Nothing in paid social marketing stays static for long: Features change, policies shift, platforms rise and fall in relevance, and users constantly find new and interesting ways to interact with content.
But as 2024 rolls over into 2025, it feels like changing is coming as rapidly as it ever has. In this blog, we’ll explore 5 of the key trends and updates that will shape how brands approach paid social advertising in the year ahead—from Meta’s latest ad features to political machinations that could reshape the entire social landscape.
TikTok’s Future Remains a Huge Question—But Video Will Remain Essential
What’s known about TikTok’s future is that it’s unknown at the moment. Early this year, Congress voted to ban the app in the United States if it wasn’t sold to American owners. The ban is set to take effect the day before the new Presidential administration and Congress take office in January.
TikTok’s parent company is currently fighting that ban in court, though the incoming President-Elect voiced opposition to the ban throughout his campaign. So at the moment, one of the most important new social advertising platforms lays in the hands of political and legal processes.
The wildly-successful video app has become a favorite for advertisers, particularly in eCommerce. TikTok rolled out Search campaigns, which allow brands to reach users based on their direct intent rather than just interests. That has given TikTok enormous potential to be a high-intent conversion platform for brands.
TikTok Shop is another push by TikTok to get more people using the platform for purchases and specifically purchases through the platform. TikTok is still working on its AI-enabled search along with other features to enhance the TikTok shop experience which they hope to aid in the growth of the program in the new year. We expect TikTok to continue adding new shopping-based features throughout 2025, but they’ll only be useful if the platform remains legal in the US.
But if TikTok happens to disappear, however, we don’t think short-form video is going anywhere: the controversial platform has completely shifted audience expectations around how video content is consumed and engaged with. YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels will be ready and waiting for your short-form content and advertising dollars either way.
Because of this, Meta has made strategic updates to encourage advertisers to prioritize video over static imagery. One of the most significant changes is the adjustment to default attribution settings. Previously, attribution defaulted to a 7-day click and 1-day view model. However, Meta has now introduced the 1-day engaged-view attribution as a default.
This new attribution model optimizes for users who play a video ad for at least 10 seconds—or 97% of the total length if it’s shorter than 10 seconds—and then convert within a 1-day window. This change underscores Meta’s prioritization of video content, as it leverages the algorithm to favor dynamic, engaging creative formats over static alternatives.
For brands, this means video is no longer optional: It’s essential. To remain competitive, advertisers must invest in high-quality, short-form video content that aligns with audience expectations and platform priorities—with or without TikTok.
A New Meta Tool to Master: Site Links
When a new feature pops up in paid social marketing, advertisers need a period of real-world testing to realize its full potential. That means mastering Meta’s latest 2024 addition will be a major focus in 2025.
It might be hard to believe, but the option to add multiple additional links to ads only became available on Meta just before Q4 of 2024. Site links—which have been available on Google Ads for ages—made their debut, and Meta continues to tweak their functionality.
Site links provide category-level paths to showcase the breadth of offerings your brand has, giving users quick access to those product/service-specific pages.
Meta’s site links have already shown promising results for our clients that have launched them. Meta has also made a number of small changes to site links since their initial rollout. You can now upload custom thumbnails to site links, and you now need 4 site links per ad in order to use the feature (as opposed to 3 when they launched).
How brands can utilize site links in 2025:
- Enhance User Experience: Site links reduce friction by guiding users directly to desired content—products, services, or promotions—improving engagement and CTR.
- Support Funnel Goals: Highlight educational resources or brand stories for upper-funnel goals, or direct users to “Shop Now” or “Start Free Trial” for conversions.
- Showcase Offers: Promote seasonal sales or key categories like “Holiday Sale” or “Best Sellers” to drive urgency and conversions.
- Reduce Drop-Offs: Align site links with user intent to match expectations, increasing conversion likelihood.
- Customize Visuals: Use custom thumbnails to maintain brand identity and enhance appeal.
- Target Multi-Intent Audiences: Leverage four site links to cater to varied audience segments, like “Explore Catalog” or “FAQs,” optimizing for diverse user priorities.
Site links have already shown promising results for the clients we’ve launched them with, delivering improvements in both CTR and conversion rate. We’re anticipating that more brands will lean into using sitelinks in 2025 and will be preparing some case studies based on their early success.
Marketers Will Need to Learn the Value of Meta’s Opportunity Score
In 2024, Meta began rolling out a revamped version of its relevance scoring system: the Opportunity Score. While similar in concept to the retired Relevance Score (2015-2019), this new metric offers a more sophisticated evaluation of how well an ad aligns with its target audience and achieves its intended goals.
Opportunity Score is designed to provide advertisers with actionable insights to improve their campaigns. Unlike the single-digit Relevance Score, Opportunity Score incorporates a broader range of data points to assess ad performance. However, it is still in its infancy, and Meta continues to refine the algorithm behind it. Currently, the score is available only to select advertisers, with plans for a wider rollout in the near future.
Due to its newness, Opportunity Score has yet to demonstrate the full breadth of its value—but ADM anticipates that it will become a key tool for advertisers in 2025. As Meta expands access to this feature and fine-tunes its methodology, a high Opportunity Score is likely to become essential for brands aiming to scale efficiently while maintaining performance. For advertisers, this means closely monitoring the metric and using it to inform strategic adjustments will be key to staying competitive in Meta’s advertising ecosystem.
Reddit Will Be the Platform to Watch
Reddit has been an enormous platform for a very long time, but its advertising potential has perhaps been overlooked. But the already-popular platform has been absolutely surging in traffic thanks to a data-sharing deal with Google that has made its content four times more visible in Google Search results than it was in 2023. That means social advertisers should be paying more attention.
Over the last year, Reddit has seen a 46% increase in daily active users and a 53% increase in weekly active users. But the ratio of daily to weekly users indicates that the user base visits less consistently than social platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
It’s possible that many might encounter Reddit for the first time—or just more frequently—through Google Search and then become more likely to become daily users. Brands that don’t regularly advertise on Reddit will need to assess if there’s something to capitalize for them in that surge or if they’re comfortable sitting back for now.
Privacy Regulations Change the Game for Everyone—But Certain Companies Will Be Most Impacted
The privacy landscape was already changing quickly, with new state-level user privacy laws taking effect in 2024 and more on the way in 2025. But for certain companies, platform-level changes will take center stage.
In November 2024, Meta announced a series of policy changes that will take effect in January 2025, fundamentally altering the way certain industries, particularly healthcare, can leverage their advertising strategies. These changes are aimed at ensuring compliance with stricter privacy standards and preventing the misuse of customer data collected through Meta’s Business Tools.
While no formal statement has been made, we can piece together a picture from the rumblings. Meta will now classify data sources—such as websites or apps—based on their content, services, and audience segments. Categories like health and wellness will face new restrictions on how data can be utilized for advertising purposes. Specifically, businesses in this sector will no longer be able to optimize their campaigns for bottom-funnel conversion events like purchases. Instead, they will need to shift focus to upper-funnel objectives such as video views, ThruPlays (15-second views), reach and frequency, landing page views, or in-platform lead forms.
These new restrictions will require businesses to rethink their targeting and optimization strategies. Brands in regulated industries will need to adopt a more cautious approach to data collection and storage, as well as how they segment and reach their target audiences. Over the past few years, heightened FTC enforcement has set a clear precedent for stricter compliance, making privacy-conscious advertising more critical than ever.
Health and wellness brands will need to keep an eye on this space for formal guidance. Compliant health advertising is a key part of ADM’s portfolio, and we’ll be working closely with our clients on ways to maintain their marketing relevance while complying with all platform and legal policies.
Prepping for the Road Ahead
As we head into 2025, advertisers will need to embrace new technologies and be willing to stomach some of the uncertainty that comes with matters out of their hands—like new privacy rules or TikTok’s status. By staying informed and proactive, brands can turn challenges into opportunities and make the most of the evolving digital marketing landscape.
If you’re looking for an expert paid social media agency to help you navigate all the unknowns that 2025 may present, you’re in the right place—don’t hesitate to reach out to the ADM team today to talk about the future of your digital marketing.
