2025 is halfway over, and this year has seen a dramatic shift in marketing. AI and automation have continued to experience explosive growth, leaving many marketers concerned about their job security. However, there are many more changes that marketers must be aware of, as we look to the second half of 2025—and the second half of the decade.
My experience running a series of newsletters with over 100,000 subscribers has kept me on top of the latest news, trends, and tech in the marketing sector. With this knowledge, I have developed a list of predictions for where the marketing industry is headed for the rest of the year and beyond.
Fully Automated Campaigns
By the end of the year, the bigger marketing platforms will be testing fully automated campaigns. You share your site, and these platforms will pull product images, make short videos, put your bids together, and perform other tasks. So the more simple and repetitive work will decrease a lot. This development can free up marketers to be more creative and go more in-depth with a few specific types of campaigns, rather than spending a lot of time on the basics.
AI Overviews Replace Traditional SEO
With the quality of AI Overviews (AIOs) increasing and the usage of chatbot-based AI tools, the traditional SEO that marketers know will come to a sudden halt. It will transform into optimizing for AIOs and AI chatbots. And the overall traffic that websites get from these tools instead of from search will likely decrease in quantity while increasing in intent in conversions.
AI Brings Layoffs
Marketers will be laid off because AI is doing more of their tasks. While some marketers will be able to use AI to become better, there will be a subset that won’t be able to do better. That subset will be in danger because marketing is often a cost center for businesses. Without ROI, budgets will get lower. Businesses will see that AI can do at least 80% as good as one person at less than half the price. So layoffs will continue to happen, or at the very least, marketing teams will not grow.
Interest Rates
If there are more interest rate cuts, borrowing money will be cheaper. Scaling will be more important, and businesses will focus more on growth. Combine this with my previous prediction, and there could be a boom in terms of ad budgets.
Meta and Google
The biggest ad platforms will gain even more market share because they will be able to train the best AI. So the Meta and Google duopoly will likely do better over time, even though Google has been caught on the back foot by OpenAI at first. Marketers will likely double and triple down on those two ad platforms because they will reach the most people with the best quality and most automation. While Google and Meta will become more competitive, new platforms will struggle. So, adopting and testing new platforms might be tricky for marketers.
Owning Your Audience
There will be even more value to owning your own audience. As a part of a marketing strategy, being a brand with a direct connection to your audience will become more advantageous, whether through SMS, email, or another form of communication.
Streaming TV
Another trend is streaming TV because Netflix and other major streamers have introduced ads. Netflix also has tons of data based on user habits and behaviors. But more importantly, YouTube is the biggest streaming platform. More budget will go towards YouTube, and marketing efforts and campaigns will move there.
Google, being the owner of YouTube, has a significant amount of data. And YouTube is a platform that you can use on all your devices, including your TV. So there will be some interesting digital campaigns where the devices they’re targeting won’t be limited to computers and phones. They will be on TV as well.
Celebrity Spokespeople
Certain celebrities develop a strong connection with their audience. A great example is Ryan Reynolds, particularly how he focuses on making all his ads entertaining. He’s famous and likeable, and these characteristics complement his innovative marketing strategies, like promoting multiple companies in a single ad.
While few companies can afford a spokesperson as famous as actor/marketer/owner Ryan Reynolds, his success proves the importance of building a strong connection with your audience. If you can make your content feel organic, even though your audience knows it’s just an ad, you can still have great results.
What Marketers Can Do
The best way marketers can stay ahead of the curve is by experimenting with AI tools—and mastering them. These programs enable marketers to boost productivity with less effort. They’re helpful in a variety of tasks, such as coding, image generation, brainstorming, copywriting, and research. Developing a familiarity with AI will help one become more useful to your company as they further integrate it into their operations—in addition to making the job that much easier.
©2025 DK New Media, LLC, All rights reserved | DisclosureOriginally Published on Martech Zone: Marketing Predictions for the Rest of 2025 and Beyond