The rules of the game are changing rapidly in acquisition and retention. The marketing trends of 2024 are reshaping how a company attracts, measures, and retains its customers, influenced by new European regulations and major technical developments.
Consent Mode and advertising compliance: the technical shift that few companies anticipate
Before discussing formats or social networks, a technical change deserves your full attention. Since March 2024, advertisers targeting European traffic must transmit two specific signals: ad_user_data and ad_personalization via Consent Mode. Without these signals, your Google Ads campaigns lose personalization, remarketing capabilities, and conversion measurement quality.
Specifically, if your cookie consent banner does not transmit this information, Google treats part of your audience as unknown. Your performance reports become less reliable, and your acquisition costs rise mechanically.
Have you noticed an unexplained drop in your measured conversions since spring? This technical parameter is often the cause. Check with your web provider that your CMP (consent management platform) is indeed sending these signals to Google Tag Manager. It’s a setting that takes a few hours, but it determines the profitability of your entire advertising budget.
To delve deeper into these topics and other growth levers, marketing on magazine-business.fr offers regular analyses on developments that directly impact businesses.
Digital Markets Act: what advertising targeting loses (and what needs to be compensated)
The European Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into effect in March 2024. Major platforms classified as “gatekeepers” must now obtain explicit consent before cross-referencing personal data from their various services.
Why does this change matter for your business? Because the ultra-precise targeting offered by Meta or Google relied in part on this data combination. A user who watched a YouTube video, searched for a product on Google Shopping, and then checked Gmail contributed to a very detailed advertising profile. The DMA breaks this automatic data cross-referencing mechanism.
The direct consequence: your custom audiences on these platforms become less granular. Campaigns that relied on fine behavioral targeting need to be rethought.
Three concrete avenues to adapt your targeting strategy
- Invest in collecting first-party data through your forms, loyalty programs, or customer surveys, rather than relying on platform targeting
- Test advertising campaigns based on context (page theme, search intent) rather than on the user’s behavioral profile
- Strengthen your organic presence on social media and in SEO to reduce your dependence on degrading paid audiences
These adjustments are not optional. Brands that continue to manage their campaigns as they did in 2022 see their cost per acquisition rise without understanding why.
Third-party cookies in Chrome: why the delay changes your roadmap
Google was supposed to gradually eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome. In January 2024, a restriction was rolled out, but only to a test cohort representing about 1% of the browser’s users. Then, in July 2024, Google abandoned its plan for total removal in favor of a system that gives each user more choices.
This turnaround has a direct strategic consequence. Companies that had heavily invested in alternative solutions (universal identifiers, Privacy Sandbox cohorts) now face an unclear timeline. The “cookieless” future remains a likely medium-term direction, but not an immediate shift.
The right approach is to prepare for the transition without rushing. Continue to leverage third-party cookies as long as they work for the majority of your Chrome audience. At the same time, develop your first-party data collection capabilities. When the restriction expands, your infrastructure will be ready.
Content and artificial intelligence: producing more does not mean selling more
Generative artificial intelligence has multiplied the volume of content published on social media and blogs. All companies can now produce articles, visuals, and video scripts at an industrial pace.
The result? A visible saturation. Consumers scroll faster, average engagement rates are declining on most platforms. Publishing more generic content no longer creates differentiation.
What works in 2024 is content rooted in expertise that AI alone cannot replicate: field experience, publicly shared internal data, clear stances on industry topics. A blog post that summarizes what everyone already knows generates neither sustainable traffic nor customer trust.
Where to place artificial intelligence in your content production
- Upstream: topic research, analysis of questions posed by your customers, identification of gaps in your thematic coverage
- In production: first drafts of factual texts (product sheets, technical descriptions) that you enrich with your own expertise
- Downstream: reformatting the same content for multiple channels (summary for social media, long version for the blog, script for a short video)
AI becomes a productivity tool, not a substitute for your market knowledge and understanding of your customers.
Marketing and customer experience: retention becomes a growth lever again
With rising acquisition costs linked to targeting restrictions, retaining an existing customer costs significantly less than acquiring a new one. This reality is prompting many brands to rethink their after-sales service, loyalty programs, and post-purchase communication.
Consumers expect a relationship that does not stop at payment. Personalized follow-ups, quick responses in direct messaging on social media, offers tailored to purchase history: these elements build lasting brand preference.
Companies that measure their repurchase rate and customer lifetime value make better decisions than those that focus solely on the volume of new prospects. In 2024, the most profitable marketing trend is to track the value of each acquired customer over twelve months and concentrate resources on the most profitable segments.
