Smart & Bold Insights

What’s Performing in Digital Paid Media

Written by Kathryn Mahr Dollar | August 11, 2025

5 Trends Shaping Today’s Digital Paid Landscape 

Curious about what’s truly driving results in digital paid media right now? 

We’ve gathered our latest insights and observations to reveal 5 trends we’ve noticed are currently shaping digital paid media. Take a look at what’s working and consider how your financial institution might adjust its strategy to leverage these trends.

5 Trends in Digital Paid Media

1. Shorter Videos
Hook your viewers in less than 10 seconds on video platforms like MetaTM, YouTubeTM, and TikTok®. With the ever-increasing competition for ad space and content creation, plus shortening attention spans of users, the quicker you can deliver your message, the stronger your ad performance will be.  


2. First-Party Data
As privacy regulations get stronger and third-party cookies go away, it’s increasingly more important to provide ad platforms with your own data to help your campaigns optimize more quickly. Supplying your campaigns with first-party data right away helps shorten the learning phase needed to build a strong audience, because we already have one that the platform can build upon, rather than starting from scratch. 


3. Audience-Driven Messaging
With more and more content being delivered, it’s increasingly important to deliver tailored messaging to your specific audiences, ensuring your ads aren’t getting lost in the noise. Messages speaking to younger audiences should be on trend with a fun, casual tone, and interactive visuals. If you’re trying to reach an older, more mature audience, you’ll instead want to be more formal and direct, focusing on the facts and the quality you can provide.


4. Shifting Search Engines
Users are shifting to use social media and AI-driven tools for their search content, rather than relying solely on traditional Google and Bing. On top of this change, the popularity of AI within search engines has altered the way that results are displayed, bumping organic content down on the page. This makes it even more crucial to employ a multi-channel approach in your digital advertising, ensuring you reach your customers through SEM and multiple social media platforms.


5. Be Relatable 
Customers are swayed by their peers and the people around them. As we increase our interactions with strangers online, we become more likely to trust and be influenced by those people we see online. Using content in your digital ads that utilizes influencers, real people, and relatable stories will drive performance and help you to build a strong brand that people trust.

 

Want to see more digital paid media insights like this? Let us know!