1. A New Era of Third-Party Cookies
Many marketers felt a sense of urgency through 2024 as they watched Google flip-flop on decisions to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome (the largest web browser in the world with 65.8% of market share1).
Although the seemingly indispensable data points live to see another season, many teams have reckoned with just how much they stood to lose given the heavy reliance on these cookies:
- A deathblow to cross-site tracking and any form of retargeting
- A distinct and disruptive change to how the largest ad platforms provided tracking
- A decimating shot to ad personalization that could have seen the personalization-heavy industries (big tech, e-commerce, etc.) drop down to the levels of the personalization-challenged industries (healthcare, financial services, etc.)
- A necessity to invest HEAVILY into lead capture, website conversions, chatbots, etc.
Prediction: Not only will Google completely abandon Privacy Sandbox and third-party cookie deprecation in 2025, they will also be forced to enhance third-party advertising features due to demand.
What this means: While large and robust organizations might be able to optimize both first- and third-party mechanisms, marketers should maximize the third-party data as much as possible with studies showing:
- 81% of potential new customers are linked to third-party data—as opposed to 24% for first-party data2
- A 4.2X increase in prospect reach3
- A 14% increase in CTR and 10% conversion boost4
2. Marketers will be Pinching Pennies to Provide More Effective Revenue
While much of the world looks back longingly at the missed opportunities of cheap real estate and sub $100 bitcoin prices, many long-tenured digital marketers have the same somatic response to the ever-increasing costs to advertise online.
How the competition and cost of entry are growing ever costlier:
- Global ad spend is predicted to surpass $1T for the first time, making the digital ad space all the more expensive5
- 50% of brands plan to boost their influencer marketing budgets in 2025, making the battle between paid corporate traffic vs the paid influencer affiliate more competitive6
- Total year-over-year ad spend is projected to grow around 11% in 20257
Prediction: With the cost of acquisition growing considerably in 2025, marketing teams will be heavily focused on optimization and extremely sensitive to any sort of backend disruption that could hurt the sacred metric of cost-per-lead.
What this means: As a NECESSITY, processes will need to be built or tools will need to be leveraged to ensure there is no leakage in the digital lead funnel. This includes tools to validate landing pages and email links as well as tag tracking that can prevent dollars wasted on fumbled MQLs:
- Broken landing pages can lead to a 30-50% drop in conversion rate8
- Improper ad tracking can lead to a 20-30% loss in ad spend9
- E.g. A company spending $50,000 per month on Google Ads could waste $10,000-$15,000 if landing pages are broken or tracking is inaccurate.
3. The Need for Speed Will Drive Google’s SEO Algorithm
2024 search algorithms gave us a lot of minor tweaks that rewarded high-quality content and a focus on user experience (traffic patterns, web optimization, etc.). It seems as though 2025 will be similar with a focus on website speed and stability, engaging and answering customer questions (product reviews, forums, testimonials, etc.), and usability/accessibility optimization.
Prediction: Google will reward those who are fast, offer easy-to-use and accessible websites, and can answer “How do I __?” prompts which are growing in popularity as consumers become accustomed to asking long-form AI questions.
What this means: As has continued to be the case, teams that rank well, do well. And those that can regularly audit their site for things such as speed and accessibility will find themselves rewarded handsomely with traffic:
- The #1 organic search result has an average CTR of 39.8%, significantly higher than subsequent positions10
- Less than 1% of searchers click on the second page of Google results11
- The average time on site for a Google first-page result is 2.5 minutes12
4. Accessibility Laws will have you Spending a LOT of time in Legal’s Office
Accessibility is at the forefront of regulation going into 2025, and it will derail a lot of teams caught unprepared.
- Europe: The EAA, effective June 28, 2025, requires EU digital products and services to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards
- US: While ADA enforcement under this Administration may decrease, the Americans with Disabilities Act is still a federal law
- US: In April 2024, the DOJ published a final rule clarifying how state and local government websites and mobile apps should comply with accessibility standards
Prediction: The moment your legal team learns about a related lawsuit or a national case, your team will likely be required to compile a detailed report on all digital materials, covering colors, font sizes, and more, for each market.
What this Means: The marketing teams that can run scalable audits on their website will not only save considerable time avoiding legal reviews but maintain an SEO advantage from Google.
5. Also be Prepared for More Privacy Laws in General
Similar to Accessibility, lawmakers have been busy worldwide, enacting safer privacy laws to protect consumers by penalizing companies that fail to adhere.
- Many states have enacted new privacy laws that will take effect in 2025 including: Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee, Minnesota, and Maryland
- The American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) is a proposed bill that aims to establish federal guidelines for data collection and usage. Although it faces difficulties passing due to disagreements about preempting state laws, members of Congress are interested in establishing a national data privacy standard in one form or another
- GDPR and CCPA: 2025 will likely feature a higher volume of large crackdowns on those falling outside of the privacy boundaries covered in both the EU and California
The most common privacy violations include:
- Non-compliant cookie banners. ObservePoint has found that 95% of scanned consent management platform implementations are still allowing unapproved cookies due to common technical errors
- Unauthorized Tags collecting information are not only outside compliance but pose a massive privacy risk
- Inaccessible or Incomplete Privacy Policies are a violation under both CCPA and GDPR
Prediction: GDPR and CCPA will continue to lead in demanding strict adherence to privacy regulation, seeking to make an example of another notable brand in 2025.
What this Means: GDPR fines can range from €10- €20 million or 2-4% of annual revenue (Meta notably faced a €1.2 billion fine in 2023), while the CCPA states fines shall be imposed at $2,500 per violation or $7,500 for “intentional” incidents. However, each affected person’s data is considered a violation, so Sephora famously faced a $1.2M fine.
In addition to regulatory fines, companies that run the risk of public-facing privacy breaches also face an uphill battle to restore consumer trust:
- 65% of consumers lose trust in an organization13
- 31% of consumers discontinue their relationship14
- 85% of consumers share their negative experiences with others15
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Footnotes
1https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
2https://digiday.com/media-buying/study-examines-combining-first-party-and-third-party-data-to-reach-wider-audiences-reduce-costs/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
3https://www.eyeota.com/blog/embracing-third-party-data-benefits-and-use-cases?utm_source=chatgpt.com
4https://online.wharton.upenn.edu/blog/4-ways-to-use-third-party-data-in-your-digital-marketing-strategy/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
5https://www.marketingdive.com/news/marketing-predictions-for-2025/736381/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
6https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/companies/what-influencer-marketing-budgets-should-look-like-in-2025?utm_source=chatgpt.com
7https://www.dentsu.com/news-releases/global-ad-spend-forecasts-2025?utm_source=chatgpt.com
8Unbounce
9Hubspot
10https://aioseo.com/seo-statistics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
11https://www.sixthcitymarketing.com/seo-facts-and-statistics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
12https://www.onthemap.com/blog/seo-statistics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
13HIPAAJournal
14HIPAAJournal
15https://www.metacompliance.com/blog/data-breaches/5-damaging-consequences-of-a-data-breach?utm_source=chatgpt.com
