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As of early 2025, nearly 1/3 of the world’s population would shop online – that’s close to 2.8 billion, an increase of 2% from the previous year. But people use different online channels, so it’s not always easy for companies to find common ground with their audience.
The key to success is a well-designed marketing strategy that takes into account new trends, utilizes modern technology and expertise. This strategy must be flexible, versatile and ready for change. Its development and adaptation is an ongoing process that evolves with customer behavior. A key element is the choice of brand communication channels. So, let’s see which customer engagement channels will be trending in 2025 and how to work in them.
Main and supplementary channels of digital marketing
The digital strategy of a commercial project is similar to a symphony orchestra, where each instrument plays an important role in creating a musical harmony. In this orchestra, the three basic online channels are the leading performers:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO);
- Google contextual advertising;
- SMM promotion.
These digital channels should be the foundation of your digital strategy for 2025. You may not have used all of them before, but it’s important to understand their potential and think about how you can apply them to grow your own business.
Among the additional channels are:
- promotion on marketplaces;
- email marketing and messenger campaigns;
- content marketing;
- cooperation with bloggers, etc.
The list goes on and on, but I recommend you keep in mind that all these online marketing channels cater to different audiences.
For example, if you need to “catch up” with a client who already recognizes their need and is looking for solutions on the Internet, then you should use the so-called search channels: SEO promotion, contextual advertising, promotion on Google Maps, marketplaces, aggregators, and so on.
If the demand is not yet formed, i.e. you will be looking for people who potentially have a problem but have no idea yet how to solve it, your task is to arouse curiosity. In these cases, a selection of such channels will be relevant: organic and paid promotion in social networks, cold emails, content and influencer marketing, and even affiliate sales.
So, the conclusion is the same – in your digital strategy you need to use all possible resources where your audience can be.
SEO optimization
Competition in the digital marketplace is fierce, and having your company’s website rank high in search is crucial to business success. As you know, most people put pressure on the most popular results on search engine results pages. Specifically, 55% of all clicks come from the first three Google search results.
In 2025, Google will remain the most visited website in the world. Overall, 82% of internet users aged 16+ used it in October 2024.
By attracting organic traffic, you can reduce dependence on contextual advertising and promotion through other channels.
It is worth developing your site with SEO if:
- you already have a site with a large number of pages and a lot of goods/services;
- your audience is looking for you in a search engine for a large number of different queries;
- your product has a large number of info-queries;
- you have a big business, but ads and social networks do not bring you enough leads;
- you want to reduce the cost of leads in the long term.
However, it is worth remembering that SEO optimization is designed for a period of six months and not everything depends on experts. Only if you have a reliable contractor by your side can you overcome all the difficulties.
For example, the overall traffic of the site may decrease for a certain period under the influence of external factors, but if SEO doesn’t stop, you can quickly achieve recovery. This was observed by my team when working on numerous complex promotion projects.
Contextual advertising in various forms
Search advertising should be an important element of your strategy in 2025. The possibilities of Google Ads are impressive, because on this platform you can run a variety of different types of advertising:
- search advertising campaigns;
- Performance Max campaigns;
- media advertising, including remarketing;
- video advertising;
- Google Shopping ads, etc.
Among these types of advertising, video advertising stands out separately. Recent data shows that YouTube ads now slightly edge Facebook, yet both platforms reach 2.2+ billion people.
PPC advertising should definitely be part of your marketing strategy if:
- the niche has a sufficient number of searches per month (1K+);
- your products or services are well known;
- you need quick predictable results;
- the projected cost per lead will be acceptable for you;
- your business is able to quickly process and fulfill many orders.
Sometimes certain disadvantages of this channel of promotion come into play, such as short-term effect, high competition etc. Either way, my experience of promotion in different niches confirms that launching advertising in search allows a business not only to stay afloat, but also to reach a profitable position in the niche.
First of all, it is worth paying attention to how “the trinity” works – carefully selected keywords, a quality ad and a well-designed landing page. These elements determine the display of your ad, the response to it from customers and the success of the campaign as a whole.
It is also important to clearly customize the goals of advertising campaigns, use automation features and to keep your ads running.
SMM Marketing
Today, more people are using social media platforms than ever before. Specifically, there are now 5.2+ billion active social media users worldwide, a number that has grown by more than 250 million over the past year.
Instagram remains among the favorites, with 1/6 of users choosing it. Whatsapp, Facebook, and WeChat are also above the threshold of 10%.
An interesting thing to note, however, is that the amount of time people spend on social media has been steadily decreasing in recent months. The daily activity of a typical user has fallen by 8-9% over the past few years. This trend has been attributed to more conscious information consumption and increased demand for content.
Integrating social media into your sales strategy is essential for increasing brand awareness, engaging with customers, and ultimately driving sales.
You can be active on all major social platforms and use them to increase your brand visibility or focus on the most popular channels among your target audience. For example, the majority of TikTok users are between the ages of 18-24 and 25-34, and this platform is what you need if you want to target a young audience.
However, if you are aiming for success with this channel, take several major trends into account:
- The most effective ad format now is Reels, because the audience has already formed the so-called “banner blindness” to static identical banners in virtually all areas. At the same time, the user is not yet accustomed to identifying video as advertising, so it is better to consider this type of content.
- If possible, involve more people in video ads: when an expert talks about a service, it inspires trust.
- UGC format. A video in which a customer talks about how the room looks now after buying new furniture displays a real user experience. It also engages other consumers more.
- Helpful content that solves a customer’s problem. For example, explain how new shoes can go with different clothing styles. With this kind of creative posts, there is no need for direct sales, as you’ve already described the solution to the problem, prepared the customer, and they make their own decision to buy.
In addition to maintaining an account in social networks, you should plan to launch targeted advertising. The advantages of this channel are:
- speed of getting results;
- low cost of leads;
- the ability to target people with specific interests;
- allows you to create demand where it does not yet exist.
I recommend that you engage in social networking to develop your own brand, and run advertising to build your audience and demand for your products.
Additional digital marketing channels
While working with the three basic channels of customer engagement, try to look for more experimental or niche ways
Promotion on Marketplaces
One of the trends of digital marketing in 2025 is the competition of entrepreneurs with marketplaces. Indeed, up to 60% of online purchases are made on giant platforms. However, I suggest leveraging the opportunities that marketplaces provide. After all, this is a ready-made infrastructure for sales, which expands the geography of the audience allowing you to attract customers from different countries.
Among the pros of this channel are:
- large reach;
- high-quality leads;
- availability of communication tools;
- ease of use;
- low cost per lead.
Email Marketing and Messenger Newsletters
Did you know that experts predict the global email marketing market to close on $18 billion by 2027? Email newsletters influence people’s buying decisions, and running a well-planned campaign can help increase sales, win back customers, and generate more B2B profits.
Email marketing is a convenient way to get people to buy, and it’s relatively inexpensive compared to other channels. It is important to focus on creating personalized emails as this can increase the loyalty of your recipients.
Mailing can be of two types: “warm” (through the list of known buyers) and “cold” (targeting a generated list of potential clients).
The advantages of this channel of customer attraction, which works well in the B2B sphere, especially in foreign markets, include:
- the ability to organize interaction with all customers whose contacts are in the database at once;
- automation through different services;
- access to tracking people’s reactions.
Although you may face the problem of low email open rates (5-10%) and low click-through rates (2-5%), experts can help you solve these problems.
Content marketing
This channel can help you attract customers in both B2B and B2C niches, and it works better for corporate clients. Infotainment articles, quality video content and graphs help you close inquiries and communicate with your audience if they have questions and doubts.
The internal blog on the website should be built on the semantics of information queries, where each cluster corresponds to a separate article. Also, when making a publication plan, you should track trends and news in the niche to give your expert view on the situation. It is good if the blog will describe your work through case studies.
External blogging and media publications is more of a PR direction, but with a successful strategy, this tool can also increase sales. External content will help you become top of mind for your audience, which will pay off in the long run.
The benefits of this customer engagement channel include:
- formation of expert stance and trust;
- opportunity to share interesting content with others (word of mouth effect);
- high efficiency in the B2B segment.
Remember: this channel will only produce results if you work consistently.
Cooperation with bloggers
This is the channel worth working with in the B2C niche today. The first to whom it will be expedient to run advertising with bloggers are Instagram stores, businesses with an active young audience (18-40 years old), and women-oriented companies. This channel should be launched when there are not enough leads through the main channel, such as targeting.
Gone are the days when influence marketing only had A-list celebrities. In 2025, the game has changed to authenticity, relativity and trust. Leading the way are micro and nano-influencers – bloggers with smaller but highly engaged audiences.
The audience perceives them as peers, which fosters trust. In this environment, product recommendations are perceived as genuine. For brands, this means that a stronger emotional connection with the target audience can form, and ultimately achieve higher conversion rates.
Conclusion
When selecting customer acquisition channels for your strategy in 2025, follow these steps:
- Thoroughly analyze the market situation and audience characteristics;
- Pick 2-3 channels that are most relevant to your audience and goals and test several formats in each of them;
- Analyze key indicators, evaluate the effectiveness of each promotion format on each channel;
- Concentrate your resources on the channels with the best results, but keep checking out additional opportunities.
I don’t recommend limiting yourself to one channel, nor splitting your budget into many channels at once. The optimal strategy for 2025 is based on a balance between focus and flexibility. Test different channels, identify the most effective ones and choose the best combination for your business.
Vitalii Nedzelenko is a marketing manager at Good Zone Service & Repairs, a Brooklyn based store specialized in repairing Apple devices. He is passionate about technology, gadgets, and digital marketing.