Digital Marketing Trends for 2026 | 2025 Wrap-Up & 2026 Predictions

Wrapping up 2025 in digital marketing and what’s coming in 2026.

Well done, marketers. We made it through yet another (semi-apocalyptic) year.

If this time of year is good for anything, it’s for a bit of reflection. Preferably with a drink in hand and an eye twitch that really should be medically reviewed.

Let’s look back on everything 2025 threw at us in digital marketing, how we adapted, and what we think it all means for 2026.

Our digital strategy for 2026.

At Bamboo Nine, we’ve been shifting towards a “strategy-first” mindset for a while now.

We’ll forgive you if that just seems like a buzzword bluster, that whole “holistic omnichannel synergy framework powered by hyper-granular, data-driven optimisation” routine that says so much without really saying anything.

So what are we saying?

Strategy-first means no siloed thinking, no default SEO pitch, no off-the-shelf paid media plan. Audiences don’t experience brands that way, and single-lever strategies rarely hold up.
That matters even more heading into 2026. The economy is tight, politics are volatile, and the cost-of-living crisis is still shaping how people search, spend and decide. Ignoring that context is just guessing.

Guesswork is expensive. We don’t sell it.

We start by listening, researching and understanding where a brand really stands, then recommend budgets, channels and creative that actually make sense.

So 2026 isn’t a reset for us. It’s a continuation of growth without guesswork.

Just get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Send us a message

Our channel experts give their 2026 digital marketing tips.

What happened in SEO in 2025?

AI Overviews scaled quickly and stopped being optional.

Across the year, AI Overviews appeared on a growing share of searches (Semrush estimates 13% and rising). By late 2025, Google was actively pushing users from Overviews into AI Mode for follow-up queries. The result was more answers without clicks, softer CTR on informational terms, and a growing emphasis on whether a source is cited at all, rather than where it ranks.

Core Updates reinforced relevance over volume.

Two broad Core Updates in March (13–27) and June (30 June–17 July) caused significant volatility. Pages that demonstrated relevance, depth and user satisfaction generally held or improved. Thin, repetitive or mechanically produced content continued to lose ground. This wasn’t a new message, but it was delivered more firmly than before.

Spam enforcement tightened, especially around scaled content.

The August Spam Update (26 August–22 September) increased pressure on scaled content, expired-domain abuse and so-called “parasite SEO”. Affiliate subfolders, third-party content hosted on strong domains, and mass-produced pages became higher risk and, in many cases, lost visibility quickly. Taken together, 2025 made clear that shortcuts are getting shorter-lived, and systems are becoming better at identifying content that exists purely to manipulate visibility rather than help users.

Our SEO predictions for 2026.

AI answers will take more demand: AI Overviews and AI Mode will appear on more searches, reducing clicks unless your content is cited directly. Our priority will be structuring pages for extraction, not just ranking.
GEO and AEO become real metrics: Visibility will depend more on being mentioned in AI answers than on blue-link positions. Entities, context and trusted off-site mentions will be key.
Brand authority beats content volume: Generic, look-alike pages will slip further. Recognisable expertise will hold ground. This translates to fewer pages, deeper thinking, and clearer authorship.
Multimodal SEO becomes standard: Search journeys will start with images, video and voice more often, so you’ll need proper image and video optimisation.

Learn more about our SEO services

What happened in content in 2025?

AI dominated the conversation, less so the reality.

AEO, GEO, AI summaries, AI search — the noise was relentless. Outside the cacophonous echo chamber, the reality was calmer. AI changed how people discover and consume content, but not in the world-ending way some commentary suggested.

Most “AI optimisation” advice boiled down to answering real questions clearly, showing how you actually help, and not wasting people’s time. In other words, writing good content. The kind that competent content teams were already producing. So, “writing for AI” didn’t require a new discipline, it just required structure, honesty and clarity. None of which are revolutionary ideas.

“Authenticity” became a buzzword and lost its meaning.

In practice, authentic content simply meant verifiable content.

That looked like:

Named experts writing or reviewing content
Claims backed by evidence, not aspiration
Clear authorship and accountability
Independent mentions and proof of trust

This is the content that surfaced most reliably in SERPs, AI summaries and answer boxes because it signalled credibility, not performance. The era of padded 800-word pages stuffed with long-tail keywords continued its slow, deserved death. Clear, direct, useful writing performed better for users, for search, and for AI summaries.

Voice mattered more than volume.

As AI-generated content flooded feeds and search results, sameness became obvious. Brands with a clear point of view, a recognisable tone, and something to say stood out. Those without blended into the background, regardless of how often they published.

Our content predictions for 2026.

Keyword-first content strategies won’t hold up: Pages written solely to rank will struggle. Content needs to map to real journeys, not isolated searches.
Integration beats volume: Strong content in 2026 will be intentional, cross-channel and tied to a clear objective. Not every post needs to exist. Every post needs a reason. Consumers increasingly meet brands on social before websites. If your SEO content and social content feel disconnected, you’re wasting attention and budget. A consistent, recognisable voice matters more than ever.
Storytelling beats information dumps: Memorable content will come from narrative, perspective and progression, not exhaustive explainers. Familiar formats and recurring themes give people a reason to return.

Learn about our joined-up content work

Engagement fell, discernment rose.

User engagement fell across platforms and industries. People interacted less, whether through passive scrolling or being more selective about what they chose to like. That didn’t mean social media stopped being effective. Instagram reaching three billion monthly users in 2025 made that clear. The audience is still there; attention is just harder to earn.

Follower counts mattered less than relevance.

Cutting through the noise became more difficult, but success was never about having the biggest following. Social media has always been about tapping into a niche — finding potential customers, return customers and brand advocates, and keeping them engaged.

Strategy became essential.

The only way to do this consistently was through a social media strategy that accounted for every stage of the customer journey. People interact with social platforms throughout their journey, not just at the point of discovery.

Effective strategies combined clear messaging with the ability to move quickly when something timely or relevant emerged. Social content that felt native to the platform and responsive to trends performed better.

Social also continued to act as both an informational and an entertainment space. Brands that balanced the two performed more strongly. IKEA was a standout example of a brand that consistently gets this right.

Social-first content proved non-negotiable.

Across platforms, content worked best when it was created specifically for where it lived, or properly adapted.

A LinkedIn quote could become an Instagram Reel using a trending sound. A long-form YouTube video could be clipped into short-form TikToks. A LinkedIn newsletter might work better as a podcast on YouTube or Spotify. Content needed to fit the platform to have real impact.

Platform choice also became more important. It wasn’t about being everywhere, but about being where your audience is — and where you can realistically produce the right content, consistently.

Feeds fragmented, and niches tightened.

With more platforms and more content than ever, people’s feeds became more personalised. Everyone started seeing very different versions of the internet.

Collaborations emerged as one of the most effective ways to reach specific niches. Creator accounts functioned like mini-publications, giving brands access to highly engaged communities. Seeding fell away in favour of more authentic collaboration across gifting, paid partnerships, affiliates and brand ambassador programmes.

Trust mattered more than scale. Smaller creators with engaged audiences consistently outperformed larger accounts with passive followings. Creators also proved to be the best source of insight into what works with their audience, making collaboration more effective when done properly.

Brand-on-brand collaboration continued to grow, too. The Weetabix and Heinz Beans partnership generated 18K comments on X alone, despite platform-wide engagement being low. Liquid Death remained a leading example of this style of collaboration.

Lower-cost community spaces also played a role. Facebook Groups, Reddit and Substack became effective ways to tap into niches, provided brands observed first, contributed helpfully, and earned their place.

People consistently outperformed brands.

UGC remained one of the most trusted forms of content. Alongside it, employee-generated content gained momentum. Audiences trusted real people more than polished brand accounts.

On LinkedIn, brand content performed significantly better when shared by employees. This also created opportunities to build employee personal brands and position team members as thought leaders. Beyond LinkedIn, brands found success treating employees like creators, producing short-form video and social content that showcased real personalities. Examples ranged from large publications like Sheerluxe to retailers like Currys and even smaller local brands such as Hobbycraft Wimbledon.

Social will continue to niche down: As feeds become more personalised, winning will come from knowing where your audience actually spends time and committing to those spaces, rather than trying to be everywhere.
Social-first content becomes the baseline: Content needs to be built for platforms first, then adapted elsewhere. One-size-fits-all publishing will keep underperforming.
Storytelling and episodic content gain ground: Authenticity and community will come from storytelling. Episodic short-form, recurring formats and podcast-led strategies give people a reason to come back. Podcasts will continue to act as long-form anchors, with short-form clips driving deeper engagement. Series-style, TV-format content will grow further.
Collaboration replaces seeding: Authentic collaboration will outperform transactional influencer activity. Creators will be treated as partners with audience insight, while brand-on-brand and community-led collaborations continue to rise.
Employee voices become a core trust signal: Employee-generated content will remain one of the strongest trust drivers. Brands that make it easy for teams to show up and share expertise will outperform polished, brand-only posting.

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Automation tightened its grip.

Meta continued pushing AI-led features across paid social. Expanded Advantage+ formats, automated creative enhancements, dynamic landing page selection and brand-level styling options all became more prominent.
Some of this was useful, particularly for ecommerce. Brand colours and fonts helped ads feel less generic in crowded feeds. Other changes introduced risk. Features like Meta AI selecting landing pages reduced advertiser control and, in some cases, conflicted with messaging, objectives or compliance requirements.

Automation worked, but only with oversight.

Advantage+ and similar formats proved effective for shopping and purchase-led campaigns, but they demanded careful testing and strict QA. Meta also became more prone to enabling enhancements automatically, often without obvious warnings. Manual checks before launch and ongoing monitoring became an essential safeguard.

Pinterest followed the automation playbook.

Pinterest launched Performance+, an automated campaign type focused on faster setup and improved efficiency, particularly for catalogue-driven activity. Early results showed CPA improvements in some cases. The trade-off was less control over targeting, placements and presentation. For brands with strict guidelines, niche audiences or lead generation goals, that limitation mattered.

Regulation entered the conversation.

Australia introduced restrictions on social media use for under-16s. While not directly affecting the UK yet, it sparked debate among regulators and signalled potential future change. For now, brands can still advertise to younger audiences within platform rules. But longer term, this could reshape how both paid and organic social work for teen-focused brands. We’ll be keeping a close eye on it.

AI and automation will keep expanding: Platforms will continue rolling out AI-led features, often as defaults rather than options. We’ll be using automation where it genuinely improves efficiency, and avoiding it where it undermines control or brand integrity.
Creative becomes the main differentiator: With higher competition and more cautious spending, creative will carry more weight than targeting tweaks alone. So, stronger hooks, clearer messaging and disciplined creative testing across formats will be a priority.
Human oversight stays essential: AI remains inconsistent and occasionally unpredictable, so we’ll treat automation as a test, not a guarantee. Client approval, QA and ongoing monitoring remain critical.

See what our paid social media teams can do

What happened in paid media in 2025?

Performance Max grew up.

Google spent much of 2025 quietly adding the controls and visibility we’ve been asking for. Channel-level reporting, search term insights, asset performance data, negative keywords, device targeting and demographic controls all made Performance Max easier to interrogate and harder to treat as a black box.

Alongside this, AI Max for Search launched, extending Google’s use of AI across creative generation, targeting expansion and query matching. Early tests showed potential, but also reinforced the need for caution.

The key takeaway is that Performance Max moved from a leap of faith to a usable full-funnel tool, provided it’s actively managed rather than left to run unchecked.

CPC inflation became unavoidable.

Across most industries and regions, average CPCs rose by roughly 10–15%. Competition intensified, organic visibility softened due to AI Overviews, privacy changes reduced signal clarity, and economic pressure pushed more brands into paid channels.

So, paid media became more expensive, not because platforms changed overnight, but because demand kept rising while efficiency got harder to maintain.

Microsoft Advertising stopped being optional.

Microsoft continued expanding its offering, including a Performance Max-style product, deeper CTV placements, and LinkedIn-powered targeting. With Copilot adoption growing and exclusive inventory across Outlook and Xbox, it became a situationally strong performer rather than an afterthought.

Google still dominates, but the gap narrowed enough that ignoring Microsoft started to look lazy.

Our paid media predictions for 2026.

Ads will expand into AI answers, voice and visual search: AI Overview ads are already appearing in limited markets, with broader rollout likely. Voice and visual search formats are expected to follow. These placements will be premium, high-visibility inventory.
First-party data becomes non-negotiable: With attribution increasingly fragmented and platform metrics often disagreeing, first-party data is now the most reliable input for optimisation, particularly for lead generation and lifecycle marketing.
Automation still needs adult supervision: Google’s AI tools are powerful, but inconsistent. Creative risk, beta volatility and rising CPCs mean human oversight remains essential. Automation works best when guided, tested and constrained by expertise.

Learn more about our paid media services

What happened in design & development in 2025?

UX stopped being about polish and started being about trust.

Across 2025, the focus shifted away from surface-level visual refinement and towards emotional clarity, reassurance and user wellbeing. Interfaces that felt calm, predictable and easy to navigate consistently outperformed those chasing novelty for its own sake.

Accessibility also evolved. It moved beyond box-ticking compliance and into something more practical and human. Designing for different abilities, devices and contexts became less about meeting standards and more about recognising how people actually use digital products in the real world.

At the same time, information architecture quietly grew in importance. As AI tools began interpreting sites more actively, clear structure, semantic markup and sensible navigation stopped being “nice to have”. They became essential. Design success was measured less by how something looked and more by how smoothly users — and systems — could move through it.

What defined strong design and development in 2025 wasn’t flair. It reduced friction, clarity of intent, and adaptability across different journeys.

Our design & development predictions for 2026.

Design will continue shifting towards human-centred clarity: Emotional intelligence in UX will matter more than visual trend cycles. Interfaces that feel intuitive, trustworthy and considerate will win attention, particularly as user patience continues to shrink.
Inclusivity becomes embedded, not added on: Accessibility will be treated as a design principle rather than a checklist. Supporting different abilities, environments and devices will be foundational, not reactive.
AI becomes a silent user of your interface: Navigation and structure will increasingly be designed for both people and machines. AI-readable information architecture will allow assistants, copilots and agent-based browsing tools to guide users, surface content and personalise journeys in real time.
Multimodal interaction moves closer to mainstream: Voice, touch and gesture-led interactions will become more common, supported by on-device intelligence. UX will need to flex across formats without losing coherence.

Ultimately, UX that works seamlessly for humans and AI will become a competitive advantage. As AI mediates more digital experiences, the brands that invest in clarity, structure and empathy will be the ones that stay discoverable and usable.

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Go into 2026 with confidence.

So. Search changed shape. Paid media became more expensive. Social platforms leaned harder into automation. Content became easier to generate and harder to trust.

At the same time, audiences became more selective, more sceptical, and less willing to give their attention away freely.

None of those points to a single channel, tactic or tool as the answer. And it certainly doesn’t point to neat solutions delivered upfront.

What it does point to is the value of fundamentals. Decisions grounded in evidence, context and an understanding of how people actually behave, not how dashboards suggest they should.

If you’re heading into the new year with questions, or with the sense that your current approach feels fragmented, that’s entirely reasonable.

You don’t need answers on day one. You just need a place to start.

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Digital marketing predictions for 2026. 15 min read