China Digital Marketing Trends in 2025

Mobile and Outdoor Are the Main Investment Directions: In 2025, the mobile Internet and outdoor will be the main media for increased investment, with investment growth rates of 55% and 26% respectively. The investment growth rates of smart TV and PC are both 8%.

Growth of Impression Platforms, such as little red book, Weibo, Dianping; Short Videos such as Douyin and Kuaishou; Platform search such as Baidu. On the Internet, the resources with the highest investment increase are Impressional platforms (87%), short videos (67%), and platform search (52%). Among them, the willingness to increase investment in platform search far exceeds that of comprehensive search engines, the willingness to increase investment in video numbers exceeds that of Moments, and the willingness to increase investment in interest e-commerce exceeds that of social e-commerce.

Focus on KOL and CPC Advertising: The advertising forms with the highest investment increase are influencer and performance advertising, with investment increase rates of 68% and 53% respectively.

Growth of Social Media Marketing Investment Slows Down: In line with the decline in the growth rate of overall marketing investment, the expected growth rate of corporate social media marketing investment will also slow down, with an average growth rate of 10%.

Social Media Investment Focus: The focus of social media investment is KOL content marketing, live broadcast (brand self-broadcasting) and amateur marketing, with 74%, 47% and 37% of advertisers respectively taking them as the focus. In terms of short video marketing, the resource types that advertisers mainly increase investment in are talent content, live broadcast and push flow, and the proportion of advertisers increasing investment in the above resources is 65%, 46% and 37% respectively.

Low Current Application Proportion but High Growth Potential: At present, the weekly usage rate of AI tools by advertisers is as high as 54%, but the application proportion of AI marketing is still at a low level of 28%. 41% of advertisers said they will use AI marketing in the future, ranking first among 18 options.

Expected Problem Solving Areas: Advertisers expect to use AI to solve problems mainly focused on AI advertising intelligent placement and optimization efficiency, user insight and data analysis, product innovation, and content distribution.

Deeper Application of Traditional AI: Marketing personnel will move beyond content generation and use generative AI tools and machine learning technologies to provide customers with more accurate and personalized experiences5.

Data - Driven Precision Marketing: In the digital economy era, data has become an important asset of enterprises. Future digital marketing will pay more attention to data-driven precision marketing. By collecting and analyzing user data, enterprises can more accurately identify the target audience, provide customized marketing information, and optimize marketing strategies, so as to improve marketing effectiveness and conversion rates

Intensified Market Competition: The digital marketing industry is highly competitive, with numerous enterprises flocking to this field to compete for market share, resulting in continuously increasing competitive pressures. Enterprises need to continuously enhance their core competitiveness to meet market challenges3.

Increasing Demand for Personalization: Consumers are increasingly demanding personalized and customized services, so digital marketing needs to focus more on user experience and interactivity3.

Rise of Social Commerce: The deep integration of social media and e-commerce will become an important trend in future digital marketing. Consumers can complete transactions directly on social platforms, which will greatly enhance the shopping experience and efficiency3.

Multi - Channel Integration: Future digital marketing will place more emphasis on multi-channel integration and crossing media types. Enterprises need to integrate online and offline resources and cross the boundaries between traditional and digital media to build a seamless brand experience