Kapow – it’s July 2025, we’re past the mid-point of the year and we are rolling into Black Friday and Christmas planning. When it comes to social commerce, the UK is just getting started. So far, it’s estimated social commerce will be worth £16 billion by 2028, in just the UK. Wowzers. And the platforms are gearing it for it already.
Here’s what we’re in the know about, that will be affecting your brand’s ad performance now.
Meta – 2025 Changes
- Meta is putting greater emphasis on Reels and original voices, they want to support authentic, helpful and ethical content as much as possible
- Audiences based on website visitors will no longer be permitted for optimisation
- AI – naturally a huge trend this year – Meta since May 2025, are using all public posts (unless the individual or business has opted out) to train its AI models
- There’s been a removal of fact-checkers in the US – this means that there are now huge concerns about a potential increase in misinformation and harmful content
- Instagram Teen Accounts – new features are just being rolled out
Google – Major Updates for Google Ads in 2025
- Cross Channel Measurement! And this even covers Snapchat and TikTok, as well as Google AND email, social media, paid search, website activity, TV, radio and print ads.
- Google Tag Gateway – allows a user to upgrade tags without requiring any retagging. Formerly this was called First Party Mode.
- Ads within AI Overview and AI Mode – has only been launched so far (as of July 7th, 2025) In the US in English on mobile and desktop devices and will expand to all English speaking countries soon. The best practice for this is to match your Ad against the user’s query and AI overview context to position your business as the immediate next step.
Amazon’s Demand-Side Platform Push
Amazon is pushing its demand-side platform – this programmatic advertising tool allows advertisers to purchase ad space including display and video ads across all Amazon sites (Prime, Amazon.com and Twitch) as well as third party sites. They’re leveraging their first-party shopper data to enable detailed campaign strategy and boosting the ability to advertise across everything they own.
- Shoppable video ads – for influencers to help them build their revenue on the platform. The video ads can be placed on the influencer’s page, on the product page and in other ‘high traffic areas’ of the website.
TikTok is growing up big time
It now has Search Ads, in-video product tagging and a ‘Shop’ tab, some are saying it’s a one-stop shopping engine! It’s also utilising AI to help out the creators and influencers, with their ‘Creator Tools’ their AI platform is suggesting hooks, captions and edits that align with what’s trending.
What You Need to do Now for Your Brand
- Utilise the tools and bigger picture – you have Amazon, Google and Meta fighting for your spending power – Google naturally leading the way with their technological advantage, followed by Amazon, Meta and TikTok. Depending on the type of lifestyle brand you are will dictate how to spread your budget but your PPC agency will be up-to-speed on the developments listed here. Go check your campaigns, improve the feedback loop with your PPC agency with provide more intel about what you know your customers are doing, viewing, clicking on and buying.
- Stay nimble, keep on your toes – definitely video is the way to go, but objectively look at your creative, does it stand out enough? Keep pushing the brand guidelines, keep surprising your customers.
- Eyes on the prize – with our clients, the ‘goal’ needs to reflect the actual goal you want to achieve for your brand, if it’s a phone call- is it measured properly? If it’s a booking – is that being captured? Or is it a purchase? Impressions don’t seal the deal.
