
As we step into 2025, digital marketing is poised for transformative shifts. From the continued evolution of retail media and AI-powered search to the resurgence of marketing mix modelling (MMM) and the potential of a loyalty fuelled revolution, here’s a look at four key trends shaping the year ahead.
Will retail adtech be able to keep pace with advertiser demands?
MENA retail media budgets continue to increase at incredible rates, and with ballooning budgets come big expectations. The category has seen explosive growth in recent years and brand-side marketing teams are more sophisticated than ever and hungry for data depth.
From a marketplace perspective, Amazon has done a great job of elevating Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), making it more accessible for non-SQL users as well as developing bid strategies and expanding data lookbacks.
Positive feature expansion has also been seen with Talabat and Noon Minutes. However, advertiser appetites continue to crave more feature sophistication especially across quick commerce platforms. 2025 wishlists include advanced audience activation, smarter bidding, attribution (beyond sell-out), KPI expansion and deeper analytics
As client budget investment across retail media soars, platforms reinvesting in adtech will be vital for longevity of the media plan presence. With more feature sophistication, standardised metrics and clearer attribution models, a revitalised data-driven confidence will drive even bigger and bolder activity across the MENA retail media ecosystem. Fingers are crossed for retail ad platforms’ continued evolution in 2025.
Unlocking the first-party loyalty goldmine
Crafting loyalty program depth is something that has revolutionised how retailers are able to communicate with consumers. Privacy and consent changes mean that retailer first-party data is in high demand. Furthermore, if the volume is in the right place, it can offer lucrative monetisation opportunities. The tail end of 2024 saw both Alshaya and Landmark unlock retail data here in MENA.
Inspiration can be drawn from other markets with pioneers such as Kroger and Walmart in the US boasting approximately 85 million and 50 million loyalty members, respectively. UK-based Tesco, Boots and Sainsburys, each have about 20 million members. This data not only transformed their marketing efficiency but has also seen each entity spawn effective retail media agencies around this data, including Kroger Precision Marketing, Walmart Connect, Dunnhumby, Nectar360 and Boots Media Group.
For MENA data holders, emulating this success is the ultimate goal. Forging a path to a much deeper and more accessible first-party footprint across MENA is something that will deliver unmatched opportunities. Expect to see other significant data holders unleash their first-party data as the year unfolds.
Was it even a race? Google will hope ‘AI Overviews’ ends the debate
As Generative AI dominates how we build, gather and interact with knowledge, integrating this capability with the world’s most used window of information seems like a logical next step.
At Google I/O ‘23 it was announced to the world that search, as we know it, is poised for a major update. The update, labelled as ‘Search Generative Experience’
(SGE), aimed to lead with AI-powered search responses within the search engine paid results (SERP). Think Gemini, your friendly Google AI chatbot, woven into the very fabric of your search journey. I/O ‘24 saw Google rebrand this feature to ‘AI Overviews’, soft launching in the US to, let’s say, mixed reviews.
However, the launch and learn strategy continued with more than 100 countries added in October ’24 – although the MENA release is pending. Now backed by the recently released Gemini 2.0, Google’s ‘most capable AI model yet’, search is edging closer to drastic change.
The long-term effects on ad unit positioning and SEO rankings are yet to be seen, alongside the growing ‘zero-click’ phenomenon. One thing is certain: 2025 will be a pivotal year for search.
Will there be an MMM revolution?
Evolving privacy regulations and new complexities in consent-based data collection have led marketers to explore alternative data analysis approaches.
One resurgent alternative is marketing mix modelling (MMM). This statistical analysis technique has been around for decades. It was previously executed by only the most elite econometric analysts and literally took a year or longer to complete.
The complexity and cost made it a resource reserved only for industry giants. Switch to the present day, and MMM is experiencing something of a renaissance, predicted by many to play a significant role in 2025.
So why is MMM set for a comeback? Well, it’s privacy-compliant and not reliant on individual-level data. It provides a more holistic view of online and offline channel contribution including the synergies within. It tunes in to true short- and long-term incrementality across a wide range of KPIs.
Perhaps the most notable factor is that advances in tech and AI make it more cost-effective and faster than ever. With this resurgence, MMM is expected to be on more CMOs’ 2025 shopping lists. By Ryan Garner, Chief Activation Officer, Assembly MENA
By Ryan Garner, Chief Activation Officer, Assembly MENA