Digital Marketing Update December 2025

Welcome to our digital marketing update for December 2025. Read on to find out what’s changed in digital marketing this month.

Social Media Updates from December 2025

Australia’s social media ban

Australia has banned social media for under 16s. The ban includes Tik Tok, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat. Honestly, as a mother of 3 young children who desperately wishes her children didn’t have to grow up in a world dominated by social media – this news was music to my ears. But I have read lots of negative commentary about how it will further isolate some teens. An interesting reminder of how complex our world and our associated issues have become. A brave move from Australia – though I’ll be interested to see how it will be governed effectively. And of course, I’ll be interested to see whether the UK follow suit.

Early access reels on Instagram

Creators can now lock their reel so that to begin with, only followers can see it. This one’s been quite fun to play with. Potentially opening up options for gated content for followers only. But also providing a useful testing ground with a known audience.

Instagram ‘Edits’ gets creative

Instagram’s video editor, Edits, has had a make over. You can now create customizable captions with animations, adjust colour sliders for hue, and choose from 28 new video effects.

Dear Algo

Threads has introduced a new way to curate your feed. If you post “dear algo” followed by what you want to see more of, the app will update your interests.

Ghost posts

Threads has introduced ghost posts – which are like stories but for text based posts – they disappear after 24 hours (though they are saved to a private archive for the creator). I think they’re designed for spontaneous thoughts. But they could equally be used for testing text based content.

Reply approvals

Threads now allows creators to approve or filter replies before they appear publicly.

Podcast integrations

On Threads, users can now link podcasts to their profiles and generate previews when sharing links. These previews give a great way to tease listeners and drive them back to full episodes. A clever move from Meta at a time when podcasts are huge and likely to get bigger.

Nearby feed

Tik Tok tests showing more localized content with its “nearby feed”. 

Advertising Updates from December 2025

Interactive ads on Reddit

Reddit has launched new interactive ad formats – including countdowns, quizzes and dynamic reveals. Ad management has also got easier with automated targeting. Honestly, this social platform is underrated. Keeping my eyes close to this one through 2026.

New ad variations on Threads

Threads have added 4:5image / video rendering and static 1:1 carousel ads.

Tik Tok creator ads

Tik Tok have confirmed that creator ads are outperforming brand ads. (I know –  disappointing for us brands). This is according to Tik Tok’s Creator Advantage Research (perhaps biased?) who say they’re seeing higher click through and engagement rates compared to brand creatives. Influencers for the win? One to watch.

Google Updates from December 2025

Google launching ads advisor

This is supposed to be a full media buyer that runs on AI. The new AI agent will be able to:

Create a full campaign from a single sentence

Pick the right bidding strategy

Set budget, locations, keywords

Create ads in bulk

Ask for approval

Deliver automatic results.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? I’m very interested to see how this plays out. I’m currently sceptical – but very open to being proven wrong.

AI tools

Nano banana Pro

Firstly what a name. Love it! This is a new (supposed to be) high-quality image creation tool. Built on Google Gemni 3 pro, it enables you to, for example, localize imagery, change the weather, change the shop signs etc – enabling relevant creatives at scale without the production costs. This is an upgrade on the previous Nano Banana model offering improvements in areas like accurate text rendering, and higher resolutions.

Pomelli business DNA

This is an experimental AI tool from Google Labs and Google DeepMind. It helps small businesses automatically generate campaign ideas from branding elements such as fonts, colours and tone of voice. This is not yet available in the UK – but I’ll be keen to play when it gets here.

Google introduce anonymous reviews

Whilst many are sceptical of this move, I think it opens a brilliant opportunity for charities. I’m thinking specifically of charities where the beneficiary might want to remain anonymous but might want to give a positive review of the charity (think mental health charities, eating disorder charities etc). Obviously this could swing the other way with anonymity encouraging more people to leave negative reviews. But honestly, in the charity space, I think this is a positive, and many charities may finally be able to increase the amount of reviews they receive. (Similarly Facebook are now allowing nicknames in groups, meaning people can participate while masking their real identity).

Search Updates from December 2025

Adobe acquires SEMrush

Adobe acquires SEO company SEMrush. This leaves Ahrefs as arguably, the only major independent SEO software company on the market.

Why is this interesting? SEMrush owns Datos – a clickstream panel that captures real time data on user journeys. In fact many high profile AI trackers use Datos as the primary source. Combine this with SEM rush’ brand visibility figures and you have a) a powerful data combination for Adobe clients and b) Adobe controlling the datasets of many independent products. So used correctly, this move makes Adobe more powerful. And probably opens a gap in the independents market that I would fully expect Ahrefs to take advantage of.

If that makes little sense to you, I recommend you use Ahrefs as your go to SEO tool whilst we wait to see how Adobe evolve. But yes, I’ll miss SEMrush as we know it.

View From The Den December 2025

Changes (particularly concerning AI) continue to move at pace. This is my final digital marketing update of 2025 and what a busy old year for digital marketing it has been. I’ll be back in the new year with my thoughts on what we can expect from 2026.

Until then, have a lovely old, snuggly old break. Preferably next to an open fire, whilst eating chocolate and watching films. We all need a rest.

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