Why Marketers Should Be Excited About Paid Search in 2025

It can be argued that paid search marketing is advertising’s most important channel. Digital ad spending surpassed offline for the first time a few short years ago, and now SEM accounts for a significant portion of those budgets. In fact, search advertising represents over 40% of total digital ad spend, making it the backbone of digital marketing strategies.

Google launched AdWords 25 years ago! But even though paid search is often viewed as a mature channel, it’s been anything but stagnant. The past few years have delivered some of the most exciting evolutions yet: Smart Bidding revolutionized optimization, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) became the default format, AI-enhanced Broad Match, and Performance Max campaigns introduced a unified way to reach audiences. Search marketing today isn’t just keeping up—it’s driving digital advertising forward.

To stay competitive in such a rapidly advancing space, marketers need to anticipate what’s next. That’s why we turned to three of Skai’s top search experts to share their thoughts on where search marketing is headed in 2025 and why it’s such an exciting time to be in the industry.

Paul Vallez, EVP of Strategic Business Development

Paul Vallez has over 20 years of experience leading product strategy and partnerships across search, commerce, and ad tech. He has worked closely with Google, Microsoft, and major platforms to drive innovation and business growth. Paul believes that search’s ability to connect brands to customers with unmatched intent is what makes it a critical channel year after year.

Why search is exciting right now: Search continues to prove its resilience and adaptability. While marketers have long relied on search for its precision and intent-driven results, the integration of AI has unlocked new ways to optimize campaigns and drive performance. It’s no longer just about keywords but about understanding user intent on a deeper level. 

Real-time data and predictive analytics are making search campaigns smarter and faster to adapt. Search gives marketers the ability to measure success quickly and adjust in real time, offering agility that other channels can’t match. As brands look for measurable ROI, search remains unmatched in its ability to connect high-intent customers with solutions they need. This mix of speed, precision, and measurable outcomes keeps search ahead of other channels.

2025 Predictions

Cross-channel attribution between search & retail media accelerates omni-commerce

While retail media is positioned as ‘bottom of the funnel,’ advanced measurement and attribution technologies will deliver ASIN-level attribution across search-to-retail media, search-to-social, and more. Marketers will be able to fully orchestrate their campaigns across search, retail media, and social to drive closed-loop attribution and optimization across channels to fully capitalize on the influence search is having on lower-funnel marketing programs. The walled gardens aren’t coming down anytime soon, but those walls will have windows, making measurement and attribution across channels a reality. Full-funnel cross-channel media orchestration = omni-commerce! 

Search Partnerships Accelerate the Walled Gardens Opening up

Expect more bold and strategic partnerships between Google, Microsoft and the retail media ecosystem in the areas of audiences, sponsored products, and programmatic. The customer-decision journey does not stop when a consumer goes from Google to Amazon, Google-to-Walmart, Google-to-TikTok and opening up the walled gardens to enable more discovery and findability through retargeting will only grow the market and enable every touchpoint in the customer journey to get full credit for the impact they’re having on conversion.

Search AI solutions mature to drive efficiencies on both campaign activation and cross-channel insights

In 2024 search marketing platforms and marketplaces repositioned themselves as AI-based solutions but fell short in delivering meaningful actionability and cost-efficiencies needed for marketers to go ‘all in’ on AI-based solutions. In 2024 marketers took the crawl, walk, run approach, testing AI-based agents and automated campaigns such as Pmax, but were hesitant to manage large-scale campaigns. Expect marketers to scale their efforts in 2025 leveraging AI to tackle both operational and granular cross-channel insights, recommendations, and campaign execution. 

Lior Feldman, Executive VP Product

Lior Feldman has been leading search product innovation for over a decade, driving AI-powered solutions that simplify complex strategies for marketers. His expertise in automation and measurable optimization has helped brands unlock smarter, more effective paid search campaigns.

Why search is exciting right now: Search has always been about connecting marketers with high-intent consumers, but recent advancements in automation and performance optimization are pushing the channel to new heights. The introduction of AI-powered tools is removing friction, allowing marketers to focus less on manual processes and more on strategy. 

Search today has evolved into a dynamic mix of automation, creative testing, and real-time optimization. With tools like Performance Max, marketers are finding new ways to unify campaigns across channels, reaching audiences at every stage of the funnel. What excites me most is the opportunity for brands to use automation and AI to deliver highly tailored search experiences with far less complexity. By combining automation and personalization, marketers can achieve results that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

2025 Predictions

Performance Max will transform multi-channel campaigns

Google’s Performance Max campaigns are redefining what “full-funnel search” looks like. By unifying formats and placements, marketers can drive greater results while aligning search strategy with broader goals. Brands that fully embrace this integration will see improved efficiency and performance across campaigns. Performance Max will become a blueprint for how marketers balance automation with audience-driven strategy.

Privacy-first search strategies will reshape measurement

With evolving privacy regulations and signal loss, first-party data will become even more critical in search campaigns. Marketers will need to prioritize strategies that effectively utilize their own data while aligning with privacy-first solutions. Search will require marketers to build new measurement approaches that are less dependent on third-party signals. In this new environment, innovation in privacy-safe measurement will become a competitive advantage for brands.

Winning with creative: the next search battleground

The rise of RSAs, Performance Max, and Demand Generation campaigns has placed creative strategy and audience alignment at the forefront of marketing. As automation takes over bidding and targeting, marketers who excel in crafting impactful messaging tailored to the right audience—alongside testing and optimizing—will gain a distinct competitive edge. Leveraging creative insights and dynamic, audience-specific messaging will be key to driving engagement and achieving scalable results. This edge will directly enhance bottom-line performance for brands willing to invest in iterative testing and creative innovation.

Allen Hammock, Head of Industry Lead, Growth

Allen Hammock has over two decades of experience in digital marketing, specializing in paid search, machine learning, and advanced analytics. He bridges technical expertise with client needs, helping brands design innovative search strategies that drive measurable results. Allen believes search’s evolution has finally opened doors for smaller and emerging businesses to compete, enabling them to achieve omnichannel success without massive resources.

Why search is exciting right now: Search is no longer just for the biggest players with deep pockets and large technical teams. Recent advancements in automation and AI have leveled the playing field, making it possible for smaller and emerging businesses to harness the power of search marketing. In the past, competitive search strategies required an army of technocrats, but today, machine learning and automation have made search more accessible than ever. 

This democratization of search allows brands of all sizes to unlock smarter, more sophisticated campaigns. For me, the most exciting shift is how search is helping innovators thrive in omnichannel strategies, driving measurable results regardless of team size or budget. Search isn’t just growing—it’s evolving to be faster, smarter, and more inclusive for businesses everywhere.

2025 Predictions

Predictive insights will revolutionize campaign strategies

The ability to harness massive amounts of search data and apply machine learning will enable deeper insights into campaign performance. Marketers will rely more on predictive analytics to anticipate trends and optimize campaigns proactively, ensuring greater precision and adaptability. Predictive capabilities will give even the smallest teams tools to act on insights before their competitors.

Advanced automation will drive smarter, scaled campaigns

Automation is now table stakes, but the next phase will involve refining how marketers leverage it. From bid strategies to audience targeting, automation tools will continue to improve, allowing marketers to scale efficiently while maintaining performance. Marketers who learn to balance automation with strategy will be able to achieve outsized results with less manual effort.

Search marketing has never been more exciting

As commerce media grows, search marketing is playing an even larger role in driving sales across platforms. Search is everywhere, from search on social media channels like TikTok to search in retailer websites like Walmart and Target. For the consumer, there’s tremendous benefit in being able to have both a lean back and lean forward experience, having content pushed to you in your feeds and also having search and discovery at your fingertips. For the marketer, it’s challenging to keep pace with the consumer, measuring every step in their journey. At Skai, we’re here to support marketers every step of the way with advanced AI, 20 years of experience working with search marketers and agencies, and a best-in-class customer support organization. 

With AI, automation, and evolving strategies transforming the channel, 2025 promises to be a year of continued innovation. As search marketers navigate this landscape, staying ahead of the trends will be key to driving performance and capturing opportunities.

To learn more about how Skai is helping brands unlock the full potential of paid search, visit Skai’s search solutions page.

And we invite you to schedule a brief demo with our team to see our award-winning, innovative paid search platform firsthand.