Behind the Numbers: The Top Trends of 2025 That Marketers Need to Know Now
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when it comes to big tech, because for a long time, big tech was sort of just allowed to accumulate power completely unchecked. And so the fact that we are seeing some of those milestones actually come pass us by in 2024 and 2025 and onward is a big deal. ♪

Hello, everyone.

Hello there. And we also have with us our Principal Alice, who covers everything in the UK. He is based in England on the south coast. We call him Bill Fisher. Hello. All right. We start with the fact of the day. Which mammals can fly? Bats are the only mammals that are able to fly. Flying squirrel glides. Okay. So why are we...

Why are we calling it a flying squirrel? That's like if you were someone who was a hand glider and like, oh, where are you going today, Phil? And they're like, oh, I'm going flying. No, you're not, Phil. It's a hand glider. This is disappointing, if I'm honest. Okay, squirrels, tell the truth. Yeah, because they definitely chose the name. They probably did. Infiltrated the naming society for animals. I've never trusted squirrels. This makes me trust them even less. They move weird, don't they? You never know what... Why do they...

They're like constantly on edge. I'm really glad this is a video podcast solely so people can see what you just did. That's why I added this one. That's why I added this fact to the day. It's not my best work. Anyway, it's the first episode of a new year. Cut me some slack. Let's get back from holiday. Okay, here we go. It's what do we have in store for you? Hopefully something better than that. The great behind the numbers takeoff.

Top trends to watch in 2025. Our analysts put their heads together and wrote a report about nine pivotal shifts in AI regulation and advertising that will change the business landscape. There's a link in the show notes if you guys want to read the full report from our wonderful e-market analyst folks. But this is the Great Behind the Numbers Takeoff. ♪

top trends to watch in 2025 is from the great british bake-off right that's where we've stolen it from uh and in today's show our takers clever or bakers will be cooking up two of those nine 2025 trends for you there are three rounds number one the signature take number two the how it will technically play out challenge and number three the show stopping argument

All right. I was kind of expecting an applause there, but whatever. Let's meet the contestant's predictions. Evelyn, what are you going to be cooking for us today? I'm going to be talking about how governments will push to curb digital ad giants' power and protect kids.

Okay, very nice. And Bill, what will you be making for us? I will be telling you how the triumvirate of retail media, social and AI will undercut traditional search. Okay, two wonderful dishes. But we move to our first round to see how they're going to be prepared. Round one is signature take.

where our chefs will have one minute to explain the premise of their trend. Evelyn, you can go first for yours. As you said, governments will push to curb digital ad giants, power and protect kids. Tell us a bit more.

Yeah, so big tech and social media players face legal pressure from several angles. We're talking antitrust, privacy, AI, protecting kids online. Like you mentioned, I'm going to focus on antitrust and protecting kids online in round two and sort of

walk you through what I expect in 2025 on both of these fronts. But I think it's important background to mention that because the biggest platforms operate across country borders, foreign authorities can and do regulate US-based tech firms. And the platforms with the highest market share tend to have the largest targets on their backs. Very nice. Bill?

Talk to us. Yes, I'm going to talk about how search won't ever be quite the same again. Things have already been happening this year, but next year we'll really see traditional search quote unquote come under some pressure. So the days of firing up a search engine, entering a search query and that engine trawling the web and returning the best matches will become increasingly uncommon. And change is coming from three angles.

Retail media search. So searching from within digital retail properties. Social search. If I ask my kids something, they don't Google stuff. They go to TikTok and search. So that's the other angle. Buy your kids. And me as well. Okay, good. And me.

And then there's the impact of generative AI on search. And this reaches across traditional search, retail media and social search. All three of them will be transformative in 2025. So on that word transformative, is the prediction that things are going to look, radical is maybe a bit of a strong word, but fairly different next year? Or is it that we're going to start to see a slow but steady continual change of the search landscape? Things are happening now.

But they are going to significantly ramp up the industry. But things have already moved. I mean, in some areas. So yeah, some consumer behaviors, things have already begun to transition. I'll be talking about how social search is a thing. My kids and me.

But there is a proven case now where advertising will follow. And so I think this coming year is where we will start to see ad products come to market much more quickly. And that's what will be transformative. Okay. Bye, folks. They're the two dishes that we have for you today. Let's move to round two.

This is the How It Will Technically Play Out Challenge. Our chefs will explain in more detail how they expect the trend to materialize. Evelyn's going to go first as we return to governments pushing to curb digital ad giants and their power in protecting kids. Tell us a bit more about what this looks like in the next year. Yeah, so let's talk about antitrust first. The stage is kind of set at this point for antitrust enforcement to...

reshape digital advertising and the landscape as we know it today. We have some new leadership in the US and EU governments that could change the pace and trajectory of market oversight. Here in the US, President-elect Trump has selected Gail Slater to lead the antitrust division of the Department of Justice. Slater does have to be confirmed

But from what I understand, there's not a ton of opposition and certainly not as much controversy as there has been around some of Trump's other picks. He's also selected Republican Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to replace Lena Kahn as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust enforcement responsibilities with the DOJ. So both Slater and Ferguson have been critical of big tech in the past. Ferguson said he wants to, quote unquote,

end big tech's vendetta against competition. So those are some fighting words, I would say. It's likely that big tech will continue to feel the heat of antitrust enforcement, at least on the US side of the equation. In the EU, the role of commissioner for competition is transitioning from, let's see if I can say her name accurately, Margaretha Vessayer.

Yeah, I know. The G is not quite as hard as you would anticipate. I looked it up before joining because I get self-conscious about it because it's deceivingly hard to pronounce. But the role is transitioning to Teresa Rivera, so easier to pronounce a little bit. Yeah.

There's definitely some change of foot, as you can tell, and exactly how these folks prioritize their enforcement agendas. I mean, there are just a lot of dependencies there that would take hours to discuss properly. So I'll move on. But there are a few things to keep an eye on in 2025, and I will list them by region here. Okay.

So in the US, the DOJ and FTC have five ongoing antitrust cases against Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. There are two against Google if you're like, wait, there's four companies, five cases. I'm sure we've on this podcast discussed the Google cases extensively. So hopefully all of our listeners know what's going on there. But I'm sure, Marcus, you and I will be talking. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. A lot more about those. Of those five, I mean, there are some significant milestones or deadlines that we're going to hit next year. Yes. But we won't really know, even if we're going to get some decisions on outcomes or penalties, there's still appeals and, you know, this is going to get kicked into 2026 and beyond for a lot of these trials, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it takes regulation and legislation does take a long time and, you know,

there will be appeals. Google has already stated its intent to appeal pretty much whatever remedy gets settled on in the search antitrust case. We will expect a verdict in the ad tech antitrust case. And if that's not ruled in Google's favor, we should expect an appeal there as well. So it will take a while for everything to resolve and all of the changes to manifest as they will. But

We are watching, right? This is kind of an unprecedented period for antitrust in the U.S. when it comes to big tech, because for a long time, big tech was sort of just allowed to accumulate power completely unchecked. And so the fact that we are seeing some of those milestones actually come pass us by in 2024 and 2025 and onward is a big deal. Yeah.

In the EU, the European Commission is investigating Alphabet, Apple and Meta for non-compliance under the Digital Markets Act, which came into effect this year. And in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority will likely go into 2025 with new enforcement powers under the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act, which, Bill, I'm sure you are very aware of. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I'm probably more aware of the DMA because of how far it is. So the investigations that you mentioned, they were opened as soon as the DMA came fully into force, which was in March, April this year, right?

And I think the indication was that within 12 months, they wanted those investigations wrapped up and implement any fines or whatever. So we could be looking at 2025 being a pivotal year in terms of regulation in the EU against the big tech companies.

All right, Evelyn. So your trend, your prediction for next year is in two parts. So you've given us the how it will technically play out challenge portion of the curbing distraught giants. Talk to us about the protecting of kids online. Yeah, it's also going to get a lot of action next year. It's a top priority for legislators, conservative and progressive alike, right? Social media and digital platforms are being held accountable for issues that affect children and teens.

from privacy to mental health to addiction. So again, there are a few things in every region to sort of keep an eye on this year. So I'll name just a few. In the U.S., several states have enacted related bills with Congress and the Surgeon General considering

additional protections like the social media warning labels that we have discussed on this podcast before. In the EU, the Digital Services Act, which includes several requirements aimed at protecting minors, will continue to ramp up in 2025.

Bill, you and I have talked about this before, so I'm sure you have some thoughts on that. But I'll finish out by saying in the UK, the child safety provisions of the Online Safety Act are expected to be enforceable as of fall 2025. So lots of expected enforcement activity on that front.

Yeah. And again, from a EU perspective, so the DSA, as soon as that came into force, it opened proceedings against a number of different companies and one specific one against TikTok, it investigated, I think it was called the TikTok Rewards Light Program, which I haven't got this written down in front of me. So I'm going to

paraphrase probably badly, but it was essentially investigating it because it believed that it encouraged addictive behavior in young consumers. I think that's pretty much sums up what they were looking into. It took them 105 days to conclude that investigation. It concluded against TikTok and TikTok removed that program. That's fast. That's fast stuff for regulation. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really quick. So, you know, it's already happened. So I think that's a signal that in 2025, it's going to happen again. Yeah, we've seen the tide start to turn against more of a laissez-faire approach to kids.

and their online presence. We've seen the Surgeon General, as mentioned before, saying that he's very concerned about this. We've seen multiple states saying we're going to ban social media for folks under a certain age. And even just smartphone use. And I'm wondering how much this could start to affect social media time spent

time spent on devices in general, I think we're going to see more and more of this kind of push back against the use of social media, but particularly with kids. There was an article, BBC article I was reading, they were talking about a new two-part docu-series bill that's airing in the UK. I think Emma Willis is hosting it, but it's basically a social experiment aiming to tackle the impact of smartphones and social media on children.

And they did an experiment, the Stanway school in Colchester in England. And there was 13 to 14 year olds were given, they gave up their smartphones for three weeks and,

And a few things happened. One, they tracked and they found that there was a nearly 20, near 20 percent drop in anxiety and depression to three percent increase in working memory. And three, each student slept an extra hour per day on average. Wow. With students reporting, talking to their parents and friends more. And this was after three weeks.

There was also in that same article, a recent education select committee report revealing that one in four kids now use their phones in a manner resembling behavioral addiction. So I just think this kind of torrent of, of, of more research, more articles, more pushback, more scrutiny from governments is going to lead to, to this trend, uh,

coming to fruition that you're talking about, Evelyn. Bill, let's turn to you for how it would technically play out challenge. You were talking about retail media, social, and AI starting to undercut traditional search even more than it has already in a lot of respects. Tell us what 2025 looks like with regards to this prediction. The important thing to say is search isn't going anywhere. So search will account for...

just over 40% of total digital ad spending in 2025. That's a global figure. And that will have barely budged from 2024. So research is still really important from an advertising perspective. And that share, right? The dollar's continuing to climb.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So just proportional. Yeah. But it's still stacking up well against display. But what is what's happening within the search category that's interesting because as I mentioned, the traditional idea of what search constitutes is changing and this is where this triumvirate comes in. And from an advertising perspective, as I alluded to, there's a lot of disruption potential here and it's very fast moving in connected, interconnected as well. And

2025 could be where this starts to take off. So where should I start? If we think, if we look at the social thing first, there was some data from a company called IZEA from June this year. It found that nearly three quarters of UK social media users use social platforms to search for products before they make a purchase, which is a huge number. Wow.

They ran a survey in the US earlier in the year. Same question. The figure was a little bit lower, but it was around 70%, just under 70%, I think. So this is only...

you know one study from from one research company but that's a really stark figure and this is i mean this isn't on its own there are other studies that have found similar things particularly among gen z you know i've mentioned my kids and me um i feel like i'm an honorary gen z um it's a shame that this is a video because people will see that i'm not i put a backwards out on bill

I need a filter, right? I need a TikTok filter. But, you know, when you see figures like this, it's little wonder that we see moves like TikTok. I'll use TikTok as an example because I always do. It's made recent sort of just general search initiatives and search ad initiatives so much

Early this year, it launched an image search feature for TikTok shop. So, you know, directly linked to the products that people will be searching for, which I think was pretty smart. And then in September, so a few short months ago, it introduced its TikTok search ads campaign. So this is a more traditional keyword based solution.

that allows brands to appear in platforms search results. That's just a couple of examples. Other platforms are making significant plays in this space. I mean, Pinterest has been doing search for a decade, maybe. Yeah. Perhaps a long time. And others are. And then you've got, you've got,

how AI plays in this space as well. So, you know, in the social space, so meta integrating its AI functionality into its search bars across Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp early this year.

And then if we extend that to retail media as well, so it's what I mean about interconnectedness. Yeah, it's hard. I was going to ask you about TikTok and especially with the possibility of a ban here in the US, what you think about that. But it was hard to find a place where it made sense to stop you because it's also, it builds on each other. And Meta AI is a key example of like where it's sort of converging to make, to really make search much more diverse in terms of,

consumer options than before. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. I had to say something, I guess. No, it's a really good point. And this is why I think it builds a strong place for why the triumvirate is going to really alter what search is. I mean, and as we mentioned at the top of the show, you asked me the question, Marcus, you know, what's the...

why is this a 2025 trend it's because consumer behaviors have been going in this direction anyway and and particularly the younger consumers they i mean i talk about my kids searching on tiktok but if i don't know if tiktok was banned or if it was down they'd find another way to search and they don't really care that it's maybe not google they might google now and then but they just want to find information and however they find it they will use that

platform or method to find it so you know you know and as i was going on to say in retail media as well the walmart's and the amazon's of this world they're incorporating ai into their search experiences because they want to improve it because um time and again consumer surveys

tell us that a bad search experience, wherever it is, is not going to be good for your product or platform. So they want to get it right and using AI to really...

the search experience, it's got to be a good thing. Yeah. And if you want to get a sense of how important this AI thing is, you just need to look at the recent news about Google requesting the FTC to break up the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI. You know, there's a sense that losing any ground in this space could be fatal and that was probably well-founded. Yeah, and it's tied to the cloud situation too with Google there, I think, and that separate market. I think in terms of

this trend the only thing that I think is maybe like a counterpoint to this taking off in 2025 is the browser part of the equation where for the time being at least Google will remain the default search provider across most browsers and most mobile devices and there's still a

plenty of search activity that happens that is just sort of navigational or informational where it's just the path of least resistance right it's like whatever is the easiest way to get the piece of information or get to the place you're trying to go on the internet that's the way it's gonna happen and for now that's still google it's still a more traditional kind of search experience and that may change especially as consumer behaviors sort of evolve and they look for i mean maybe like agentic ai will start to come into play here i don't know there's a

But that's sort of, it does take consumers kind of a while to adopt, to truly lean into new behaviors. And so it might end up being sort of towards the end of the year. It kind of depends, I think, on the tech too, on how that evolves. So we'll see. Yeah. Apple has started rolling. Apple intelligence. Yep, yep.

Yeah, and it's interesting the reasons for folks searching for things in new arenas. TikTok, because I'm there already. It's a familiar setting. ChatGPT, because it can remember what I've searched for before. Amazon, because I know that they're going to have everything shopping related. So Google has definitely got its work cut out for it because it is under attack from a lot of different places.

All right, folks, that concludes round two. We move now to round three. It is the show stopping argument. Our chefs will pull out their best closing arguments as to why their trend is most likely to happen. We'll start with Evelyn. Okay, so I mean,

Regulation is most likely to happen in 2025 because it's already happening now. I think, I mean, most of what we talked about so far pertains to like litigation that's been in process for years. In some cases it's reaching, like you said, Marcus major milestones, like verdicts being rendered and stuff like that. Um, there have also been laws that were passed years ago that are becoming enforceable or really starting to like come into sharp focus for digital advertising platforms, big and small. Um,

I think also next year, at least on the protecting children online part in the U.S., we are very likely to see a new law come into effect. So we'll also see a flurry of lobbying activity. All of that sort of speaks to how likely regulation is to be a big deal in 2025.

Mm-hmm. New law, federal? Yes, federal law. Definitely some state laws too. I mean, states are moving faster on a lot of different regulatory trends. Privacy is a big one. AI is another one where states have started to put a stake in the ground where federal legislators are kind of balking at doing anything major. But

Yes, I do think where protecting kids is concerned that we are very likely to see some legislation passed next year, whether it's what's currently being considered in Congress, whether it's that, it sort of remains to be seen. And we have a new Congress next year, so there will have to be some reprioritization that goes on in the committees. But I do believe that we will see a law next year. Okay. Bill, your show's stopping argument.

I can't be that. I agree with everything you said. I'm just trying to be fair. Well, I mean, like you said, though, yours is already happening too. It's just a matter of time, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's what I would say. Our forecasts point towards this happening. So if we look at retail media, for example, we already specifically track retail media search numbers.

Ad spending is a separate line item in our digital ad spending forecasts in the US only at the moment. And what we see there over the next several years is that retail search spend will grow at around about twice that.

Um, the rates of traditional search again, quote unquote, um, where we track ad revenue by company, we see that of the triopoly, Amazon meta and, and, uh, Google only Amazon will see any proportional growth in ad revenues. So again, being careful to talk about proportional growth. Um,

So, you know, again, you can bet your bottom dollar a lot of that is going to be driven by retail media search. If we look at Google in that triopoly, which relies significantly on search, it's, you

I'm going to be careful with this because this isn't a great argument, but it's global ad revenues currently stand at about 28% of total digital ad spending. This year by 2026, it will be down two percentage points to 26%. It's not a lot. Google's still a giant in the search game. Oh yeah, 2% for Google is a lot of money. Yeah, it is. It is. But you know, it's- It's proportional. It's making moves in AI as well. It's remaining relevant. It's got a head start already.

But that 2% just proves that it's being squeezed from these different angles. And that squeezing will continue to be felt next year. Yeah. Very nice, folks. All right. What do they say at the end of Bake Off? Put your tools down. Do you use tools to cook? No. You can tell I'm quite proficient in the kitchen. Victoria is going to be livid.

Just like, oh, Marcus, have you learned nothing? I haven't apparently. Time to crown our star taker slash baker. And today I can announce that it is.

Both of you, I'm in a good mood. Yes, absolutely. Excellent arguments from both of you. Excellent arguments. You also helped each other with each other's dishes. So quite a meal. We're team players here, you marketer. I know, absolutely. And these are two folks on the team of, I don't know how many of you put this together, but we had nine.

trends for this report pivotal shifts in ai regulation and advertising that will change uh the business landscape um so uh the link is in the show notes if you want to go and read the full thing but that's what we've got time for for today's episode thank you so so much to my guests uh thank first uh evelyn thank you marcus thank you bill it was a pleasure debating you i don't know talking cooking with you cooking with you that's a good one yeah thank you to bill

Yes, I would say it was a pleasure agreeing with everything you said. And thanks, of course, to the whole editing crew, Victoria, John, Lance and Danny, Stuart who runs the team and Sophie who does our social media. And thanks to everyone for listening in to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer podcast. Tune in tomorrow. Nope.

You'll be too early. It's Tuesday. Sarah Lebo will be hanging out with you on Wednesday for the first We Imagine Retail show, an episode of the year where she'll be speaking with Susie David-Canyon and Blake Drosh all about the US retail trends to watch in 2025. We'll be right back.