Loyalty, CTV, ‘brandformance’: Three martech trends in 2025
What's going to be big in the digital marketing space in the coming year? Here are my thoughts on the three key trends to watch out for in 2025
Make loyalty a journey not a destination.
A one-size-fits-all approach to customer loyalty doesn't work anymore. With consumers looking for value from brands, it's becoming less about points and rewards and more about connecting with customers on an emotional level to win 'share of heart'. Brands will need to see loyalty as an experience, not just a programme.
In our 2024 UK Customer Loyalty Index, we identified the fundamental loyalty drivers that predict future behaviour, including measures like quality, price and service that must be on point. Aldi, who doesn't have a loyalty program is a prime example of this, having scored the highest out of the 10 brands within the grocery category in terms of attitudinal and behavioural loyalty.
Creating successful loyalty strategies will only be achieved by combining data-driven strategy and creativity. This way, brands truly understand their audiences and deliver authentic, engaging experiences that align both the brand and consumers' values to create a shared sense of purpose. It also requires constant care and attention as loyalty is not a destination but something that needs to evolve along with consumer attitudes.
Brands will have to tackle the CTV fragmentation challenge.
This year we've seen new developments in the Connected TV (CTV) space, with Amazon Prime Video introducing ads and new interactive and shoppable formats, and the launch of the Freely service offering live and on-demand streaming. Netflix, in the meantime, saw a 150% rise in ad sales for 2023 after launching its lower-cost, ad-supported service, boosting revenue and stock performance. We can expect more developments in this space in the coming 12 months.
But with new opportunities come new challenges. Brands facing an increasingly fragmented CTV landscape will have to navigate multiple platforms to run media campaigns, potentially leading to overlapping budgets and duplicated efforts. Fragmentation could also lead to discrepancies in metrics and difficulties in verifying where ads are being seen and, weakening the consistency of brand messages.
To unlock its full potential, brands need a seamless, data-driven strategy across the entire customer journey. Accurately factoring in browsing habits, purchase history, and engagement means better targeting and verification of user interactions, ensuring brands are reaching genuine audiences. Deeper insights into how long-term awareness impacts sales and lifetime value – going beyond traditional metrics like attention and recall – will be a real gamechanger, aligning brand awareness and performance more closely and ensuring money is well spent.
The rise of 'brandformance'
CTV is an ideal channel to drive the convergence of branding and performance marketing – known as 'brandformance' – thanks to its ability to provide measurable outcomes from brand executions, as we're seeing with the introduction by Amazon Prime of shoppable formats.
This will become even more important as more brands shift their ad spend into streaming platforms. It's predicted that CTV ad spend will surpass $42 billion by 2028. The enormous potential lies in CTV's ability to combine brand building with precise targeting. For example, ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros Discovery are launching a new platform, which will feature major professional sporting events. Imagine the potential for brands to leverage the moment when viewers are watching a live sports game to offer an interactive, limited time offer via Deliveroo.
As more and more platforms come online and the market continues to evolve, streaming services will have their 'golden age' with advertisers. But it's only with better targeting capabilities and enhanced audience engagement that ad-supported streaming can deliver on its promise and sustain demand.
