Taboola has released new research that identifies five key e-commerce marketing trends in 2025, with retail ecommerce sales expected to exceed $US4.3 trillion worldwide with around 2.71 billion online shoppers last year.
Trend 1: The continued growth of personalisation and customer experience
The convergence of big data, powerful analytics tools, AI capabilities, and advances in digital advertising technology all mean that modern ecommerce companies have the tools to offer interesting, personalised experiences. Here’s more detail on how businesses are moving personalisation and customer experience forward:
Using data and AI for personalisation
With rich, first-party data, e-commerce businesses can create personalised customer experiences. Relevant data points include customer behaviour and history, along with demographic and other gathered information, to segment audiences and build tailored buyer journeys. Ecommerce businesses are also using predictive analytics and AI-powered recommendations for faster, automated customer recommendations.
E-commerce companies have to pay close attention to price, too, particularly in economically challenging times. Last year, 60% of consumers switched from a brand they were loyal to because of cost considerations.
Marketers can use all this information to surface relevant product suggestions, show unique website content in real time, send personalised messaging, use email strategically, and highlight price drops, special offers, or better cost versus competitors.
Creating exceptional digital experiences
In addition to personalised experiences, modern consumers also assume they’ll get nicely designed, dependable shopping and buying journeys on any site or platform. Shoppers will quickly navigate away if a site doesn’t use responsive design for mobile or loads too slowly.
Creating pleasant browsing experiences can also help stand out from the competition, whether that’s curated collections, advice available via chat, virtual try-on, outfit or accessory suggestions, and more. Ecommerce users also require intuitive navigation and one-stop checkout. Marketers should make sure to reduce the number of steps required of a shopper to increase conversions, sales, and returning customers.
In addition, it’s important to make sure that any information a customer might need is easy to find. That includes transparent shipping and delivery data, return options, and multiple options to reach customer service. Also, offering as many payment methods as possible makes it easy for users to buy. Clear communication and an easy purchasing process also helps build trust and authority for e-commerce brands.
Here’s what else to know:
- Conversion rates can increase by 17% for every one second faster that a site loads.
- $260 billion of lost e-commerce orders can be recovered by creating a better checkout design. Also of note: 48% of users abandoned their cart during checkout because extra costs were too high.
- Personalised content can increase revenue more than 25% and improve a customer’s chances of spending more than planned by more than 40%.
Trend 2: The dominance of mobile commerce and shoppable content
Mobile commerce has overtaken desktop browsing and continues to grow. Ecommerce keeps pushing the limit on what’s possible for shoppers and buyers, too, so here’s what to keep an eye on.
Thinking mobile-first
Ecommerce companies should put mobile browsing and shopping first, but also keep in mind the broader omnichannel market, and the more complex buyer’s journey that mixes online and offline browsing. A customer might buy products online and pick up in-store, or buy online and return in-store, or make part of a purchase in-store and the rest online if a product isn’t available in-person. Convenience is everything for modern shoppers. As consumers move quickly across search, social, and other platforms, it’s important to make sure the brand is represented consistently and positively and that products are also displayed consistently.
Going live
Mobile e-commerce has become commonplace, and live-streamed, real-time shopping experiences are likely to be the next big leap in many countries. It takes some creativity and innovation to stand out from the crowd with live e-commerce, such as with product demos, exclusive product offerings, and partnerships with influencers to reach more viewers.
Tech tools
Combining audience knowledge with available technology can lead to some positive outcomes. An app, for example, acts as an entirely owned channel to reach and convert prospects: That could include app-only offers, push notifications, and other techniques and tactics that make sense. Another new technology in circulation with ecommerce brands is AR, which can bring prospects closer to the products virtually.
Here’s what else to know:
- Nearly 80% of all retail website visits were on smartphones worldwide in 2025.
- 75% of consumers will carry out a purchase from start to finish on their mobile phone.
- 40% of consumers would pay more for a product they could customise in augmented reality.
Trend 3: The power of social commerce and influencer marketing in e-commerce
Lots of ecommerce innovations over the past few years have been related to social media and entities outside of the traditional bricks-and-mortar businesses. Consider the following:
Social media evolves
Ecommerce businesses have found new, varied ways to monetise social media platforms. The platforms themselves have added features so that ecommerce companies can set up direct-sale shops inside of Instagram, TikTok, and others. To make this go smoothly, make sure there are resources to support this type of selling. In addition, use the available features on the particular channel, like shoppable ads, along with contests or live shopping options to engage audiences.
Influencers take the spotlight
Ecommerce marketers and advertisers might be driving most of a business’ tactics, but influencers can be hugely important for brands to attract new prospects and drive conversions. It’s important to choose the right influencer for the brand, and pick the partnership type (e.g. sponsored content, product collaborations, brand ambassadorship, etc.) that best fits the business, too. Influencers can help build trust, as they provide testimonials, photos, videos, and other authentic, credible content.
Measuring the ROI of social and influencers can include attribution and channel-specific numbers, so it’s easy to tell how well various tactics are working. Metrics can include the basics, like reach, engagement, and conversions.
Here’s what else to know:
- 50% of e-commerce brands use social media personnel to influence their store’s conversions.
- The top social media app for e-commerce purchases is Facebook.
- 33% of consumers trust an influencer’s opinion when shopping online.
Trend 4: The importance of data analytics and marketing automation in e-commerce
Without trusted data and accompanying technology, ecommerce businesses likely can’t keep up. These broad areas of focus can help companies build successful pipelines.
Data analytics
With an ongoing shift away from third-party cookies, e-commerce businesses are gathering first-party data from customers — generally more accurate than third-party, and a way to build deeper relationships. Analysing this data alongside all the other information a business collects offers a window into what’s working, and what isn’t. Data points can include customer interactions, purchase history, and demographics; individual product performance, average order value, and customer lifetime value; and conversion rate along with traffic data from web, social, and other channels.
The results of analysing this data can lead to personalisation and better journeys, but also cost savings, reduced overlap or redundancy, improved customer retention, better cart completion, and more efficient campaigns.
Ecommerce marketing teams already do A/B testing to improve their metrics, but data analytics can be applied to areas like inventory management as well, and at an advanced level can provide predictions on sales trends and other areas. It’s these types of approaches that help ecommerce businesses to truly make data-driven decisions.
Marketing automation and other tools
Ecommerce marketing isn’t a task that can be done manually in 2025: For even startups or very small businesses, the work of reaching and converting prospects intelligently and efficiently across multiple channels is simply too much. AI and other automation advances in online marketing mean that marketers can now perform data analytics and build a customer journey accordingly, then deliver and manage communications across channels, including email and social. Using marketing automation for ecommerce can streamline customer communication to eliminate excess contact, too, and many platforms incorporate AI for chatbots and assistants.
Here’s what else to know:
- 51% of shoppers prefer e-commerce businesses with live chat support.
- Email marketing provides the highest ROI for e-commerce companies, earning an average of $36 for every $1 spent.
Trend 5: The evolving role of SEO and content marketing in e-commerce
SEO remains a crucial piece of e-commerce customer acquisition in 2025. As the discipline continues to evolve, ecommerce marketers should build a solid strategy with new opportunities in mind.
Using SEO for acquisition
Ecommerce teams can use SEO and AEO (answer engine optimisation, i.e., content designed to be picked up by ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview, etc.) to attract targeted traffic, boost conversions and engagement, and build and maintain brand visibility. Paid search is also still a viable tactic, depending on budget and market saturation, but organic search serves as a low-cost, always-on channel that can steadily drive traffic.
Good ecommerce SEO and AEO practices include optimising web product pages, keyword targeting, and creating useful content for prospects at all funnel stages. Content marketers in ecommerce companies should use rich keywords in content and aim to inform and educate readers about products and trends on the path to conversion. Content marketing tactics in ecommerce range from reviews and user-generated content to video and audio.
Voice search
Voice search is an emerging trend in ecommerce, as smart speakers and phone assistants become more sophisticated and useful. Consumers can shop easily (then purchase and track orders) with these hands-off options, so putting resources into voice search optimisation is something marketers should consider. Get to know the tenets of voice search, such as optimising for natural language and using long-tail keywords
Here’s what else to know:
- 32% of consumers globally are using voice assistants weekly, and voice assistant users are 33% more likely to have made an online purchase in the past week.
- 18% of local searches will lead to a sale within 24 hours.
- Product pages that used the exact keyword in the meta description ranked better than those that didn’t.
- 57% of users don’t buy from a business online if it has less than a four-star rating.
Key takeaways
Ecommerce marketing has already started to popularise live and social shopping, and offers a testing ground for emerging technology like AR and voice search. Ecommerce marketing trends in 2025 include the use of sophisticated data analytics, incorporation of AI, automation wherever possible, and personalisation.
