Marketers face scrutiny over their operations as the third-party demise takes a stronger foothold in the digital ecosystem. A study by Gartner reveals five trends that will catch-on in the next few years.

By the year 2025, organizations that use AI in the marketing function will shift 75% of their operations from production to analytics.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, organizations that use AI across the marketing function will shift 75% of their staff’s operations from production to more strategic activities. Using AI in marketing operations will reduce friction and eliminate redundancy, allowing marketers to shift their budgets and resources to activities that support a more dynamic marketing organization.

For example, marketers can leverage AI in the creative process to automate the capturing, processing, and analyzing of real-world images and videos, improving image quality and developing digital twins.

AI will continue to refine marketing operations processes to drive more agile, data-based responses to the challenges ahead that have no signs of slowing down.

Marketing as a role will evolve to combat misinformation

Gartner predicts that by 2027, 80% of enterprise marketers will establish a dedicated content authenticity function to combat misinformation and fake material. The volume of generative AI and user-generated content (UGC), and the unpredictable nature of today’s digital content ecosystem pose a challenge.   

Marketing will redeploy a portion of their media budget to product placement

Gartner predicts that by 2024, 70% of brands will redeploy at least 10% of their media budget to product placement in entertainment content. The reality is, consumers have advertisement fatigue and those with means that can afford to opt out of ads, do so.

Marketing will establish a loyalty program to retain high-priority customers

Gartner predicts that one in three businesses without a loyalty program today will establish one by 2027 to shore up first-party data collection and retain high-priority customers. Loyalty programs are an effective strategy to reward customers and collect critical data for personalization and enhancing customer experiences.   

Marketing will be accountable for ethical AI

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of enterprise CMOs will identify accountability for ethical AI in marketing among their top concerns. Privacy-related restrictions on data collection, economic pressures, and AI breakthroughs are driving marketing teams to rely more heavily on AI and machine learning to optimize campaign performance and lower costs.  

In the absence of third-party cookies, strong content will become even more critical. Offering engaging and high-quality content builds credibility with users and increases the likelihood that they will share additional data, so it’s worth getting it right from the get-go. Strong content gives you control before it reaches the channel you’re utilizing. Whether it’s written, audio, or video content, content sharing augments your stockpile of first-party data.

Ultimately, content experience is what enables customers to find what they are  seeking—somewhat like a store map. And timing is key. When you invest in creating content that’s relevant to the context, especially in relation to where customers are in their journey, and send it immediately—you’re increasing the likelihood that personalization happens in real-time when customers need it most.