7 Killer Digital Marketing Predictions for 2025 (And They’re NOT Just AI!) Part - 2

Summary

Perpetual Traffic Podcast Episode Summary Episode: 7 Killer Digital Marketing Predictions for 2025 (And They’re NOT Just AI!) Part - 2
Release Date: January 3, 2025
Hosts: Ralph Burns & Lauren E. Petrullo

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Introduction

In this episode of Perpetual Traffic, hosts Ralph Burns and Lauren E. Petrullo delve into their insights and predictions for the digital marketing landscape in 2025. Drawing from their extensive experience managing over $200 million annually in ad spend, they identify key trends shaping the future of marketing beyond the ubiquitous influence of AI.

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1. Search is Everywhere, Not Just Google

[06:15] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Search isn't just Google; it's on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and even within connected TVs."

Key Points:

• Diverse Search Platforms: The traditional dominance of Google is waning as users, especially younger demographics, turn to alternatives like YouTube and TikTok for search queries.
• Voice Search Integration: With the rise of smart homes and voice-activated devices, searches are increasingly conducted through voice commands across various devices, not limited to smartphones.
• Social Media as Search Engines: Platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are evolving into comprehensive search tools, enabling users to find products and services directly within the app environment.

Notable Quote:
[07:12] Ralph Burns:
"Search is everywhere now. It's blurred the lines between Google and the search engines because that's where especially the younger demographic is heading."

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2. Data and Privacy: Embracing Zero-Party Data

[15:27] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Zero-party data is going to be a big one this coming year. Capturing first-party data is essential as more data becomes obfuscated."

Key Points:

• Rise of Zero-Party Data: As privacy laws tighten, marketers will increasingly rely on zero-party data—information that customers voluntarily share—through polls, surveys, and interactive ads.
• Data Ownership and Utilization: Emphasizing the importance of owning first-party data to enhance ad optimization, reporting, and personalized marketing efforts.
• CRM Enrichment: Enriching existing customer data beyond basic contact information to include detailed insights that drive more effective marketing strategies.

Notable Quote:
[17:01] Ralph Burns:
"If you're collecting this data, like my word of caution is if you're collecting all this data, you're enhancing enriching your customers profile and you do nothing with it. What was the point?"

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3. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Transformation

[24:07] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Augmented reality and virtual reality are becoming essential tools in the shopping experience, making it easier and more engaging for consumers."

Key Points:

• Virtual Try-Ons: Brands like Sephora and Warby Parker are leading the charge with virtual try-on features, allowing customers to experience products digitally before purchasing.
• Accessibility for SMBs: Initially expensive, AR and VR technologies are becoming more cost-effective, enabling small to midsize businesses to adopt these tools and enhance their customer experiences.
• Personalized In-Store Experiences: Integrating AR and VR to offer personalized shopping assistants and interactive experiences that cater to individual customer preferences.

Notable Quote:
[26:12] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Virtual try-ons are insane. They're a game changer because they make the buying experience that much easier."

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4. In-App and Live Shopping Expansion

[40:24] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Live shopping is like QVC on social media platforms. It's set to become a prominent trend, especially on platforms like Instagram and TikTok."

Key Points:

• Seamless Shopping Integration: Social media platforms are enhancing their in-app shopping capabilities, making it easier for users to purchase products directly from their feeds.
• Live Shopping Events: Emulating the success of live shopping in Asia, live Q&A sessions and real-time purchasing opportunities will drive engagement and sales.
• Enhanced User Experience: Utilizing AI to personalize live shopping events, offering tailored recommendations and interactive experiences that resonate with viewers.

Notable Quote:
[41:29] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Live shopping is going to become a job—a prominent job—in 2025. You're going to show the stores, go live on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and sell products in real-time."

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Conclusion

Ralph and Lauren wrap up the episode by reiterating the importance of staying ahead of these emerging trends to maintain a competitive edge in digital marketing. They emphasize that while not all predictions may fully materialize by 2025, the outlined trends are crucial for marketers to monitor and integrate into their strategies.

Final Thoughts:
[43:29] Lauren E. Petrullo:
"Overall, everything we're talking about here is enabled by AI, algorithms, and data. These trends are coming, and you need to watch out for them and plan for 2025."

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Additional Resources:
For more insights and to explore the tools mentioned in this episode, visit PerpetualTraffic.com and subscribe to their YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

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[Lauren E. Petrulo]

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[Ralph Burns]

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[Lauren E. Petrulo]

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[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Hello, and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, the founder and CEO of Tier 11, alongside.

My awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrullo, founder of Mongoose Media.

That's right. So today we'd like to go through what we've thought about and learn in 2024, but also we really want to give you an idea of what we think is going to happen in 2025. So 2025 is based upon the experience that we've had in 2024. So it's a little bit of a retrospective to a certain degree, but it's also what do we feel is coming on down the line? So everybody does their projections and you can AI your projections on Google and find out what Gemini thinks. But I just actually did it and they're really crappy. So we're going to use the ones that we actually thought up because we just think stuff up. And we're also seeing a lot. We're doing like over $200 million a year right now in spend. Like, we're doing so much in advertising. So it's like, we see a lot, we understand a lot. So as a result of that, I think we're in a fairly good position to be able to say, hey, these are the predictions, because these are the trends that we're starting to see rise. And that's the beauty of doing the show every single week, is that this is actual stuff that works.

You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

All right, so the next one is C. Not just on Google anymore. Now, obviously, like, for the SEOs that are out there, we are not SEOs. We outsource that stuff. So how you actually SEO the keywords that you're trying to optimize for in the AI environment right now with the ChatGPT, like the, you know, the. Well, it's Google obviously is the auto generated AI answer to your question, which I am finding very, very useful by the way. However, for this episode, it was completely useless. But the point is, because I just wanted to see what AI would actually generate digital marketing trends for 2025. And it was just a bot, it was just a bunch of gobbledygook. But anyway, my point is like we've had TikTok on here. We've talked to Meta plenty of times. We actually, we talked to Shopify. Like so much of where a lot of the platforms are going, just in general, especially on the ad platforms. Meta. I mean the meta AI tool for search is really good. I don't know how much you've used it. Tik Tok obviously is tremendous. You know, we have the final show of them just coming up in a week or so.

I think like next week.

Next week. The point is, is like the new search is not necessarily Google. And especially if you're going after the younger demographic and if you've been resisting this and if you have kids, watch how they use these platforms. They do not Google anymore. They don't. I mean they do occasionally. If they do, it's like it's a Haystack.

They use YouTube. Their Google is.

Their Google is YouTube. Their Google is TikTok. Their Google is Snapchat to a certain degree. It's all these other platforms. So search is everywhere now. It's, it's blurred the lines between Google and the search engines because that's where especially the younger demographic and I see that sort of bleeding into the older demographics. And I'm talking about like under 25, like Gen Z going into like the Millennials and then above. I see that as a huge trend in 2025. Agree, disagree.

I agree. And I, yes. And you, because you mentioned it, touched it briefly, which was on voice search. I think that we have integrated smart homes. So you're not just asking your phone anymore. You could be asking your dishwasher, dish related, kitchen related searching type of things. You're talking into your remote for your TV, right? I, I don't, I don't type on YouTube on my remote anymore. I've become so voice searched total when it relates to. So I would just say you say search isn't just Google, it's everywhere. I'm saying yes. And it's on additional devices so that the search is not going to be exclusive to texting. Yeah, it's going to be a lot more voice dependent. And then you go into those extremes of ages. The older generation and the most youngest generation are more voice search dependent than those in between. And so for me, with the older demographic constantly growing and the younger demographic constantly replenishing, I think that like with the younger demographic being so much more voice search dependent, that's going to continue. I don't see it as such as strong in 2025 as I do in the next two to three years. But yeah, search isn't just Google, it's. I agree with you a thousand percent. And when you talked about the search within the social apps, I think that's a further extension of the apps growing beyond what they're trying to do. And the only way that they're going to compete against emerging social media tools is by becoming their own ecosystem in and of itself.

So I, I have seen this firsthand and the, the, my, my kids who are in their 20s, like using Instagram as a search tool, it's not just like trying to find other channels per se. Like when I search on Instagram, I'm finding other, you know, I'm finding other content. Not necessarily looking for answers, they're using it to find answers to stuff which I find fascinating. And like TikTok is all about that. You bring up a really good point. On connected tv, it's like this in combination with voice search, like search is become like so integrated into what we're doing. Like, I can't remember the last time I searched on my connected TV when I'm watching YouTube where I actually typed in like, you know, the A and then got out the, the keyboard. It's always like the voice thing. It's like that's how we all searched out.

That's T9. For those that are old enough to know what T9 is where you had to like send. You had to click the three button four times to get to the E.

Or whatever it means.

Yeah, that like going on A on a remote to like or even like.

A game where you had to like your two was like, you had to click it three times to get the A, B, C. Do you remember that?

Yeah, yeah.

Or was that the, was that the two? No, that was, I'm sorry, that was the one and then two is like, was it.

I feel like, why whatever. The point is that like people now that they're going to be like, what do you mean you're using a remote to spell out on a keyboard? And go, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Like, that's obnoxious. You just do it with AI and like, now we have a full keyboard, you use it with your thumbs. So I think the smart devices, I would just say one more piece of even expansion, which I haven't seen. But you talking about how, like, search is so dependent within meta using Instagram. I mean, when I travel somewhere, I'm only using Instagram to find local services. Like, I literally don't use Google. I'm like, okay, if I'm going to get a hair and makeup done, if I'm going to do a photo shoot somewhere, I'm only looking on Instagram because I know Google is littered with ads and it's overstocked. And I know a lot of the best personal services or like local businesses have terrible Google results. So I'm going on Instagram because they're going to be more prolific there. But I think what is going to creep up is greater instances of games. So Minecraft, I think Minecraft and Roblox will expand to have their own search categories because they're just becoming these ecosystems. So I think gaming in general, meta's done a lot in the gaming space that they haven't talked a lot about in the past few years. I think just like with what Twitch is doing, I think some of these gaming platforms are going to emerge by the end of 2025 as channels in which you can advertise on and channels in which will be used for decentralized search engines.

It's interesting stuff. Yeah, we. I just think that, you know, when you're looking for answers now, it's not necessarily. It's not a Google search. It could be, hey, Google. It could be hey, Siri. Like, I use hey Siri all the time. Although on my phone, hey Siri really isn't that great. But on the 16, like the. My. One of my kids just got the 16. I was like, oh, my God, it's so good. So.

And I bet you it's the worst. It's going to be like, I think we're going to look a year from now and just be like, I can't believe we settled.

Yeah.

For the level of Siri and Alexa and every other. Maybe there's going to be a guy. Maybe there's going to be like a Jose that's going to come out and.

Be like, okay, Jose needs to take over the market.

Enough with these. Exactly.

[Ralph Burns]

Other people.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah. This is fun. And the way it's evolving 100%, it's integrated in across all your Apple devices. And so I think when it becomes the intersection of other devices, like I always I want to find out who convinced TV remotes to add the Netflix and Prime video buttons and YouTube buttons to remotes. I want to meet that person. Yeah, that's pretty sick because like what's the next iteration? Is it like adding your Alexa, adding your Siri to your smart TV devices so that you also have that directly on the remote? Where can you have that? Marketing, brand representation and non traditional devices that have that connection? So it's like will Siri be added to TV remotes?

Well, I sort of feel like maybe it already has to a certain degree. It's like on my Netflix. I me, what was it the other day? I mentioned some show in my phone and then all of a sudden as soon as I went on Netflix and it wasn't like a new movie, I forget which one it was now, but it showed up as stuff you might like. It was like the first one.

I'm assuming it's 50 shades of gray.

It was 50 shades of gray, of course. Like you know, you know me and Jim, you know how we roll. The point is it's like all of it is everyone's like, oh yeah, my device is listening. It's like, well yeah, your device is listening or Meta is listening or Netflix is listening. Like they're not technically listening, they're just buying the data from the company that is listening. When you ask Meadow, like are you listening on my phone? They're going to say no every single time. But the point is they're not.

But they're accessing the data.

They're accessing the data.

That is because it's fair play. So that's again that 2025. My prediction is like ethical behavior from both AI generated stuff and data related stuff I think is going to become a bigger. But I also believe that's related to the new presidential power that's coming in.

That is true. That's why it didn't make my list because I'm not sure how much regulation is actually going to happen. However, even Sam Altman is pro governmental intervention because he knows it's coming, he might as well get ahead of it, right? Yeah, 100% question is if he who shall not be Named is advised by Elon Musk and whether Elon Musk does it, we're not really sure at this point. So anyway, moving along the next step, we actually do have data and privacy. Maybe that's like the next one we should Talk about here. So I think data and privacy, I think zero party data is going to be a big one this coming year. I think obviously capturing first party data you have to get good data and more and more data is going to be obfuscated in 2025. 100% said this a couple times on the show. 42% of Americans are covered by some sort of privacy law right now. That will increase probably double to 60 to 70, maybe even 80%.

Oh yeah, that's a prediction.

That is all that is coming. There is no question about it. So I think that unto itself is a trend. However, what are you going to do about your data? So not to get into a sales pitch, we just so happen to have a solution for that which ends around that. Because it's first party data, we capture the first party data. As long as it's first party data, you're capturing it but you're not getting it from another source. We then use it and then own it. And as a result of that it is first party data. So it can be used for optimization of ads, it can be used for reporting, it can be used for all the things that are being obfuscated right now and lifting the veil on all those unknowns and all the direct and unattributed traffic. The point is you need a solution for that in 2025. And how are you going to do it? You can do it. We got tier 11 data suite which is fine, but what do people do? Your I think your solution is, and we've done a lot of shows on this is zero party data, which basically means they're entering their data and then you're owning it. And through polls, through surveys, through quizzes, through Legion ads, through all of that stuff like that I think is a key way post purchase surveys as well. Like if you're getting blocked, you know, at the origin server and there's not much you can do about it at the browser level, what are you going to do to capture that data so that it is yours? We refer to that as zero party data. I see that as something that's big on the rise in 2025. Agree, disagree.

I agree 100%. You know how I feel about leads being horseshit and I don't want dumpster trash leads wasting time in my CRM. So I think the enrichment of existing data is critical. I think were well past the day of name, number, email. Is it good enough of a lead? Like no, I need to know your astrological sign, right? I need to know your birthday. I need to know your mother's trauma that she's gone through essentially. Like I think that zero party data, I agree, is so critical and I think there's just going to be CRM enrichment as a category. I think there are going to be consultants that are going to come out specifically, specifically on this as like a whole new category of where are there identified opportunities in which you can capture more first party data to your existing people? Because you're not going after new anymore, you're going after current. And of those current, how are they going to get you new? So you're going to like force your first party 0 party individuals to become your advocates in a more robust way. The caution I have is that oh.

So you're saying, let me just make sure I understand is that you're saying the more, more data that you capture in order to get the good lead that has five or six or seven pieces of information, maybe three or four depending on what it is, then you're feeding that back to the algorithm to find more people that will actually give you that zero party data. Is that how I'm interpreting it or no?

Yes. And because the way you feed data back into the algorithm I think is something that 99% of accounts are doing wrong. But I think it's also that like your existing base of customers and prospects are going to become your advocates for your brand or service. So I think where the personalized messaging is going to come into really play like I, I put that as its own category in 2025. Because if you're collecting this data, like my word of caution is if you're collecting all this data, you're enhancing enriching your customers profile and you do nothing with it. What was the point? Oh my gosh, you just wasted your time and their time and now I don't like you. It's like you ghosted me. Is the equivalent I would equate that to you ask me for my birthday and then you don't send me a birthday message. Rude. You ask me what's my perfectly rude of you? Well, I mean my birthday is just around the corner Ralph, so I'm expecting free Chick Fil, a free Dunkin Donuts. I want all of the businesses that I have given money to to send me a birthday message with a free item or I will be like how.

Do you don't expect anything from me. I'm not very good with birthday gifts. But anyway, you are a gift. Oh right.

Being your co host is the birthday gift.

You know, every week it's like we're just gifting each other. Re. Gifting? No, I don't know. Yeah, absolutely. I, I think the zero party data is super important, but if you do nothing with it, like what are you thinking?

It's what a waste. But I do expect in 2025 more companies to come up of like, like email marketers, lifecycle marketing. It's not gonna be about sending the email, it's gonna be enriching the profile. And what are you getting from the email? It's not a, I'm gonna send this to you and hope something happens. I'm gonna extend this to you and I demand this expectation back or I'm going to delist you as a qualified lead. But I think there's gonna be companies that are gonna become more available to getting that first, like in email so that you can send surveys, send quizzes, not just on socials, but omnichannel, and then have it all fed back into it. So I think there's going to be greater enrichments of your current advertising efforts. I imagine that Facebook and Google Ads will have more interactive components to it. Where my assumption is within Q2, Q3, Meta is going to have a component of your ad which is like, hey, you haven't converted yet, but do you want to keep seeing more stuff? They're going to be waterfalling out content. Like imagine you, you have a, a company like Perpetual Traffic that has a new podcast episode every week and you're having people subscribe to your ads where it's like, I want to see in my newsfeed every new piece of content. New, new to cap on frequency. New piece of content. Like, yeah, I want to see it. And here's the frequency in which I want to subscribe to it. I think that that's going to happen as well for that continued enrichment of that zero party data or first party.

Data, a related and sort of overarching theme. And what we're talking about in this trend here is really as personalization in a lot of ways. Like it's like this is how you. All right, so it's related to, okay, privacy. There's going to be more privacy issues. There's going to be, you know, the cookie degradation is an issue, ad blockers are an issue. ATT prompts, all this privacy stuff, you know, new compliance regulations coming on down the line. That's all well and good. However, if you personalize your marketing by actually capturing first party data, you're actually making yourself into a better marketer as a result of something that you might be fearful of. So in a way, it's kind of a blessing.

Yeah, it's. I mean, for you especially, because you guys have your data set, which is amazing. And like, every brand needs a database solution for sure, and there really are very few products out there. I'm biased because I've seen and I've heard more about your product than anyone else's and I've looked at other ones, but I think there's also, like, the opportunity to have that personalization. Leveraging the data is much more simple than has been in years past because of AI, and I think will become even simpler as AI agents and AI assistants become more and more advanced and robust.

You can, you can personalize it, but also you can aggregate it and separate it and analyze and then create different buckets of avatar using AI from that data. Because if you're just capturing it, doing nothing with it doesn't really help you all that much.

Imagine a world where you send out a blast email marketing campaign. Let's say I'm like, what's near me? And you sell. No, I can't lift that up. You sell fancy patents and markers, right? Whiteboard eraser markers. And then you have 200 replies. You have an AI assistant that's engaging in these people left and right. And then at the end of your day, of the 200 conversations that have gone back and forth, an AI assistant then sends you a report. The common themes of all 200 messages today were aligned on this 10% of which brought up the upcoming New Year's Eve or New Year's day celebrations. Or 10% talked about how they're actually looking forward to Persian New Year or Lunar New Year. I would recommend that we tag those people and send them more personalized Lunar and Persian or Thai New Year greetings on those dates, because that came up in the conversations. Do you approve, owner? Your answer is yes. Then the AI can go back in as an AI agent and then do the appropriate tagging, draft up an email to send automatically based off of those conversations.

That's awesome. So the next one I feel agree or disagree is the rise of even more AR and VR, augmented reality, virtual reality. We're starting to see it already. We're seeing it in, like, the Home Depot app, for crying out loud. If Home Depot is doing it, then everybody's doing it. Well, everybody should be doing it or at least thinking about doing it. I've seen it with Sephora, I've seen it with Ikea. We have customer who I can't say is in the health and beauty niche is starting to do it. Looking at VR tools like this is really cool stuff. Like look at some of Sephora's ads. Like we should probably leave some links in the show notes for them. Virtual try ons, like how cool is that? Like I'm, I'm amazed at. I've never been, I had never been into Sephora until I think a year ago when we were shopping for my niece like 13, 14 year old and I was like, oh my God, this is like the best checkout line I've ever seen. Because I'm standing in line and there's all these, you know, like teeny preteen like teenage girls all around and they're all just like grabbing all the little samples and just like oh my God, this one's only like 79 cents. This one I'm like that's your free sample baby. That's like that looks good on you. That lipstick, that makeup, whatever it is, that blush. I don't even know anything about makeup. The point is it's like oh my God, this is such a great model and a buddy of mine through one of these CEO groups that I belong to, he builds all the Sephora's nationwide. He says, okay, we are backlogged for like the next five years because Sephora has just taken off. But if they get you in with like the low price, sample it in line as you're checking out, the prices are good and then they have this online, you know. Virtual try on or virtual? Yeah, I think that's virtual try on.

Yeah, it's virtual try on.

It's insane. Warby Parker did this first. I think they're the first ones I ever saw that did this with glasses like the virtual try on. But I see that not just being the stuff of the multi billion dollar corporations but that becoming more and available to the small to midsize business. And it's a game changer because it's like it makes the buying experience that much easier.

Granted I was a part of a meta committee for global innovations and emerging technologies where we got to do a lot of this and I there was like seven of us in the US 14 total internationally, like so seven us, seven abroad where I got to meet like innovators, game changers in that space and for sure like we I was looking at it for Asian beauty essentials to see if we could bring it in and it was just such an expensive investment to do the try on because you do the mapping. I was at an E commerce conference in Milan Last year talking to many other representatives of what they're looking at to do the try on. Those investments generally start at $300,000. So it's not something a lot of small and medium sized businesses can invest in. So I agree with you that that's going to become more and more cost effective. But I think it's also going to become an expectation. It's going to be like, oh wait, what? I, I can't try it. How am I supposed to trust and know if this is going to work for me? I think the augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality space is going to have a lot more traction because I think consumers are going to demand experiential shopping. But when you were telling me about Sephora, I was like imagining a world where you walk in and based on the permissions you provide your phone and then based off of imagine like a company that creates these two bots that can pick up your logins and it like identifies you as a user when you walk through with your phone device. If you give Sephora that permission, then imagine you walk in and then Sephora has a personalized shopping assistant that looks at the last 25,000. No, let's not, that's too much. Let's look at the last 250 influencers videos you watched, makeup tutorials and on YouTube, those channels and then creates a shopping list for you that says like, hey, you looked at J'adore beauty. Hey, you looked at Asian beauty essentials. Hey, you were like the content that you've watched. I've now analyzed all the content you've consumed that you've given positive triggers for. Here's a personalized list and actually I can help walk you through the store. Here's a map and you can go check it. We have three available. So you by walking into the store, you can now have a conversation with a personalized attendant that is then saying, hey, add a person that says, would you like interaction? Because I think we're gonna have more and more introverts because we've lost that like blockbuster conversation type of stuff. So people are going to be like, I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to shop. I want to pick up. I'm going to bring the friends that I trust. But I'll have an app available to me where it's like, please bring me a personal person. I am opting in to be talked to versus what happens at like the Macy's of the world. We're instantly harassed with perfume. Try this perfume.

You're like so you're saying like taking the ad world experience, like this is basically what happens on TikTok and Instagram and everything else. Like as soon as you, you know, we all know this about the algorithms. You're saying taking that out of the ad platform, you know, or the social platform world and creating that you walk into the doors physical world.

Yeah, that's the permission based marketing that's going to happen versus like, like you're like, oh, I'm on the app, I don't want to see the ads. But like I'm not paying for the account. What's like I'm in the store, I don't want to see the ads. But it's going to be a hidden, it's going to be subterfuge because it leveraging all the data. If you have Instagram open in the background on your app, that's fair play. So whatever devices can pick up and consume all of the data that's being fed through the air and all the electronics like wear your tinfoil hats, John Moran. Like that stuff is going to be super available and that you're going to want it because it's relevant. I want Sephora to know which influencers, which videos I'm watching because then they'll know what I want to buy. I just watched this video. Don't have me figure out how to pronounce Charlotte Tilbury. Have me try to mispronounce a Japanese brand you already know. Take my data, give me what I want faster for a more relevant experience and then you can have the opportunity. Like how Netflix or even like YouTube right now is giving you a for you page, a discovery page. You get to have the discovery. But people aren't going to discover new brands until they found first what they're looking for. And if I can find what I'm looking for faster, I'm going to be open to trying something against it. Versus I've already spent an hour in the store. I, I don't want to spend any more time.

So more efficient offline shopping as a result of using data that you've already fed into, you know, social platforms.

Yeah. For an experience which will get me to not shop online. In order to shop online, I'm going to demand a mixed reality, virtual reality, augmented reality situation. As you said, try them before you buy. Because I'm pale. You are a color that looks good on me does not look good on my melatonin friends. Like there's this one specific color that we have, it's called cocoa Nude. You Want to know what I look like if I were to have anemia?

Cocoa, nude.

Try this on Coco. I have like, oh my gosh. I have a friend from Guyana, she puts it on and she looks like a superstar, like a thousand percent. I'm like, why does this look good? I was like, I know because I am pale af. So regardless, I think online experience is going to demand that component and I think in store experiences can demand experiential on both sides. It's an experiential multi device environment that's going to adapt to how consumers are anyways. We're wearing technology. I've got the whoop on. People also wear Oura rings. We're what, one to four years away from contacts replacing smartphones. Like there's just so much wearable technology.

That it's just a matter of time.

It's going to be yeah, but I think big brands are going to be able to afford it and that it's going to make the smaller like the, the stuff that's been around for five years. The try before you buy stuff is going to become more available to small and mid markets while the bigger brands are going to invest heavily into the stuff that's not obtained.

So as you're walking into a Sephora you get geofenced in essence, but you've given permission to be geofenced, which is basically a trigger, like a local trigger that then activates some kind of notification which then would trigger somebody in the store to come to you as a personal shopper or whatever.

Maybe you have to have the Sephora app that maybe like you said that 42% you think that more people are going to be protected. I agree, more people are going to become protected. But I think there's going to be actually a lot more data available. I think that by the end of the year people are going to have access to more data than they do now, despite the laws contradicting it. I just think there's going to be better ways to leverage and legally get what they need. But imagine if you go into Chick Fil A and you have the Chick Fil A app. If you have the Chick Fil A app on your phone, it lights up the triggers or you have an app match. Yeah, right. So I go in. They already know how many times I visited. I don't have to scan a receipt, I don't have to do anything. I'm already there. And the closest I can make it akin to is if you've been at Disney and you have worn the magic bands by wearing the Magic Band and physically being in the park, you have then given permission that any ride you are on, if you. If they take a picture, it's automatically sent to your device, which is then available on your. My Disney experience on the phone. So you don't have to carry a camera anymore. You don't need a camera because everywhere you go While wearing the MagicBand, all of the pictures are sending here, which then send to your phone. So that technology already exists in that capacity. And MagicBands have that technology was like, it won awards in 2014, but had existed for years before that. It's just Disney made it more popularized. So I can see that coming in the next year or two for bigger brands in a shopping experience. Sorry, I'm like, like making this all up because of you talking about Sephora. So if anyone finds this crazy, isn't.

It so funny how we're going to get on to the last one here in just a second? Isn't it so funny how people are so concerned with privacy or privacy is a big trigger, but people still want customized experiences or personalized experience. Like you don't, but you do. It's like, if you don't get it, then you feel like you're being ignored, but if you don't have. It's like everyone now knows. Hey, I'm watching all. Like, I was at my nieces yesterday. She just had a baby. She's like, my Instagram is full of baby stuff. I'm like, yeah. Like, she's in digital advertising. Like, she understands. She's like, it doesn't bother me, okay. She has a different worldview. She's not like, oh, my God, I can't believe Instagram is following me. It's like, well. And then I see all these things that I should be getting.

Yeah.

But then the flip side of it is, like, she's getting all this advice from a gazillion different people on how to raise her name, daughter who's like three months old. So there's that. So it's like there's one or the other. It's like you can't have it both ways. You're gonna have some things you don't want, but what do you give up in order to get what you really want, which is ultimately to have a more personalized experience, which is kind of what we're talking about here. Overall, is an overarching, not necessarily methodology, but an overall theme. And everything that we're talking about here. And it's all enabled by AI, algorithms, data. So yeah. Moving on to the last one. I think this is one which we've covered here a lot. Especially we're going to be covering this, I think, in our final episode with TikTok is shopping in apps. And I'm seeing this more and more. I don't see it quite as much because I don't shop on the apps. However, when my wife is scrolling, I'm like, you. You know that little dot that's on that dress that you see inside your Instagram feed? She's like, what's that? Like, click on it. It's like, oh, I knew that. Like, do you buy anything on that? She's like, yeah, all the time. But in app like TikTok, obviously, we've got TikTok shops, which we'll be talking about in just a few days here. Instagram, Facebook shops. I think that stuff is just. That is going to be a trend that's going to continue to move forward. I think it's taken a while to. To gain momentum because it's been hard to plug the feed in. There's been challenges with it. My sense is that meta understands and having been to what, three meta conferences this past year, they realized it's the next frontier and also solves a lot of the privacy issues in the ATT prompt stuff, especially on Apple devices.

When you own the ecosystem, you own.

The rules, you make the rules. Exactly.

Yeah. It's. You pay to play and by entering, like, it's your. Your ticket of admission. The cost of admission of using an app is then that you can supersede some of these other components.

Anything more to add on that we know. Are we just going to leave that for the TikTok folks when they come on?

Look, you know how much I love shop. I think it was like the second time I was ever on this. I was like, do you guys understand you can do Instagram shops? And at that time, it was like you could spend four minutes, set up your shop, and if you had it, it was like, we had a client, we spent four hours and they made $40,000 a month. That's all. It took four hours of work for them to start making $40,000 a month. Now more brands are getting to it. Like, it became a bigger deal during the pandemic. I just think that in app shops are just going to get even better because they've been around for so long. I think that, like, the elements of like, live shopping, I think true group couponing. So this is something that's big in Asia that I have yet to see anywhere in the US Live shopping I see happen all the time in the U.S. there's that one famous doyin influencer, which is TikTok. It's in China where she's like just passing stuff on. She's like five coordinated employees, where she's just trying stuff on and doing like tens of thousands of dollars of sales a second. But I think where shops are now, they're great for a seamless experience, but I don't think they're actually elevated experiences. So I think live shopping, live Q and A. Instagram did this really well where you could have filtered questions and answers on products. Amazon does this well where you can have pieces like, especially when you have like Amazon live influencers and the stuff that's coordinated to there. With Instagram, you can use product photos. Your shops aren't using the photos you took in a white box. They're using the photos from people that tagged your product so that it's a better integrated system. Because you want to see, oh, someone look, I'm wearing. Here's me in my cocoa nude. Don't wear it if you are pale and blonde, it will not look good on you unless you just happen to be the exception. I think we're in 2025. Those are going to become more natively adopted, but I think there's going to be more enhancements. And the group couponing component is after you have live shopping, you have live buying. So it requires live shopping first and more like paying attention to the moment. But imagine a world where it's like, hey, guys, I am going to sell you this can of San pellegrino. Normally it's 4.99. If you come up to me at the cart with four others, I'll give it to you for 2.99. Or maybe it's like if I can get 600 people to buy this in the next 30 seconds, count down, see the number of people buying it. I will cut the price in half and I will refund everyone 50% so that you then have cooperative buying power. And you're like, ralph, Ralph, oh my gosh. I am buying six cans of the San Pellegrino. You have to try it, please. It's going to be 50 off if you buy it with me now. So I am now recruiting other people so that I can get the savings while passing on what I would recommend to them. Anyways, I see that maybe entering at the end of 2024, but I think shops need to improve a little bit.

So for those who are listening who don't know what live shopping is, because I don't think we've ever talked about it. Here. We will put a link in the show notes. Your first episode on perpetual traffic, as you did, come on and talk about an app. Just to say that you do talk about this, like, two years ago. It was like almost two years ago. So what is live shopping for those who have never experienced it or don't know what it is?

It's like QVC but on social media. So, like, you watch people that are doing live events. Gary Vee is talking about it even more lately, so he's really strong on that. Like, if you have a retail store Monday through Thursday, you have no foot traffic. So what you then should change your store into is a content room. So if you have product, you now, then will. I think this is going to become a job, like a prominent job in 2025 is going to be like, to me, that's the new intern. Like, people are already hiring college kids to take social media content. No, no, no, no. This is the new position you're going to go in. You're going to show the stores. There's merchandising in your store where you're displaying all the products so it attracts people with foot traffic. Now there's going to be online merchandising, and instead of foot traffic, it's going to be live traffic. So you're going to go live on Instagram, go live on Facebook, go live on T, and you're going to be selling the products. And if you can add in a level of urgency where it's like, if you tune in, you'll have people that are going to do essentially Black Fridays every Friday. Because you're like, when we're live, say, mystery products, going to be something specific.

Like, you know, use coupon code IG25. You know, when you come into the.

Store, I think AIs make it faster that you won't have to do codes because, like, at least with AI assistance, if you use a code, if anyone that's listening to this has like a manychat or some sort of chat bot that they've built and they're using a code. Oh, my God, you caveman, you. That's so embarrassing. Every time I like, there are huge influencers. Vivian, too. I'm calling you out. You're rich. Bff. Her whole channel is set up on keyword dependencies. I'm like, oh, my God. It's like you're using Zach Morris's phone from Saved by the Bell like it's so much more modern so people won't have to use the coupon code. By essence of buying in app while live, you'll be able to apply across application discount. So your part, you won't have to do all these exercises. It'll be a more frictionless experience. But you'll be selling something if you add a sense of urgency to it. You can do anyone that buys like anyone that buys in this hour, I'm going to add an extra 12 pack of San Pellegrino into your order. I think it's just that shops are going to become pretty standard. Continue to grow, continue to be a competitor to Walmart and Amazon.com, but I think there's a demand that the experience get better because it's a little antiquated if I'm being honest. Right.

So it'll evolve over time but the growth of it will better. Yeah, I mean the uptick has not been, I think what the platforms have expected. So I just feel like there is going to be an increased push here in 2025. Very, very good insights. So just to recap here, searches everywhere, not just Google, even on your connected tv, you know, it's everywhere. Making sure that you are positioning yourself in the right way for that. Next, we talked about personalization data and some of the privacy issues that you need to do with zero party data. After that we hit on AR and VR and virtual try ons, vtos as they're called in the vernacular of today's kids.

Oh.

As well as in app and live shopping. I think we covered a lot of trends here. We'll have to see how we do at the end of 2025 and if we are right at all. But I think a lot of this is coming. If it doesn't come 100%. These are the trends that we're seeing right now and these are the trends that you got to watch out for and plan for 2025 for more change because nothing in this industry ever stays the same, now does it? Lauren E. Petrulo mba, which by the way, my kids are like, why does she put MBA in her LinkedIn all the time? Doesn't she? Yeah, she's smarter than you, dad. That's what they told me. They had a lot of time, you know, this past week as we were prepping for vacation. So anyway, they're out of school if.

They, if they were engaging with my LinkedIn content at all. And to anyone that's listening, that engages my LinkedIn content. One thank you too I have come to learn that anyone who's engaged, I just become flooded of their wall. Every time someone logs in and they' commented or liked something, it's just like Lauren's next post. Lauren's next post. I've been posting consistently five to six days a week that, like, friends are like, you're the only post I see.

You're everywhere in LinkedIn, that is. All right, well, we will leave links in the show notes here today. There's a lot of stuff. I got a long list of stuff that we're going to put in the show notes over@petpetual traffic.com Most importantly, we're going to find that YouTube video of you live on stage. You're gonna have to send that to it because I'm not gonna be able.

To find it somewhere for my birthday. People better be nice on those comments if you end up being nice if you don't.

Lauren E. Petrullo, mba Just tell me.

I'm funnier than Qasem. That's. That's the entire purpose of me signing up.

I forget who you talking. I forget who he was. Who was he?

It's still 2024. We can love and like him and all right.

In 25. Well, just completely forgive.

I don't know.

Yeah, of course. All links and show notes are over@petpetual traffic.com and make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel at perpetual traffic.com forward/YouTube. So, on behalf of my awesome co host, Lauren Epicullo, mba.

Well, if you're gonna do my full name, you have to do like blonde girl on computer emoji, Lauren E. Petrilo comma NBA.

There is. I know. We'll leave a link to that too.

Do you know why I do that? I know we're supposed to be wrapping the episode, but like, yeah, this is.

What people really want to know.

Yeah, it's the most important gift I could give anyone. Start your 2025. Put an emoji before your name. Do you know how much spam I get from LinkedIn and how many spam emails I get? Because people get my information from LinkedIn, they scrape it. Anytime I see someone's high blonde emoji in front of a computer or high, like, unidentifiable image, Lauren Petrulo. I'm like, oh, you didn't even take a moment to delete the emoji. Watch me delete your rear end.

That's right.

It has saved me so much time.

Yeah, that's pretty good actually. Blonde girl with computer emoji so you've got the pro. Is that a feature of the premium LinkedIn profile or.

No, no, I just. I just made it. My name. My name is Blonde Girl Emoji Lauren.

That's pretty good. I will say, I have been doing the premium LinkedIn and we get a lot of. We get a lot of link clicks direct from my post over to the tier 11 site. So that's a little bit of a hack there.

Can we do that as a future episode? Tell me more about your LinkedIn Premium experience, because I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to use that.

That's been pretty good. I mean, I think it's 25 bucks a month, which is actually a lot for just a couple of link clicks, but, you know, it is the business, so. And you get a couple of more things with it. But anyway, we'll talk about that in a future episode until.

Please do, because I want to know if it's.

Yeah, so far it is. I'm not canceling it. Plus, our social media team.

Oh, my gosh. That's the name of the next episode. LinkedIn Premium. Canceled.

Canceled, Question mark. All right, well, that is this week's show, so on behalf of my awesome co host, Lauren Petrulo, ciao, and happy New Year. Until next show. See ya.

You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.