Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2025

Curious about the future of digital marketing and how your business can make the most of it?

Here are the top 5 trends we predict will shape 2025—and how your business can stay ahead:

1. SEO traffic will decline, but SEO conversions will increase

With AI tools answering questions directly in Google, this will reduce top of funnel website traffic but increase the focus on SEO strategies that drive leads and conversions.

How businesses can stay ahead:

• Optimise key service pages on your website for SEO and conversions
• Create relevant, useful content on your blog and link back to your key service pages

2. Increased opportunities for advertising on Google Maps

More local businesses will advertise offers directly in Google Maps, driving in-person visits and conversions beyond simple brand awareness.

How businesses can stay ahead:

• Run a 2-3 month test Google Ads campaign on Google Maps to measure performance
• Create a compelling offer to for new clients and customers

3. AI will continue to grow, and “human content” will stand out

AI-generated content will continue to rise, but businesses with real, authentic voices—through personal brands, in-person events, and video content—will stand out and build trust with their target audience.

How businesses can stay ahead:

• Take professional photos of your team doing the work they do
• Publish content based on your real experiences (rather than creating generic content with AI)

4. B2B will leverage SMS marketing

B2B companies will use SMS to nurture prospects with automated, personalised messages, increasing conversions and helping sales teams close more deals.

How businesses can stay ahead:

• Introduce SMS marketing into your lead nurture process
• Use a CRM that combines email, SMS and pipeline management to simplify communication

5. More marketing teams will use CRMs

More marketing teams will adopt CRMs to track the full customer journey, enabling better lead attribution and client communication.

At SGD, we recommend and use HighLevel CRM.

HighLevel’s recent growth has put it in a position to gain market share over clunkier tools like HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.

If you’re looking for a great CRM, get a free trial of HighLevel here.

What better way to spend your holidays than setting up your sales pipeline!? 🙂

How businesses can stay ahead:

• Start using a CRM for marketing and sales
• Invite both marketing and sales to use the CRM as the “source of truth” to measure performance

Bonus predictions:

• YouTube will continue to grow as a powerful marketing channel with both organic and paid videos
• Privacy regulations will push first-party data collection and cookie popups on more Australian websites
• Personalised physical mail will return as a useful retention strategy that creates real world experiences and touchpoints

What do you think? Which of these trends will impact your business the most in 2025?