When setting up a remarketing campaign on Google Ads in 2024, you come across a checkbox that you hadn’t seen six months earlier: explicit consent related to audience segments generated by AI. This kind of micro-change, multiplied across each platform, summarizes the year well. Digital marketing in 2024 is not transforming through a single major shift, but through an accumulation of technical and regulatory constraints that modify daily work.
You can follow the latest news on Marketingrama to keep an eye on these developments, but some deserve a more in-depth look.
AI Act and GDPR: What Marketing Teams Need to Document
Most articles on marketing trends mention regulation in passing. In practice, it’s a topic that consumes production time. The European AI Act is entering its implementation phase in 2024, with obligations for documentation, traceability, and risk management for AI systems used in marketing.
Specifically, each AI use case (customer scoring, automatic segmentation, chatbot, content personalization) must be mapped out with the DPO. Coordination between the marketing team and legal department becomes systematic, not optional.
The financial risks of non-compliance are not trivial. When using a personalization tool that leverages behavioral data to adapt a homepage in real-time, you enter the scope of the GDPR and, depending on the level of risk, that of the AI Act.
- Each marketing AI tool must have a traceability sheet (purpose, data processed, decision logic)
- Scoring or automated segmentation campaigns require an impact analysis (AIPD) as soon as they intersect with personal data
- Chatbots must inform the user that they are interacting with an automated system, not a human
We’re not talking about symbolic checkboxes. A brand launching a chatbot on Instagram or on its website without this transparency exposes itself to reports. Feedback varies on the severity of controls depending on the countries, but the trend is clear.
Long Content and Credibility: Why Short Video is No Longer Enough Everywhere
The dominant discourse in 2024 remains centered on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and 15-second formats. On mainstream social media, this is indeed what captures attention. However, in sectors where credibility is paramount (health, finance, technical B2B), in-depth textual content is regaining ground.
In digital health marketing, for example, there is a gradual return in favor of detailed blog articles, informative posts, and explanatory infographics. Health professionals and patients seek precise, sourced information that they can consult at their own pace. A 30-second Reel does not replace an article that explains a protocol.
This phenomenon illustrates a segmentation of formats by the level of trust required. For a cosmetics brand communicating on social media, short video remains the primary lever. For a company selling software solutions to CIOs, a well-constructed white paper or technical article converts better than a carousel.
Adapting Content Strategy to the Decision-Making Journey
The question is not “video or text” but “at what point in the user journey does each format add value.” You can attract with a short video on TikTok or Instagram, then convert with long content on the site. The format depends on the level of trust necessary for the decision.
Declining Hashtags and Social Search: How Users Find Content in 2024
Another concrete change observed while managing social accounts: hashtags are losing their influence on content discovery. TikTok and Instagram algorithms now prioritize thematic relevance detected by AI (analysis of sound, embedded text, visual context) rather than manually added keywords.
Piling on popular hashtags no longer improves the reach of a post. On TikTok, the algorithm distributes content based on behavioral signals (watch time, interactions) much more than hashtags. Instagram is following the same direction.
Meanwhile, Google is increasingly integrating results from social networks into its search pages. An Instagram post or a TikTok video can appear in the results for a commercial query. This changes how we optimize social content: descriptive text and video subtitles become SEO levers.
Marketing Personalization and First-Party Data: The Operational Shift
The gradual end of third-party cookies is pushing companies to structure their first-party data collection. In practice, this means revising forms, loyalty programs, and registration mechanics to obtain usable declarative data.
Brands that invest in a well-segmented CRM can personalize their email campaigns, notifications, and product recommendations without relying on third-party data. This is foundational work, not a passing trend.
- Implement post-purchase surveys to enrich customer profiles with declarative data
- Leverage interactions on social media (comments, private messages) as a source of qualification
- Connect the CRM to automation tools to trigger personalized sequences based on actual behavior
The most effective personalization relies on data that the customer has voluntarily shared, not on opaque tracking. This is both more compliant with the GDPR and more reliable in terms of data quality.
What This Means for Small Structures
SMEs and freelancers do not have the means for an enterprise CDP. The realistic approach is to leverage the native segmentation features of existing tools (Mailchimp, Brevo, HubSpot in free version) and prioritize the quality of the contact base over its volume.
Digital marketing in 2024 is characterized less by spectacular breaks than by a tightening of the rules of the game. Regulatory compliance on AI, adapting formats to the required level of trust, the end of the hashtag reflex, structuring proprietary data: these are operational projects, not slogans. The teams that succeed are those that integrate these constraints into their processes, sprint after sprint.