How 720+ Brand Leaders Will Get Ahead in 2025 [+ How to Join Them]

2025 is likely to be the most interesting year yet for marketing leadership. In the past year alone, you’ve had to navigate the rise of AI, changing consumer trends and tough economic times.

56% of CMOs in our recent survey say marketing has seen more change in the last three years than in the last 50. This means it’s time for marketers to prepare and adapt.

To help you create a strong and agile strategy for 2025, we surveyed more than 720 marketing executives about the biggest challenges, opportunities and trends ahead. We also got insight from top marketing managers. Let’s dive in.

The main trends of marketing leadership in 2025

1. Marketing leaders expect to face various obstacles related to data, rapid changes in the lives of their audiences and the integration of artificial intelligence as the biggest challenges in 2025.

Data collection is becoming more difficult as consumers become more concerned about protecting their privacy. Here are the specific obstacles from our survey:

• Almost 21% of marketing leaders say the main obstacle is reduced consumer trust in sharing personal information
• 18% say an increase in data privacy regulations
• 16% say poor data quality

Adopting a data-driven strategy in 2025 will require marketers to leverage tools and workflows that build trust and transparency around customer data.

Parimal Deshpande, senior director of product marketing at Adobe Expresssays: “These challenges are at the heart of marketers today. Adobe Express helps them navigate this landscape by providing tools built around licensed content, ensuring companies stay compliant and protecting creator IP.”

According to Deshpande, trust should also be kept in mind when it comes to the content marketers create. He says marketers need to create “authentic, standout content that resonates with audiences.”

“Additionally, by integrating with platforms like HubSpot, Adobe Express ensures marketers can work within trusted ecosystems to improve data quality and campaign effectiveness,” he says.

Thanks for the greeting, Deshpande!

Chad Sideris, director of marketing technology and lead acquisition at Triage Staffinghe says these data issues are absolutely a hurdle facing his field. He explains:

“Now more than ever, there is pressure to deliver value up front through tools, processes and workflows with low barriers to entry to build trust and reassure the end user that the information shared with us will be used to improve their experience and accelerate their customer journey — not just as a way to fill their inbox with vaguely relevant promotional messages for a category they’re not even eligible for.”

2. Offering personalized customer experiences will remain key in 2025, but 17% of marketers say the rapidly changing lives of audiences present a challenge for personalization.

Our research shows that 89.64% of marketing managers have somewhat or highly personalized experiences, and 85.77% agree that personalization moderately or significantly increases sales.

However, we’ve found that the primary challenge in creating personalized content and experiences is keeping up with ever-changing consumer preferences and behaviors.

So what can marketers do to solve this problem? Of course, I’m never one to present problems without offering solutions. As we enter 2025, remember that personalization isn’t just a way to make your brand stand out; it is now a basic expectation.

Instead, marketers will take advantage of more sophisticated and dynamic strategies that are flexible and adaptable to changing consumer needs. Sarah Howard, VP of Marketing at Aunt Flowsays that personalization will be crucial to customer retention in 2025.

“We’re focused on hyper-personalization to speak directly to our diverse audience, A/B testing topics to hone in on what resonates, and finding the right balance between menstrual education and promoting our products and partnerships,” says Howard. regarding Aunt Flow’s email strategy.

Howard says Aunt Flow focuses heavily on building and maintaining meaningful relationships in all aspects of its business, and creating personalized experiences is an integral part of those relationships.

Additionally, level personalization will be a challenge as the company grows in the new year.

“Balancing meaningful personalization with effectiveness, segmenting campaigns to create the right messages, and ensuring we stay true to our mission while meeting business needs will always require constant refinement,” she says.

“However, we are confident that our strong relationship with our growing community will continue to be a key driver in retaining customers and creating lifelong advocates!”

3. Marketing managers agree that increasing revenue and sales is the main goal for 2025.

Increasing revenue and sales is the top priority for most marketing leaders in 2025, with 20% saying it’s their number one goal.

To increase revenue, marketing managers will want to identify areas of the customer journey that can be further optimized. For example, you may have noticed that your audience is plateauing or even shrinking.

In order to continue to grow your income, you will need to consistently reach larger groups of qualified prospects. You can do this by testing platforms like TikTok or podcasting.

Alternatively, you may notice that your marketing team is attracting a lot of leads, but they aren’t getting high conversion rates.

To deal with this challenge, you should create stronger offers or a more effective lead generation strategy.

Marketing and sales teams also need to work closely together to ensure their missions are aligned.

“In our 2025 planning, we aligned closely with the sales team to ensure our marketing initiatives targeted the right audiences and directly supported our monthly revenue goals,” says Howard. “When marketing and revenue generation work hand in hand, they create a powerful engine for success.”

4. Leveraging artificial intelligence to turn texts into multimodal campaigns is a major trend marketers are exploring.

Nearly a quarter of marketing leaders in our survey (23%) say the top trend they are exploring is using AI to turn text into campaign content, such as video demos, product how-tos and podcasts.

“In 2025, marketers face the dual challenge of creating enough content for their different audiences and channels, and creating content that makes an impact,” says Deshpande. “AI can be an incredible accelerator for problem solving when carefully designed and implemented.”

However, we found that only 52% of marketers say they clearly understand its use in marketing, and 53% can measure the impact of AI on marketing efforts. Since these stats are so similar, I can safely say that they suggest that these skills go hand in hand.

By having the technical knowledge needed to use artificial intelligence in marketing, you’ll be able to apply analytical skills to measure its impact on your efforts. Marketers who learn about AI and become confident connoisseurs of this technology will see a great return on their investment and stay competitive.

Other findings

• 20% of marketing leaders say creating value-aligned content is a top trend in 2025.
• 16% say repurposing content across multiple channels is a key strategy.
• Branded content featuring industry experts is becoming increasingly popular, according to 21% of marketing executives.
• The three most valuable pieces of audience data come from content consumption habits, basic demographics, and purchasing habits.
• Nearly 35% of CMOs say the biggest change in the marketing industry is that focusing on the customer and their experience with your brand has become more important.
• 72% of marketing managers in our survey primarily try to reach millennials with their marketing activities.
• The most difficult age group to reach with marketing content is millennials, according to 40% of marketing executives.

More data and insights