime value optimizations and cross-channel loyalty programs.

AI-driven analytics provide robust insights that can advise you on effective strategies, boost ROI and optimize your overall marketing spend. By understanding customer behaviours and patterns through advanced analytics, you can tailor campaigns to achieve specific outcomes, such as higher retention rates or increased brand loyalty. Keep in mind, though, that while AI may improve efficiency, it may overlook or misconceive emerging consumer trends and broader market shifts that humans understand based on context.

5. Adoption Of Zero- And First-Party Data Will Increase

As data privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies phase out, marketers are pivoting to first- and zero-party data collection. Customer interactions, voluntary surveys and loyalty programs will be critical to create substantial, compliant marketing strategies.

Consumers are increasingly becoming more concerned about privacy. This means you must prioritize transparency and consent. By following simple privacy rules, you can continue to leverage customer insight in ways that build trust while still personalizing customer experiences.

AI can improve your data collection strategies by pinpointing relevant touchpoints and enhancing data insights to create value-driven marketing that aligns with consumer privacy expectations.

The coming year promises to be one of significant evolution in the advertising and marketing industry. By leveraging AI with careful consideration, you can optimize your strategies to deliver and enhance consumer trust in a time when data, personalization and authenticity are key.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jessica Hawthorne-Castro

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Jessica Hawthorne-Castro is CEO of Hawthorne, an analytics and technology-driven accountable advertising agency. Read Jessica Hawthorne-Castro’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

By Jason Goldberg

In 2007, Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage and, with his now-legendary “one more thing” moment, unveiled the iPhone. Few realized at the time that this device would usher in an era that fundamentally transformed commerce, reshaping how people discover, buy, and interact with products. Fast forward to today, and another transformative shift is on the horizon. Perplexity’s launch of “Shop Like a Pro” may be the tipping point for a new era: AI Agent Commerce. Much like the iPhone wove the internet into the fabric of everyday life, AI shopping assistants are poised to embed artificial intelligence into the heart of our shopping experiences, forever changing the retail landscape.

AI agents, once a speculative idea, are becoming reality as industry giants like Amazon, Google, Apple, OpenAI, and Perplexity pour resources into this burgeoning space. These companies envision a future where the friction of shopping—endless comparisons, scrolling, and decision-making—is replaced by seamless, personalized assistance.

Picture this: You ask Alexa to find the perfect winter coat. Alexa doesn’t just offer a list; it considers the weather in your location, your past style preferences, your budget, and customer reviews to present the ideal option. Or, imagine Perplexity’s recently unveiled “Shop Like a Pro,” where AI curates product suggestions based on social proof, your unique tastes, and emerging trends, allowing you to make a purchase with one click directly from its platform. Meanwhile, Google Lens now lets you snap a picture of a product and instantly discover where to buy it, compare prices, and check inventory—all in real time.

Feature Image Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images

By Jason Goldberg

Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg has been a Forbes contributor since 2018, covering commerce, retail, and shopper marketing. He’s covered commerce topics including public retailers’ earning reports, US Department of Commerce retail forecasts, and emerging trends in e-commerce, social commerce, and the impact of artificial intelligence on retail. Read More

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

By Robin Jaffin

Locate X, a powerful location tracking tool developed by data broker Babel Street, has sparked controversy due to its widespread use by government agencies for surveillance without warrants. As reported by Vice, this tool allows users to monitor the precise movements of mobile devices, raising significant concerns about privacy and civil liberties in the digital age.

What is Locate X?

Developed by data broker Babel Street, Locate X is a sophisticated location tracking service that utilizes mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) to create detailed maps of device movements.

This powerful tool aggregates location data from various sources, including popular mobile apps that request location access, allowing users to monitor specific devices across state lines and even internationally.

Locate X’s capabilities extend beyond real-time tracking, as it can also display historical location data, making it particularly valuable for surveillance purposes.

Government Use of Locate X

Several U.S. government agencies have been identified as users of Locate X, raising concerns about warrantless surveillance:

• The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) signed a contract to access the service, as revealed by procurement records.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have reportedly utilized the tool.
• The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) purchased access to Locate X, according to uncovered procurement records.

These agencies can track device locations anonymously using data harvested from popular apps, without the need for a warrant.

This widespread adoption by federal agencies has intensified the debate surrounding privacy rights and the extent of government surveillance capabilities.

Privacy Concerns and Controversy

The use of Locate X has ignited significant privacy concerns and controversy, particularly due to its ability to bypass traditional legal safeguards. Unlike conventional surveillance methods that require court orders, this tool allows agencies to track individuals without obtaining warrants, potentially infringing on citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights.

This warrantless surveillance capability has drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates and lawmakers, with Senator Ron Wyden proposing legislation called “The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale” to ban government agencies from purchasing such data.

• Vulnerable groups, including abortion-seekers in restrictive states, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ individuals, face heightened risks from this technology.
• The tool’s existence highlights the largely unregulated nature of the data broker industry and the ease with which personal data can be acquired and weaponized for surveillance purposes.

Future Implications of Surveillance

As technology continues to advance, the capabilities of tools like Locate X are likely to expand, raising critical questions about the balance between national security, law enforcement needs, and individual privacy rights. The ongoing debate surrounding these issues will shape the future of digital surveillance and data protection laws. Experts warn that without proper regulation, such tools could lead to a surveillance state where personal privacy becomes increasingly scarce.

To address these concerns, lawmakers and privacy advocates are calling for stronger data protection measures and increased transparency in how location data is collected and used by both government agencies and private companies.

The outcome of this debate will have far-reaching implications for civil liberties and the relationship between citizens and their government in the digital age.

Ethical Debates in the Tech Community Regarding Locate X

The development and use of Locate X has sparked intense ethical debates within the tech community, highlighting the tension between technological innovation and privacy concerns. Many technologists argue that tools like Locate X represent a dangerous overreach of surveillance capabilities, potentially undermining fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of movement.

Critics within the industry emphasize the need for stronger ethical guidelines and oversight in the development of such technologies. They argue that companies like Babel Street should implement more rigorous vetting processes for potential buyers and establish clear boundaries on how their tools can be used.

Some advocate for a “conditional good” approach to technology development, which recognizes the potential benefits of location tracking while also acknowledging and mitigating its risks.

This debate underscores the growing recognition among tech professionals that ethical considerations must be central to the design and deployment of powerful surveillance tools, not an afterthought.

 Abortion Surveillance Risks

The potential use of location tracking tools like Locate X to monitor women seeking abortions has raised significant privacy concerns in the post-Dobbs era. Digital surveillance poses a serious threat to reproductive health privacy,  as cell phone location data can reveal visits to clinics and track individuals across state lines.

In one alarming instance, privacy advocates used Locate X to track a device traveling from Alabama, where abortion is banned, to a clinic in Florida. Atlas Privacy, a company specializing in data removal, demonstrated how they were able to access the tracking tool Locate X and use it to monitor the movements of a specific device. The device’s journey included crossing state lines from Alabama, where abortion is fully prohibited, to a reproductive health clinic in Florida, which restricts abortion after six weeks. Originally intended for law enforcement, the tool was obtained by Atlas Privacy after they claimed it would eventually be used in collaboration with law enforcement agencies. This case underscores significant concerns about the potential misuse of such powerful surveillance tools.

Law enforcement in states with abortion restrictions could potentially use such tools to identify and prosecute abortion-seekers. Some states have even introduced “bounty hunter” laws allowing private citizens to sue those aiding abortions, further incentivizing surveillance.

To protect privacy, experts recommend disabling location services, using VPNs, and being cautious about sharing information online.

Lawmakers are also being urged to enact stronger data protection measures to prevent the misuse of location data in criminalizing abortion care.

Balancing Security and Privacy

The use of tools like Locate X highlights the ongoing challenge of balancing national security interests with individual privacy rights. While proponents argue that such technologies are essential for law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts, critics warn of the potential for abuse and erosion of civil liberties.

.To address these concerns, experts advocate for:

• Developing robust ethical frameworks and regulations to guide the responsible use of surveillance technologies
• Increasing transparency about how these tools are used and implementing strong accountability measures
• Exploring privacy-preserving technical solutions, such as encryption and secure multiparty computation
• Establishing clear guidelines that safeguard privacy while still allowing for effective security measures

Ultimately, finding an appropriate balance requires ongoing dialogue between government agencies, technology companies, civil society organizations, and the public to ensure that security measures do not come at the expense of fundamental rights and democratic values.

Impact of Locate X on Civil Liberties

Locate X’s widespread use by government agencies without warrants has raised significant concerns about its impact on civil liberties. The tool’s ability to track individuals’ movements with precision threatens fundamental rights protected by the Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

• The ACLU warns that such surveillance practices may chill free speech and religious expression, as people become less likely to engage in these activities when they know they’re being monitored.
• Privacy advocates argue that the aggregation of location data creates an “intimate window” into a person’s life, revealing sensitive information about their associations and activities.
• The tool’s use in immigration enforcement has sparked particular alarm, potentially endangering vulnerable populations and undermining trust in public institutions.

By circumventing traditional warrant requirements, Locate X represents a significant erosion of privacy protections in the digital age, potentially reshaping the relationship between citizens and the state in ways that threaten the foundations of democratic society.

International Perspectives on Surveillance Tools

The global proliferation of AI-powered surveillance tools has sparked diverse international responses, with countries adopting varying approaches to their development and use. According to the AI Global Surveillance Index, 56 out of 176 countries now employ AI for surveillance purposes, highlighting the widespread adoption of these technologies.

While some nations view these tools as essential for maintaining public safety and national security, others express concerns about their potential for abuse and human rights violations.

• China has emerged as a leading developer and exporter of AI surveillance technologies, with its systems being adopted by countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• The European Union has taken a more cautious approach, emphasizing the need for ethical AI development and strong data protection regulations.
• In response to growing concerns, the United Nations has called for a moratorium on the sale and use of surveillance tools until adequate human rights safeguards are in place.
• Civil society organizations worldwide are pushing for greater transparency and accountability in the deployment of these technologies, advocating for legal frameworks that protect privacy rights while allowing for legitimate security needs.

Evading Location Tracking

To protect yourself from being tracked, individuals can employ several effective strategies:

• Disable location services on devices and apps when not needed
• Use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt internet traffic and mask IP addresses
• Opt for private browsers like DuckDuckGo that don’t collect user data
• Regularly scan for and remove spyware or unfamiliar apps
• Enable airplane mode when not actively using the device
• Avoid using public Wi-Fi networks that aren’t password-protected
• Disable location tracking on social media platforms
• Use end-to-end encrypted messaging services for communications
• Be cautious about sharing personal information online and on social media

Additionally, individuals should regularly update privacy settings on their accounts and devices, and consider using tools to detect unauthorized GPS trackers.

While no method is fool proof, combining these strategies can significantly reduce the risk of unwanted tracking and protect personal privacy.

Privacy Versus Surveillance

The emergence of tools like Locate X represents a critical juncture in the ongoing struggle between privacy rights and surveillance capabilities. As technology continues to advance, the potential for invasive tracking and monitoring of individuals’ movements has reached unprecedented levels, raising profound questions about civil liberties in the digital age.

While proponents argue that such tools are essential for law enforcement and national security, the lack of oversight and potential for abuse pose significant risks to fundamental rights. The ease with which private entities can access and exploit location data highlights the urgent need for comprehensive data protection legislation and stricter regulation of the data broker industry.

As society grapples with these challenges, it is crucial for citizens to remain vigilant, advocate for their privacy rights, and demand transparency and accountability from both government agencies and private companies in the use of surveillance technologies.

Feature Image Credit: BritCats Studio via Shutterstock

By Robin Jaffin

Sourced from QZ The Queen Zone

By Rocio Fabbro

From scouring subreddits to personalized messages from John Stamos, AI is helping target audiences in new ways

https://qz.com/known-agency-big-lebotski-chicken-subreddit-ai-stamos-1851695089

Artificial intelligence is helping marketers keep up with the rapid pace of change in the advertising industry, allowing them to stay nimble while also expanding their creative capabilities, says Kern Schireson, CEO of the full-service advertising agency Known. That’s making it easier for marketers to know exactly what you want — and how you want to see it.

“It’s a real asset to us as we look to work through a bunch of complex decisions on where and how to introduce messaging, where it’ll be most persuasive to our clients’ audiences. AI gets us there faster,” Schireson said in the latest episode of Quartz AI Factor, a video interview series set at the Nasdaq MarketSite (NDAQ).

But it’s not just an efficiency tool. Known also deploys AI to help tune advertisements to individual viewers, a gargantuan task that used to take far longer and use up considerable resources.

“If you want to do that manually, that’s an insurmountable level of content that you need to create,” Schireson said. “But if you have AI tuning and optimizing the creative iteration for the individual audience at the particular time of day, place context platform in which they’re receiving it, you can do that quickly and efficiently that creates opportunities that never existed before.”

Known ran a Super Bowl ad featuring John Stamos, Schireson said. Using AI, Stamos said the name of whichever city viewers were watching from, giving each individual viewer a different and more targeted experience.

In another example, the company’s AI chatbot, known as “The Big Letbotski,” dug through 80,000 active subreddits to identify the most relevant conversations about chicken sandwiches for its client, Shake Shack (SHAK). After finding 30 of the most content-specific subreddits, it ran targeted ads promoting its Chicken Shack Sundays giveaway in April. That helped Shake Shack beat sales estimates by 31%.

“The Big Lebotski helped look at the dimension of audience and the context of the conversation in that particular subreddit to say, ‘where is this gonna land, where it actually feels like it makes sense for people who are likely to be persuaded by it,’” Schireson said. “And so the intersection of those two questions was really where it helped us zoom in, and the performance speaks for itself.”

By Rocio Fabbro

Sourced from QUARTZ

Sourced from OM

I recently wrote about the future of the browser and Surf, a new app from the creators of Flipboard. Both stories explore the changing nature of the web and its impact on the media landscape. I’m not shy about expressing my frustrations with the establishment media and the ever-present gulf between technology and old media companies. I’ve been involved with the internet and online publishing from the very beginning — even before many big media companies embraced it. Those companies have almost always lagged behind in understanding the shifting reality of what media is, how we consume it, and how it’s distributed.

The widespread lack of understanding among the establishment media allowed Google to become a behemoth. And then they essentially handed the keys to the kingdom to Mark Zuckerberg and Co. They are making the same mistake with the new AI platforms. Despite all the brouhaha about fighting Perplexity or OpenAI, it will amount to nothing more than a short-term squeeze play.

Some media companies are simply signing deals, taking the cash while they can. By doing deals with these platforms and giving them access to their content, most publications might feel they will be rewarded with traffic to their websites. Here’s what Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, said on a podcast:

We can go through it in complex way or the simple way. The simple way is we believe it provides revenue, but more importantly provides a potential traffic source. Provides an avenue for a product partnership that could be very beneficial, and that provides a way for us to help shape the future of AI…

…[Another] part is this very interesting search element, where right now in OpenAI they have browse mode and they can link out to Atlantic stories. They have said that they’re going to build a search product. They have not launched the search product, but they have said they would build it. We have allowed them to include The Atlantic in their search product.

Our view is that if this becomes an important way that people navigate the internet, that it will be better for us to be in it than to not be in it, and also to help shape it than not help shape it.

The Atlantic and its brethren have about as much chance of shaping the future as I do of convincing Elon Musk to focus on playing cricket. The challenge for these publications is more existential.

Unlike search engines, AI platforms are built on precision and summaries. They’re unlikely to be a major source of traffic or advertising revenue. What about getting paid for the summaries OpenAI serves in response to prompts? These prompts will vary widely, as will the responses, breaking the traditional mass-media revenue model. As I explained in my “future of browser” article, information itself is being atomized, which will likely upend the web and media as we know them.

Facebook made big promises to media companies, only to pull the rug from under them. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity are likely to be equally, if not more, ruthless. These platforms won’t need the media for long.

The old media has consistently misunderstood digital transformation, and it’s no surprise that we have a media ecosystem still trapped in old monetization models, where “interruptions” have only grown more aggressive. What began as occasional magazine ads has evolved into a constant barrage across all platforms—from billboard-cluttered webpages to podcast sponsorship breaks and algorithmic social feeds designed for ad delivery.

Social media platforms, built around algorithmic feeds and advertising models, have reduced content discovery to a game of clicks, likes, and engagements. Mass-market media has followed suit, optimizing for sensationalism rather than depth. All of it, from podcasts to news apps, interrupts users constantly with ads, pushing all of us to exhaustion.

In reality, the seeds of media’s destruction are built into its architecture, because outlets must feed advertising systems, not the audience. The media establishment disregards why audiences visit them, and it’s no surprise the system has reached its limits. Too many advertisements, too many interruptions, and too much “content” mean that, as an end customer, you are decoupled from media brands.

Nowhere was this more obvious than during the recent election cycle. The news cycle showed that information consumers were ready to move on from tired old content creation, delivery, and distribution models. Who wants to deal with 500 versions of a 500-word article with a sizzling headline and a sliver of actual news? Try sitting through 10 minutes of CNN or any cable show. Screaming, shouting, and superficiality make it easy to tune out traditional media.

It’s hardly surprising people want 60-second summaries on TikTok and headlines on Twitter. A recent Pew Research study found that “about one-in-five Americans – including a much higher share of adults under 30 (37%) – say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.” While social media is known for hot takes and memes, it’s much more than that, as Pew’s study revealed. “Overwhelming majorities say they get all four types of content asked about in the survey: basic facts (90%), opinions (87%), funny posts (87%), and breaking news (83%),” the survey noted.

OpenAI and Claude are demonstrating that we’re entering a phase where individuals will engage with platforms as a singular individual entity. Even if these platforms adopt advertising, each query will generate a unique response, making it difficult to replicate traditional mass media monetization. This represents the newest variation of the game played by Google and Facebook.

Google and Facebook are already showing that by embedding “Ask AI” and “Summaries” into their products, they are ready to produce one-to-one advertising using “Generative AI.” They won’t need to send people anywhere, much like OpenAI or whoever triumphs as a big winner in the AI sweepstakes.

The internet was originally envisioned as a place for connection, collaboration, and discovery. But over time, it has been distorted by business models that prioritize engagement metrics over meaningful interaction. Discovery has long been the open web’s greatest challenge, with search engines turning it into an SEO game and social platforms creating algorithmic echo chambers. AI platforms are making discovery almost irrelevant.

You stay still, but your AI agent goes out and fetches, distils, and synthesizes the content and renders it in whatever format you want — audio, video, or text. This is the future. None of the media business models will work in the future — neither advertising nor paywalls. Today’s content deals, like the one The Atlantic signed with OpenAI, are akin to the sugar high you get from soda. The sugar high is followed by the inevitable crash.

December 21, 2024 San Francisco

Addendum: The Washington Post is drama central these days. The paper is trying to come up with a new growth strategy. And there is a new (editor in) chief in town. Furthermore, some believe they can save the paper if they can buy it from Jeff Bezos. I wish all of them good luck in all those endeavours. After all, trying is better than doing nothing. The media industry is in a dire situation. It is time to reinvent. and it starts by rethinking the meaning of media in the age of “AI” and then we need to figure out how to make it work financially.

Feature Image Credit: Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Sourced from OM

By Darpan Munjal

In the age of Google and now ChatGPT, we take quality search for granted.

We’re used to having information at our fingertips, but this ecosystem of instant gratification hides complex processes that enable us to find what we’re looking for.

Maybe because of search’s ubiquity, good search and discovery is often overlooked in e-commerce. But getting this element right can have a huge impact on your business. Effectively matching customers and products increases conversions and reinforces trust and loyalty as customers realize you’re relevant to their needs. Increasingly, AI is driving a revolution in search and discovery, being implemented by everyone from Amazon to Shopify to personalize search results and allow for deeper categorization of products that reaches beyond standard keywords.

Think of search as a two-way street, an interaction between your products and your customers. AI allows us to understand both points on this line better, and draw the shortest possible distance between the two. Here’s how AI can help update your search and discovery.

Moving Beyond Keywords

Search and discovery has traditionally been driven by keywords, returning products that are the closest match to a user’s chosen search words. The problems with this approach are obvious: firstly, it requires both accurate classification of products. It also requires your customers to know pretty much exactly what they want to buy! While keyword search remains at the heart of most algorithms, including Google and Amazon, in e-commerce it has contributed to a failure rate in first searches of up to 17% and over two-thirds of consumers seeing irrelevant results.

For an online fashion brand or food delivery app, keyword search is a functional starting point, as customers often begin searching with a decent idea of what they’re looking for, be it jeans or Chinese food. Brands must be alert to the diversity of customer needs, though, and keywords should include broader categories and common phrases such as ‘healthy food’, ‘quick delivery’, or ‘relaxed fit’.

At Atom.com, our focus is on brandable domains. These often contain unique naming styles that make discovery less linear than that provided by a simple keyword approach. The main selling point of our domains may be the metaphor or emotional invocations, so the connection to keywords is tangential or opaque. Across e-commerce, brands may have product categories where keyword relevance is unclear; moreover, an intelligent search algorithm should read between the lines of consumer keywords to present supplementary products that the customer may want without yet realizing.

AI and the Future of Search and Discovery

In September 2024, after months of testing, we fully integrated AI with our search. This enabled it to continuously critique and improve its own results. By training AI models to think like buyers, we were able to identify irrelevant results across thousands of keywords, helping us eliminate results that didn’t align with buyer expectations. Since this implementation, we’ve already had some clear improvements: 17.4% better engagement and 14.6% increase in conversions. Here’s how AI has enabled an optimized search and discovery process.

Deep Classification

AI enables a deeper and more complex keyword classification than could ever be afforded by a manual process. Our buyers typically start by searching broad industry themes, such as fashion or beauty, as they work on building brands within these categories. With tens of thousands of domain names in these categories, reliably recommending the most relevant names is impossible, even with a huge base of root keywords.

We’ve implemented AI to build not only a deeper set of interrelated relevant keywords, including themes, emotion and name style, but also to generate accurate use cases for our domains. This means that if a buyer searches for use cases such as ‘sustainable clothing brand’ or ‘natural skincare brand’, our search will now prioritize the discovery of names like ‘PurityCompass’ which are highly relevant to the brand intentions without being rooted in direct keywords. Instead of returning names with the user’s search terms forced in, our AI-based discovery process offers an intuitive solution based on end-use.

Deeper classification is essential for any e-commerce brand, even when many of your products may be found by more direct keyword search and it enables your search algorithm to return highly relevant answers even when buyer keywords are lacking specificity. Moreover, by offering customers diverse but relevant products, you will learn more about their behaviour enabling individual personalization and accurate segmentation.

Connection With The Buyer Journey

Deep classification – and the accurate categorization it requires – is just one side of the coin of better discovery. The other side is your customers, those doing the searching. You must pair deep classification with data on buyer types and behaviour. In other words, how buyers are browsing your marketplace. This will allow you to create meaningful associations based on real end-user search terms.

In most industries it’s likely buyers will return to use your search function multiple times before making a purchase, as well as after an initial conversion. Data gathered through these touchpoints can be built into detailed user profiles. For example, if a buyer searches for a certain keyword and shortlists 5 different names, our AI begins building dynamic associations based on search intent and those domain attributes. With a dataset of 3 million unique monthly visitors, we’re able to aggregate insights to improve the discovery experience across the board.

Deep classification is integral to this, as it allows our search algorithm to cross-reference the products that pique the buyer’s interest and present personalized suggestions that are based upon how similar users interacted with those names in the past.

Of course, every customer is different. Advanced machine learning allows our dynamic user profiles to adjust in real-time, based on search behaviour. The result is ever-improving search results that hone buyers in on the right products at the right time.

Search Is About Data And People

Effective search and discovery requires a two-pronged approach. Firstly, a deeper, more sophisticated product classification. Second, understanding your customers and their search intent.

Once you’ve perfected both, search is no longer a coin toss for your customers but an accurate and effective tool for bringing the right products to the right buyers. Search should be able to handle customers at all stages of the buyer journey, and provide relevant and desirable results for those with different degrees of knowledge and information about your inventory. It can be the final step to finding and buying a product, or a mid-funnel test of just what you have to offer, so it truly is a core part of your business as an e-commerce provider!

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Darpan Munjal

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Founder and CEO of Atom.com, world’s leading brand-naming platform that uniquely combines AI, crowdsourcing, and agency-level expertise to help… Read More

Sourced from Forbes

By Hyunsoo Rim

The tech giant’s tight grip on the search-ad market is slipping as competitors like Amazon and AI tools lure users and advertisers away.

While Google’s latest woes seem to centre on the DOJ’s antitrust efforts, the search-engine giant may soon face another — perhaps even greater — threat to its moat: losing its dominance in search ads.

In 2023, GoogleGOOGL $197.46 (0.30%) earned over $175 billion (or 57% of Alphabet’s total sales) solely from search advertising, where revenues are generated by people clicking on the sponsored ads displayed alongside search results. However, Google is gradually losing ground in the $300 billion-strong global market for search ads, as both users and advertisers shift to competitors like Amazon and AI tools, The Wall Street Journal reports.

According to data from eMarketer, Google’s share of the search-advertising market is forecast to drop below 50% next year for the first time since tracking began in 2008, with revenue growing at a modest 7.6% year over year. Meanwhile, Amazon’s search-ad revenue surged by 17.6% over the same period.

Indeed, users are increasingly turning to platforms like AmazonAMZN $222.71 (-2.15%) or TikTok for their shopping searches and general queries, according to WSJ. The seemingly inevitable rise of AI is also playing a role: a survey from New Street Research found that nearly 60% of US consumers used a chatbot to help them decide on a purchase in the past 30 days.

This shift means fewer users are clicking on Google’s ads, driving precious ad dollars away from the tech giant and toward its rivals. Advertisers’ spending on search engines like Google grew a modest 3% year over year in Q3… while spending on retail media like Amazon was up 28%, and social-media platforms like MetaMETA $610.88 (-3.07%) were up 5%, per marketing agency Skai’s latest report.

By Hyunsoo Rim

Sourced from Sherwood

Sourced from Forbes

Marketing strategies rooted in fleeting digital trends can become obsolete faster than companies can adapt their long-term brand narratives. Rapid evolutions in consumer attention spans, technological platforms and social media algorithms mean that today’s cutting-edge marketing approaches could be considered passé within months, potentially wasting significant creative and financial resources.

Smart marketers prioritize building authentic, adaptable brand identities that transcend momentary trends. Here, members of Forbes Agency Council share some current trends that marketers should think twice about before investing in. As their insights below illustrate, although such approaches might grab attention in the short term, brands that prioritize core values, genuine customer relationships and flexible communication strategies over the latest trends can pivot more quickly while maintaining consistent messaging.

1. Performance Marketing As A Solo Tactic

We’ve seen marketing tactics be touted as taking over at first; yet TV never displaced radio, and direct mail didn’t supplant all else. Performance marketing as a solo, focused activity has shown many limitations: brand deterioration, lack of transparency and a poor alignment with a client’s creative needs. It’s destined to remain viable only as part of a balanced approach, along with many other marketing tactics. – Ellis Verdi, DeVito/Verdi

2. Overreliance On Artificial Intelligence

If only artificial intelligence had a heart. While generative AI boosts efficiency, it lacks the ability to create sentient connections, a crucial element in driving consumer affinity and loyalty. Research shows emotionally connected customers are 52% more valuable, driving higher long-term growth and brand advocacy. Brands must balance AI’s speed with genuine emotional engagement to create lasting impact and empathetic connections. – Thomas Zawacki, Data Axle

3. Third-Party Data Tracking

Highly targeted advertising based on tracking people online is under threat from both legislation and the need for the largest online companies to protect their brands. Marketers need to accept that the availability of third-party tracking data is going to decrease dramatically and find other ways to target an audience—for example, by advertising around relevant content. – Mike Maynard, Napier Partnership Limited

4. Branded NFTs

One recent marketing trend unlikely to stand the test of time is branded nonfungible tokens. While blockchain and digital collectibles still have potential, people quickly lost interest in paying for digital images with limited utility and without long-term value. Also, when royalties on sales were removed, the revenue for brands disappeared, which led to marketing budget cuts for NFT promotions. – David Ispiryan, Effeect

5. Canned AI Voiceovers

The overuse of canned AI voices is already being played out. I’m a huge proponent of AI tech, but not of using the same AI voiceover tech heard in every other Short and Reel. Brands will need to get more strategic to capture attention. I don’t expect the current use of voiceover AI to sustain another six months in any effective way. If you sound like everyone else, you are instantly forgettable. – Bernard May, National Positions

6. Excessive Gamification

I believe the trend of excessive gamification in marketing won’t last. While things like awarding loyalty points for doing simple tasks or social media challenges can spark interest, they often feel gimmicky. As brands aim for authenticity, the focus will likely shift toward meaningful interactions that build trust and loyalty rather than just playing games for rewards. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team

7. The Creator Economy And Influencers

A lot of today’s content creators are not making money, and a bubble is forming where everyone is trying to reach a stage where it’s profitable. This is leading to a lot of shallow and formulaic content, and the creator’s role is more that of a reformatter. Creativity is being lost and influence is fading as people crave realness. – Dean Seddon, Maverrik

8. Prioritizing Real-Time Measurability Over Effectiveness

The trend of prioritizing real-time measurability over strategy effectiveness is fading. Marketers have been driven to the middle. Brand distinction and loyalty have deteriorated. The digital revolution elevated tactics focused on tracking, not holistic efficacy. We’re now seeing a shift back to creativity and unique strategies that build customer lifetime value, rather than short-term wins just to justify budgets to a CFO. – Shanna Apitz, Hunt Adkins

9. Dependence On Short-Form Videos

A digital marketing trend that may not stand the test of time is the overreliance on short-form videos like TikToks and Instagram Reels. While engaging, these videos risk overwhelming users and often lack the depth needed to convey complex information. Their success also heavily depends on changing algorithms, making them less reliable for long-term strategies. – Bahram Moshrefnoory, Rizer Technology Solutions

10. Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics dazzle but deceive. While high follower counts and viral posts create buzz, they often fail to drive revenue or customer loyalty. Savvy executives focus on actionable metrics like customer lifetime value and conversion rates. In today’s data-driven landscape, distinguishing between hype and genuine performance is crucial for sustainable growth. – Amy Packard Berry, Sparkpr

11. AI-Generated ‘UGC’

One trend that won’t last is AI-generated “user-generated content.” Many companies now use AI to mimic real people in ads and content. While it may seem innovative at first, there will be an eventual pushback against this as people increasingly start to realize they’re being sold something by a completely fake person. Consumers value authenticity and relatability, so eventually, content from influencers—real people—will replace AI UGC. – Austin Irabor, NETFLY

12. Using Micro-Influencers For Product Promotion

One current marketing trend that may not endure is the heavy reliance on micro-influencers for product promotion. There are three reasons for this: 1. market oversaturation, 2. increasing regulatory scrutiny of sponsored content disclosures, and 3. “influencer fatigue” among younger generations. Instead, we’ll see a shift toward community-driven marketing, where brands foster engagement through quality storytelling. – Megan Cunningham, Magnet Media, Inc.

13. Making Unsubstantiated Claims With Empty Buzzwords

The trend of relying on empty buzzwords—like “revolutionary” or “game changing”—without backing them up with substantive benefits is wearing thin. Overhype risks creating a disconnect between the brand and its audience, resulting in a backlash that undermines long-term customer loyalty and brand reputation. – Goran Paun, ArtVersion

14. Chasing Virality By Jumping On Trends

Building a brand on social media by just doing whatever is trending is on the decline. I see consumers shifting to advocacy of brands that are authentically themselves, despite the brands not jumping on every trend for virality’s sake. I also see more influencers creating less trending content that isn’t on brand for them to instil more and deeper trust in their audience. – Tony Pec, Y Not You Media

15. Relying Primarily On Earned Media For PR

Relying on earned media as a primary public relations tactic won’t last. While earned media is highly valuable, PR extends beyond earned media coverage to encompass strategic communication, thought leadership and content marketing. Brands that leverage PR for broader strategies, including reputation management, speaking engagements and awards, will see more sustainable, long-term success. – Jason Mudd, Axia Public Relations

16. Default Opt-In For Data Collection And Sharing

Default opt-in for data collection and sharing is unlikely to endure as a marketing trend. Growing privacy concerns, regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and increasing consumer awareness are driving a shift toward more user control. As consumers demand greater control over their personal information, the future lies in privacy-first approaches with clear opt-in processes and robust data-protection measures. – Alex Yastrebenetsky, InfoTrust

Feature Image Credit: Getty

Sourced from Forbes

By Jonathan Hunt

Media companies will love their websites a lot less

The conversation around websites and how to make money from them is louder than it should be. Consider the facts:

• AI Overviews are here to stay: Google AI Overviews has, in some cases, impacted up to 40% of publishers’ search traffic over the last year, with others purporting the effects as “negligible.” That’s with only an average 7 to 9% keyword trigger rate, a number which most expect to increase in 2025. Until August of this year, AIOs only impacted U.S. searches. Then they expanded to six new countries. In October, they rolled out to 100 more.
• AI search is growing, but it’s still early days: Referrals from AI search engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT are exploding, but on an absolute basis, they’re still a fraction of a fraction of most publishers’ overall traffic mix.
• Social platforms’ walls are only getting taller: Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn have long deprioritized strategies that let audiences leave their ecosystems, and that’s likely not going to change anytime soon.
• Budgets are tighter than ever: Ad budgets continue to consolidate and shift to big performance channels and ad networks, while programmatic CPMs and fill rates remain anaemic, leaving mid- and small-scale publishers to fight over scraps.
• Audiences are prioritizing only essential paid subscriptions: We’re entering the pruning stage of our media diets. We can’t keep up with, or always afford, another paid subscription. We cancel or let lapse what isn’t essential to our existence.

Websites like The New York Times are not going away, nor is the essential editorial they publish. Businesses will always always need a home base — a place that’s theirs, where they have absolute editorial, experiential, and monetary control. But we’re no longer in the halcyon days of bottomless social and search traffic. And websites aren’t where audiences or advertisers are increasingly investing their time or budgets. The patterns in traffic and ad dollars say as much.

In 2025, publishers will learn to love their websites less and ruthlessly prioritize different strategies to maximize audience and monetization potential — strategies that don’t require significant creative or editorial compromises, and provide strong long-term economic upside beyond the date they’re published.

What are some of those strategies?

Video: It’s back. Again. Yes, the video that the industry has been “pivoting” to for the last 15 years. At one point, it was too cost-prohibitive to produce at scale. Social and SVOD companies invested hundreds of millions of dollars into it, and that money dried up. We entered into a dark period of hands-in-pans and text-on-screen videos, which resulted in a lot of thrash for editorial teams and their capital investments.

There’s an understandable stigma when it comes to the media’s relationship with video. But the risk of becoming jaded to the current video opportunity could be fatal. In the hype cycle, we’re now somewhere between the slope of enlightenment and the plateau of productivity. That’s a good place to be. What’s different now?

• Video is the currency of nearly every platform that nearly every connected human on earth is already using: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Douyin, etc.
• The barrier and economics for producing good long- and short-form video are lower than they’ve ever been.
• Advertisers are now fully bought into the brand and transactional value of video — and are willing to pay premiums for it.
• Video is extremely versatile. It’s highly discoverable, with Google and YouTube being two of the biggest search engines in the world, and it can be reengineered and redistributed a dozen different ways: for shorts, for different platforms, transcribed and repackaged into text or audio. The flywheel keeps spinning.

For HubSpot’s media network, video has become our single fastest-growing content strategy over the last few years and will continue to be one of our largest sources of investment going into 2025. In 2024 alone, we’ve grown views of our long-form content by 47% and increased the return of our video investment through lead generation by 78%. We’re talking 150,000-plus new leads in 2024 from video, and growing.

How? An investment in upleveling what you see on screen, increasing long- and short-form output, improving our insights-to-production motion, localizing to more non-English markets, using AI to automate rote aspects of our monetization and post-production processes, partnering with other YouTube creators and domain experts, launching new channels that address underserved markets, believing that videos from B2B companies don’t have to be boring.

If you’ve seen what we publish on The Hustle or My First Million, you know what I’m talking about. And we’re a B2B media operation. Going into the new year, all traffic and revenue trends considered, video will continue to become a must-have rather than a nice-to-have for publishers of all shapes and sizes.

Creator partnerships: Your editorial and audience extensions. In the old world, there were capital-J journalism and journalists, and then there was the island of misfit YouTubers and influencers and social media managers and other less prestigious categories of content makers. In the new world, influence is shifting to those once-misfits.

In the new world, your distribution is just as, if not more, important as your byline. In 2025, media operators will look to outside, independent creators as extensions of their editorial teams, and as a boon for diversifying audience and revenue.

The most successful creators today are the ones who do three things exceptionally well: They’re experts in their specific crafts (sketch comedy, enterprise sales, Excel speedrunning), they’re creating content in very shareable and interactive formats, and they’re publishing to personal environments (your subscription feed, your inbox) where content and ad engagement, and CPMs, are highest.

The most successful publishers will be the ones building complementary creator programs of external and internal domain experts who wield trust and reach, co-producing original video and audio IP with them and, in some cases, building new media brands together.

Today, HubSpot’s media network collaborates with over 100 creators — mostly across YouTube and newsletters — in categories like marketing, sales, AI, and entrepreneurship. In some scenarios, we’re the sponsor. In others, like My First Million or The Next Wave, we’re co-developing strategic relationships that produce original series and new brands. And some, like The Hustle or Mindstream, we acquire.

Why will this approach be opportunistic for media companies going forward?

• It’s low risk: working with creators is a variable model where partnerships can be as deep or as shallow as you want. Long term, short term. YouTube, LinkedIn. Co-pro, live read. You mix and match to find the right solution for your editorial strategy.
• It’s instant distribution — and in some cases credibility and relevance — to audiences you may not currently reach, in highly contextual and trusted environments, on the largest platforms in the world.

For both of these reasons, it’s a great way to test and learn with emerging talent that you may want to ultimately go deeper with, and to find a model that works best for your own goals.

For HubSpot, here’s what drives our strategic decision-making when working with creators:

• Does the partnership bring us closer to a high-intent audience in a category we care most about?
• Does the creator know anything about our business? Audience trust and believability is critical.
• Do the economics work? For us, lead generation and brand awareness are two key metrics. Not only are we seeing the raw views, on average we’re seeing 60% cost savings on effective lead acquisition when working with creators vs. traditional direct response advertising like Meta, etc.

Like video in 2025, creator partnerships will be an essential strategy for how media companies further hedge against an overreliance on their websites for audience and revenue generation.

What else should we expect more of? Email, for one. At a time when first-party data, direct marketing channels, hyper-engaged audiences, and sponsorship premiums are everything media operators want more of, reprioritizing newsletter strategies — owned and partnered — doesn’t sound so boring or overplayed. While oversaturation and deliverability are two valid concerns, as long as you’re not another news digest and you deliver unique value or solve for an unmet need, then the odds are in your favour.

Websites won’t go away in 2025. They’ll still be a vital channel for essential journalism and revenue generation.

But in 2025, they won’t be the primary focus. Expect a resurgence in video production and creator strategies: two trends that will ensure a sustainable future for B2C and B2B media companies alike.

By Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt is vice president of media at HubSpot and head of The Hustle.

Sourced from Neiman Lab.

BY ROBIN LANDA

Discover how to leverage the first quarter of the year to establish a strong foundation for social media success. Learn to define your audience, uncover consumer insights, and craft data-driven campaigns that resonate and deliver results.

With the average person spending nearly two and a half hours daily on social media, businesses have a prime opportunity to connect with their audience. The first 90 days of the year provide a crucial window to establish a strong foundation for social media advertising success. This process requires a strategic focus on understanding your audience, setting actionable goals, and crafting a targeted approach. Here’s how to begin.

1. Understand your target audience.

Jeff Bezos famously said, “The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer.” This philosophy applies to businesses of any size. Prioritizing your customers’ needs is the cornerstone of effective marketing.

Start by analysing both demographics (who your audience is) and psychographics (why they act as they do):

BY ROBIN LANDA

Sourced from Inc.