As we enter 2025, it’s time to reflect on 2024 and set expectations for the year ahead. The past year can be summarized in three words: AI, effectiveness, and content. While these themes are not new, advancements across platforms have underscored the need to revisit and refine your paid social strategy.
Advancements in AI
Meta introduced Advantage+ Audiences to simplify targeting strategies while offering broader options for businesses with complex personas. Further developments in AI-powered creative optimization were also rolled out, providing more robust creative offerings. With the right approach, these advancements can significantly improve your ad performance.
TikTok launched Smart Performance Campaigns, designed to streamline campaign creation and simplify getting started on the platform. On the product side, the increased availability of features such as Top View and Top Feed has lowered the barrier for businesses to incorporate premium placements into their media plans.
Snapchat released an updated version of its Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), broadening creative options and improving machine learning capabilities to improve product relevance. This is a very interesting alternative for 2025!
Marketing effectiveness
While "full-funnel" may sound like a buzzword, it remains one of the most critical shifts for businesses transitioning from reliance on performance marketing. The top trends in 2024 for improving and understanding the incremental impact of advertising include:
Saturating reach: Analyzing challenges your company faces on social media platforms.
Channel lift: Custom conversions to understand cross-channel impact and attribution.
Attribution: MMM/attribution tools to evaluate investments across channels and objectives.
Mindsets: Adapting creative concepts to various formats, dimensions, and user preferences.
Content
The shift toward sound-on and vertical experiences grew significantly in 2024. TikTok, as the leader in vertical short-form content, has driven this development. By Q3 2024, more than 50% of the time spent on Meta was in vertical formats. Other platforms, such as Snapchat, have also made significant investments in full-screen experiences and will continue to prioritize them in 2025.
User-generated content (UGC) dominates platforms, excelling in both brand and conversion metrics. Collaborative ads have also gained momentum.
A diverse mix of immediate, interactive, and immersive communication is essential for capturing attention and driving impact.
Key focuses in 2025
Stay on Top of New Features
Meta is not slowing down its product development in 2025. Some features have already undergone testing with select clients through lift studies during their beta phase:
Incremental conversion attribution is being implemented and is showing promising results. It offers higher incremental uplift than standard attribution methods.
Conversion Value Rules will soon be available, enabling advertisers to provide the system with additional insights about high-value customers. While it takes time for the system to learn and find the right balance, the results are worth the patience.
Predicted LTV optimization is set to revolutionize subscription services by allowing businesses to send back LTV values as post-conversion events. Over time, the system will optimize for both volume and higher predicted LTV (pLTV).
Measure and optimize your brand investments
Just a few years ago, many companies relied solely on Google and Meta for digital marketing. In 2025, businesses have diversified their channel mix—a proven strategy for driving incremental revenue. However, this shift presents challenges, especially with cross-channel frequency complicating attribution and a limited understanding of incremental reach in upper-funnel campaigns.
A strong recommendation for 2025 is Smartly, which now offers services across multiple platforms and provides a tool called Brand Pulse. Brand Pulse enables advertisers to measure cross-channel incremental reach and optimize their full-funnel setups in real-time. It’s a no-brainer for advertisers looking to scale their brand investments.
Revisiting old friends
Did you notice the buzz around Snapchat in 2024? The platform has not only improved its ad offerings and bidding systems but also updated its influencer commission models, making it a more attractive monetization platform. This has boosted user engagement and is likely to continue in 2025. If you’ve paused your Snapchat advertising, 2025 might be a good time to revisit the platform. People attract people!
Accelerate content production with AI
AI and content production remain hot topics.
For owned content, AI should be viewed as a tool to complement—not replace—the design team. By reducing production costs and creating a foundation for fine-tuning, AI lowers the barrier to producing high-quality content. If you want to learn more, our colleagues at Elevates have mastered it.
Creating UGC with AI is gaining traction and is expected to improve significantly in 2025. Even if current outputs don’t meet your standards, familiarizing yourself with AI workflows now will prepare your team to leverage it effectively as the technology advances