In 2025, marketers will face a reckoning: adapt to AI-driven targeting, attention-based metrics, and streamlined curation—or risk falling behind in a digital ad landscape reshaped by privacy pressures and industry upheaval.
As we look toward 2025, marketers are facing a host of challenges and opportunities brought on by a tumultuous 2024. Even for an industry that likes to talk about transformation, the degree to which the old order is changing in the digital advertising ecosystem is truly rare.
Generative AI enables brands and marketers to improve ad personalization and targeting, without needing massive amounts of first-party data. Google is under pressure from regulators over the market share it commands – and the prospect of regulators breaking the company into smaller pieces raises questions about its ability to lead the industry in data privacy innovation. And the rise of curation is poised to have a real impact on the makeup of the ad supply chain.
Here’s how we can expect all of these trends and more to unfold in the coming year.
Targeting: Shifting to AI-Enriched Contextual Strategies and First-Party Data
As the limitations of cookie-based solutions and traditional DMPs become more evident, 2025 will see marketers pivot to more effective and scalable targeting approaches. Advertisers with robust first-party data will focus on activation, while those without comprehensive datasets will experiment with alternative IDs.
However, due to scale and cost efficiency challenges, advertisers will increasingly prioritize AI-enriched content and contextual targeting. This shift aligns with growing consumer privacy demands and regulatory pressures, providing precise, privacy-compliant targeting solutions without relying on third-party cookies.
Measurement: A Shift Toward Attention and Engagement Metrics
The coming year will see a shift in programmatic advertising measurement, moving beyond basic viewability to prioritize metrics that reflect authentic user engagement, such as attention and interaction. This trend will be particularly important in high-involvement sectors like automotive and technology, where attentive views can directly influence purchase decisions. Advertisers will increasingly seek platforms that optimize for meaningful engagement, ensuring ads appear on screens and genuinely capture audience attention.
Curation: Consolidating for Efficiency and Transparency
In 2025, curation will gain importance but with a focus on consolidation for greater efficiency and transparency. Currently, the concept of curation is fragmented across SSPs, DSPs, and DMPs, creating complexity without added value. Advertisers will streamline their partnerships, opting for fewer curation partners who offer a direct, optimized supply path, emphasizing brand safety and reducing inefficiencies. This approach will protect ad budgets, foster trust, and support brand safety in a more connected digital advertising environment.
Generative AI Moves from Hype to Practical Impact
Generative AI will transition from a buzzword to a tool delivering measurable value by 2025, reshaping how users interact with the open web. After years of hype and trial-and-error applications, the industry is shifting toward focused, practical uses of the technology. These include powering personalized content, enabling smarter ad targeting, and streamlining campaign automation.
Gartner predicts generative AI will soon enter the “Slope of Enlightenment,” with over 80% of enterprises expected to integrate generative AI models into their operations by 2026, compared to less than 5% in 2023.
The question remains: Will marketers be ready to integrate generative AI as a cornerstone of their strategies, or will they continue to lag behind in leveraging its full potential? As the technology becomes more refined and accessible, the opportunities for innovation across digital advertising will only grow.
Don’t Make It All “Someone Else’s Problem”
In the digital industry, change is par for the course. But change in an era of uncertainty raises the heat for brands to either remain flexible, curious, and adaptable or to lose market share to competitors who embrace innovation. At the start of a new year, brands and marketers need to stay alert for innovations that may come from surprising places. Not only that, but they need to get in on the action themselves. Now is the time for marketers to seek new and impactful use cases for cutting-edge technology and partnerships that can help blaze a path toward a profitable future.