My Predictions for Performance Marketing in 2025 (Meta Ads, AI, and Big Brand Strategies!)

a huge thanks to story blocks for sponsoring this video this one thing will determine your success on meta ads in 2025 AI is going to destroy this job I have a huge prediction for Black Friday Cyber Monday next year and I've already confirmed with a number of big brands that they are also thinking this way what's up marketers it is our annual predictions video I've actually done this video every single year since I've started the channel So today we're going to go through my top five predictions for Performance Marketing in 2025 and then we're going

to look at the predictions that I've made the last 3 years and see if I got any of them right so let's dive in number one is creative volume is going to be imperative to your success on meta ads in 2025 so if you follow me on Instagram then you already know this prediction 2023 creative strategy was the buzz term this year it was creative diversity next year I guarantee it's going to be creative volume the premise here is simple if you want to scale on meta ads in 2025 then you're going to need a

lot more volume and creative to do so now there are a few reasons for this number one meta ads have changed a lot in fact I think that Advantage Plus shopping campaigns are probably the biggest change that I've seen on the platform in The Last 5 Years and it's really enabled Brands to test more creative without wasting as many ad dollars and number two AI is now going to enable Brands to test more volume a lot of brands are going going to be taking advantage of this so you don't want your competitors to have the

upper hand there which is why I think that there's going to be a huge boom of Brands testing out Solutions like airpost to help with that volume and the final reason why this is going to be so important is more Theory but I personally believe that the more opportunities AKA creatives that you put out there that equals the more opportunities that you have to succeed as a brand and the number one question that I got about this is okay Dar what about quality and yes that is still going to be really really important which is

why you're going to have to be really selective about which AI Solutions you are leaning into to help produce more of that volume if you're interested in me doing a bigger Deep dive on what type of creative volume brand should be looking at please let me know in the comments I would be more than happy to make that video for you prediction number two video editing and graphic design are going to be the next big thing impacted by AI so in November I actually traveled to LA to visit an AI production compy company I'm going

to have a video coming out about this soon and the number one thing that I actually walked away from that experience was I believe that video editing and graphic design are probably going to be phased out within the next year or two my pov2 on what AI is generally going to disrupt tends to follow this trajectory what is first being outsourced overseas consistently and one of the things that I saw a lot this year was a lot of Brands and agencies were moving their independent contributor work like video editing and like graphic design overseas where

the costs just make a lot more sense for these people now I want to be clear I don't think that the actual production of the creative is quite there yet I know everyone gets really excited about the AI deep fakes or the ugc solutions like Arc ads and to be honest I have a really hard time utilizing those platforms for candidly ethical reasons but I also just don't think that they're going to be passible for many Brands and the creative quality that they want to achieve I'm actually way more impressed with ai's ability right now

to do video editing and to do graphic design and this is why I still think that Solutions like story blocks who have been a longtime partner of this channel is still incredibly necessary for brands in 2025 so if you are a brand or an agency you're going to need some sort of stock video solution there's just no way around this and I use story blocks for the brands that I work with because I find that it combines the best with ugc and other types of production that I am using to create meta ads creative story

blocks has a curated Content Library that has everything that you need in one place with over a million 4K in HD footage templates music sound effects images and more my personal favorite that I've been testing out in some ad creative recently have been the screen screen effect that they have in all different templates one of my colleagues actually used one of these effects recently for an ad creative that ended up being one of our top performers during Black Friday Cyber Monday and we are absolutely iterating it for an evergreen version the best thing about story

blocks is anything you download is 100% royaltyfree so you don't have to worry about licensing rights even for ads and you don't have to plan a photo shoot fumble with AI Solutions or get a Creator to make it for you it is literally instantaneous content to get started with unlimited stock media downloads at one set price head to story blocks.com darad Deni or click the link in the description in prediction number three 2025 is going to be the year of the B2B Creator this is actually something that I mentioned in last year's video and this

is absolutely coming to fruition and corporate content is hot everyone seems to be a LinkedIn influencer or trying to be one and making content is often times synonymous with the job especially if you are at a director level or higher and if you are a business owner congratulations you are a content creator too it's so crazy I actually paused multiple times this year in really thought back to just a few years ago when I first started making content on this channel nobody was sharing their stuff back then and now I kind of feel like there

is a lot more people sharing their stuff which in the end I think is good but there's just a lot more muck that we have to sift through to find True Value and true creators that we can align with and my message here is to be weary you know everyone seems to be Shilling some type of product or SAS solution and something you should always ask ask yourself is does this person have something to gain by doing so potentially now don't get me wrong I take sponsorships and have long-term Partnerships for this channel right I've

been long-term partners of motion of meta of particle of story blocks and these are relationships that I really really value but number one I'm always going to disclose when I am working with a partner on content for you guys and I'm also super super selective I actually just turned a pretty big deal down today with a very very big brand because when I tested out the product I knew you guys wouldn't like it which is why if I've ever said anything that you guys have found valuable subscribing to this channel really really does help me

out a whole lot I've got to hit 100k this year you guys and you know just that little tick from you the people who view my content and watch me every single week truly does mean so so so much all right prediction number four influencer is actually going to become a performance channel in 2024 now this idea is actually something that I heard from a conversation between Nick Sharma and Noah Tucker of Soo snowball but it's interesting as 2024 progressed the top conversation that I was having with Brands was actually a lot around affiliate marketing

so in a few weeks I'm actually going to be having a big YouTube video that goes in depth all all about affiliate Partnerships and the best way to position those and structure those for your Brands because it's honestly one of the big things as a growth marketer I am now working on for Brands to build up in 2025 the reality is is that a lot of brands have been burned by Massive influencer costs and I now see that brands are really starting to take the POV of wanting long-term more in-depth Partnerships with influencers and creators

who really move the needle for this and when they're exploring relationships with new creators they really want to operate on more of an affiliate basis um that you know really does benefit both the Creator influencer and the brand and even as a Creator myself you know I have affiliate deals I have one-off sponsorships but I really do tend to prefer and now in my business I'm focusing a lot more just on the longer term Partnerships and the affiliate Partnerships I'm very very seldom doing oneoff sponsor ship as a Creator these days and number five I

think Black Friday Cyber Monday will actually be shorter next year essentially I think brands are going to stop or really pull back on the early discounting now this is actually something that I first hinted at in my tier list Black Friday Cyber Monday video that I launched a few weeks ago but something that I saw with the brands that I worked with is we didn't really see as much of a Black Friday Cyber Monday Spike that we're used to seeing because we had a much longer time frame for discounts a lot of the brands I

worked with started discounting at the beginning of November and what I actually see now especially with consumer behavior is they're actually going back to a little bit more prepandemic times where they are really waiting for more of that bigger offer come Black Friday Cyber Monday and if they don't see it maybe they're not jumping on it CU they assume now that that offer is going to last longer so I've now talked with a few Brands about this and they've also agreed that they're likely going to be having Black Friday Cyber Monday just during that week

or even just during those days to try to see if that actually has better performance for Q4 I'm really curious to hear what you guys think about these predictions be sure to let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree with anything I love having conversations with you guys there I'll be sure to reply to every single one um but I'm really curious to hear what you think about your own predictions as well and now let's go look through the predictions over the last few years let's first look at what I predicted last

year for 2024 now I had two predictions that I think were pretty similar number one brands are going to start focusing more on brand than they are on performance and brands are going to be leaning more into this idea of performance branding and I actually think that this is something that I started to see a lot more this year especially with brands are starting to scale up quite a bit on meta they're really talk talking about more brand building activities and how to open more of the top of funnel I've had a lot more conversations

this year around TV advertising around podcast advertising around other platforms to Market on aside from meta so while I don't think that maybe it was as big of a splash as I anticipated it was definitely something that I've seen working with brands that are spending more than six seven figures per month on their paid ads and number three the focus is going to be less on meta ads but not necessarily Tik Tok so what's interesting about this is I actually feel like the industry focused a lot on meta ads throughout the bulk of the year

but then app loving came in to focus you know towards the end of Q3 Q4 and I couldn't have predicted that one but that is definitely the big platform that is on the top of mine for many Brands right now and I can say it is impressive if you want me to do a bigger Deep dive on it let me know and then the other prediction I had was that AI is going to take over for more operational work and brands are going to really just be hiring for strategy and what I'll say about this

is I've definitely noticed that brands are hiring for strategy domestically so I'm talking mostly about us-based businesses and anything that's independent contributor work they're sending a lot of that overseas I haven't really quite seen AI taking away job jobs yet I think we're going to see that a little bit in 2025 as you know more AI video editing and graphic design gets implemented but for now I just see a lot of that independent contributor work going overseas not quite going to AI but I think it's in our future and number five the Tik Tok shop

Arbitrage will die down absolutely this is definitely something I've seen I also think that candidly it's just really industry and brand specific I heard a statistic recently that the average aov for Tik Tok shop was around $15 so if you have a product that is more than that AKA something that's actually going to succeed on meta ads it's probably going to be really really difficult for you um to succeed on Tik Tok shop I also think that with all the noise around Tik Tok being banned or not being banned it's really scared a lot of

creators away from the platform and Brands as well I guess you know another prediction I should have had for this video is is Tik Tok going to actually shut down January 19th and my gut instinct is no I think at the 11th hour they will honestly find a reason to keep it around but I think that actually the ramifications and the impact of all of that conversation around it being shutting down is kind of going to have a similar impact for creators and Brands creators don't want to be on the platform because they can't trust

that it's actually going to be there for them Brands don't want to be on it because same thing how can they know that they're actually going to make money from this platform I really think that you know this conversation has just really made people nervous and turn away from the platform overall even myself as just a Tik Tok user I find that I turn to the platform a lot less these days because I just don't really have a belief in its sustainability and personally as a Creator I have been focusing way more on Instagram this

year than I have on Tik Tok even though Technically when I look at my number of followers I have the most on Tik Tok but candidly Tik Tok just has not been performing well for organic creators at all this year my numbers are way down and a lot higher on reals and YouTube as per usual another prediction I had was that creators were going to start making content directly on the platform which would then enable Brands to tap into it to put ad spend behind it Alla Tik Tok shops we haven't quite seen that from

meta yet I still think and have hope that this is in our future though but honestly I haven't heard anything so TBD and my last prediction for last year was that we will have less full-time creators but more professional making content and I'd say it's a little too early to tell I feel like more and more every day people are becoming full-time creators but maybe that's just because of the position that I'm in I happen to meet and come across a lot more of those people but I will say actually a number of the creators

that I have met recently do not have full-time content creation as their sole only job they're either entrepreneurs who have other brands or businesses or they've actually went back to the workforce to work for a brand brand or company even myself I work part-time for a brand in the city I actually go to the office and hang out there for 8 hours a day doing work you know working on a team and I'd say yeah I I definitely do feel like there's a sentiment from people that full-time content creation is not as stable and I'd

have to agree okay now let's look at 2023 let's see what I predicted we'll see even more automation coming from meta and Facebook ads absolutely targeting um really ceases to be any type of conversation point in 2025 now so yes check mark um and number two more agencies will close up shop I actually found that more agencies shifted from being like paid ads or Facebook ads agencies to being more creative agencies um I definitely think that that's something that I just see a lot more of and has been more sustainable I think it's actually probably

way more sustainable for Brands to supply volume for creatives and show value that way but I'd say it's probably pretty hard for agencies who just do like Facebook ads media buying to survive another prediction I had that year was that typical growth agency structures will come to Halt and they will be like Facebook ads plus email Facebook ads plus SEO they'll be more growth agency focused and I didn't really see that one not yet anyways and number four AI Solutions will become a lot louder wow check mark yes I feel like I can't look at

my phone or my laptop on any given day without some flashy new AI solution come in to save the day so yes I also have here that we will start using AI to respond to text messages and emails what I will say is I could not have predicted that we would be using AI um as therapists but I'm kind of into it I haven't quite tried it for myself but I'm into it and yes that makes sense and number five the final prediction I had for this year was that meta ads was going to continue

to get better and I'd say that this is actually pretty true I'd say yes on any given day there are ups and downs in terms of performance but I feel like actually meta has really had the strength hold this year of being the default platform for growth marketers and media buyers and things like Snapchat and Tik Tok ads have really Fallen by the wayside okay and last one let's now look back at 2022 we'll go through this one really quickly in order to be good at media buying you're going to have to be a good

marketer yes check mark yes what I actually think is so funny is now it is so common to talk about like human desires and emotions and like any AD creative brainstorm which I really like and appreciate but I just feel like the anti just keeps on getting higher and higher and higher people are now like formats aren't enough you have to like really dig in like the human psychology of your customer and it's like yeah you do um so like this is a very obvious one but I do think it's funny cuz like y'all just

keep on getting smarter and smarter along with me and I love it number two Facebook will continue to automate itself and phas out certain targeting options yes yes yes I feel like now there are some conversations that we just like don't even have about what media buying looked like two three years ago like CBO who gives a and then number three Tik Tok will become even more important and in 20122 the focus will be on figuring out how to make Tik Tok ads work um and I definitely think that was like a 2022 thing but

in 2023 like a lot of the percentage that was being spent on T Tik Tok ads reduced and continued to reduce a whole lot more into 2024 and I don't think that we're going to see that Resurgence in 2025 at all especially with a potential ban looming on January 19th and number four brands are going to continue to partner with creatives to create ads and content for their brands Oh Baby D like yes continues to happen actually what I have talked about recently with Brands is building out those longer term Partnerships with creators that you

find a lot of success with and incentivizing them um you know to continue making content for your brand I've actually spoke with a few creators recently about doing exclusivities with certain brands and how to price those out and I really do think that 2025 in many ways is going to be the year of bigger better Partnerships that are more long-term in nature for nearly anyone and I think everyone is thinking that way and then number five the ugc Creator Market is about to explode being able to create good and effective ugc content so if you

want to have ugc that converts you to wow baby D yes it was like we saw a huge yes for 2022 and beginning of 2023 and then you know the ugc market became too saturated and don't get me wrong like the brands that I work with still use ugc and the content that is in our top performers generally is going to be um a bulk of it ugc especially for brands that are spending more than seven figures per month but I feel like a lot of the conversations now is actually around more image creative and

a lot of brands are you know figuring out a lot of their messaging points using more of that image creative and then Translating that to more of their creator content well I hope you guys enjoyed that uh blast from the past and looking at some of my past predictions with me um thank you so so much for supporting me this year it really really means the world um please let me know if there are any types of videos or topics that you want me to dive deep on in 2025 a big focus of mine moving

into the new year is really to um actually go back to basics and create a lot more of the indepth tutorial based content I know you guys love so be sure to let me know what topics you want me to tackle and um I'll be sure to put it on my to-do list all right thank you so much guys and I hope you have an amazing end of the year I'll see you soon bye