Cressive DX is at the forefront of digital marketing and 2025 brings a new wave of challenges that businesses must tackle. 2024 was a year dominated by the rise of consumer AI tools and their promise to impact all walks of life. Many of our clients have questioned how these disruptive technologies will impact their marketing functions. 

From evolving customer journeys to technological shifts, we believe staying competitive requires a strategic shift. In this article, we’re sharing the top five issues facing digital marketers in 2025 and how we’re helping our clients prepare for them.

1. The Impact of Google AI Overviews on Search

The Challenge

AI Overview (AIO) on Google has shifted how users interact with search results by providing immediate answers at the top of the SERP. While Google had a rocky start with AI Overviews, continuous optimisation has meant that AIOs are now more accurate, especially with factual answers.

This can reduce top-of-funnel or awareness clicks to websites. Businesses that drive traffic to their websites through awareness based content such as guides, how-tos, recipes, etc. would likely see a reduction in response to queries like “What’s trending in fall fashion?” for a fashion retailer or “How to make pour-over coffee” for a nice coffee roaster.

We present key insights from a 4,000 keyword experiment we conducted on AIOs here.

Why It Matters

• Altered Funnel Performance: AIO can highlight your site mid-funnel but you may have to work harder (and invest more) to attract top-of-funnel prospects. This impacts your marketing ROI and revenue growth.
• Reduced Organic Traffic and Leads: AIO may overshadow your traditional listings, leading to fewer awareness-stage clicks and potentially reducing your sales pipeline.
• Lost Visibility at Critical Stages: If your site isn’t cited by AIO, you risk being absent from early consideration. This can lower brand awareness and limit future conversions.

How you can adapt to AI Overviews

• Refine content strategy: Write comprehensive, machine-readable explanations. Structure text like Q&A formats or step-by-step guides so AIO can easily parse and cite.
• Optimize for AIO: Similar to Featured Snippet optimization, use concise, highlight-ready segments alongside schema markup.
• Track AIO performance: Monitor how often your content surfaces in AI Overviews, adapting content and SEO tactics accordingly. Governance precedes performance here.
• Assess multi-stage funnel: Measure where users come from (AIO vs. organic listing vs. other channels) and how they move down the funnel.

A tool like DX Spotlight will help you keep track of your organic and overall search performance as well as your ownership of AI Overviews with respect to competitors.

2. Attribution in a Non-Linear Funnel

The Challenge

Modern buyer journeys zigzag across multiple platforms—Reddit, Spotify, social media, and more—making it difficult to isolate which channel truly drives conversions. Not understanding the ‘Place’ component of the marketing mix is a key fundamental issue to address.

This challenge is especially pronounced for B2C brands, where consumers might see an influencer’s Instagram reel, hear a mention on a podcast, and finally run a branded Google search before buying. Without robust cross-channel tracking, it’s easy to attribute the sale solely to organic search, ignoring the earlier touchpoints.

Why It Matters

• Inconsistent Brand Management: Fragmented insights make it harder to ensure consistent branding and messaging, which dilute brand equity and weaken customer trust.
• Inefficient Budget Allocation: Incomplete attribution can lead to overspending on underperforming channels or neglecting high-impact ones, directly affecting marketing ROI.
• Missed Revenue Opportunities: When conversion paths remain hidden, you risk underinvesting in key platforms where customers actually convert, leading to lost sales.

How you can manage the non-linearity

• Cross-platform tracking: Tag all campaigns, set up platform pixels (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest), and centralize data to see cohesive user journeys.
• Adjust KPIs: Create metrics aligned to each platform’s user intent and funnel stage.
• Automate data capture: Use AI-driven analytics and workflow tools to gather, analyse, and visualize data from multiple sources.
• Channel-specific content: Tailor content for each channel (e.g., short Q&As for Reddit, audio-friendly content for podcasts, etc.).

3. The Bot Crisis in Analytics

The Challenge

Bot traffic is growing ever more sophisticated, often accounting for a significant amount of traffic. Cressive’s own research matches this report by Thales, putting bot traffic close to to 50%.

Brand and presence websites can encounter large spikes in traffic metrics as well as behavioural events such as scrolls and pageviews. Some sectors are particularly susceptible. Ecommerce, travel, hospitality sector businesses may see bots testing booking engines or filling forms, distorting performance metrics across various geographic domains.  

In both scenarios, analytics become skewed, ROI calculations suffer, and marketing decisions risk being guided by false signals.

Why it Matters

• Inaccurate KPIs and Poor Decision-Making: Contaminated data can misdirect marketing strategies, causing wasted spend on irrelevant audiences.
  
• Unclear ROI: Bot-driven conversions inflate results, masking the true performance of campaigns and causing you to over- or underspend in certain channels.
  
• Potential Security Risks: Malicious bots may exploit vulnerabilities, risking brand damage, revenue loss, or additional mitigation costs.

How you can ‘Rehumanize’ Web Analytics

• Firewalls and filters: First-line defences (bot-blocking, IP filtering) offer partial solutions but can’t block all advanced bots. They can be expensive and ineffective.
  
• Enhanced GA4 filtering: Implement custom segments, IP exclusions, and detect suspicious patterns (e.g., unusual bounce rates, improbable geolocation clusters). It’s time consuming and ineffective playing whack-a-mole with exclusions.
  
• AI-based detection: Tools like DX Spotlight which uses AI to identify non-human activity on your websites, effectively ‘rehumanizing’ analytics to enable confident decision-making. We cover humanize in detail in our detailed blog article.

See DX Spotlight Humanize in action below:

4. Cookie Consent Compliance

The Challenge

Stringent data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) require explicit user consent for tracking, leading many visitors to opt out. Striking a balance between legal compliance and retaining actionable analytics is an ongoing struggle for digital marketers of all sizes. 

For instance, an e-commerce site, which relies heavily on a single website for all sales and marketing, might lose visibility into half of its user base when those visitors decline cookies.

However, the problem is far more complex for many of our clients, which are multi-site organizations operating across multiple regions. Due to different compliance requirements across regions, these organizations have to implement several variations of consent banners, resulting in a fragmented compliance picture with inconsistent data outcomes.

Why it Matters

• Reduced Data for Analysis: If a significant number of users opt out, your analytics may provide an incomplete picture, leading to suboptimal campaign strategies and wasted budget.
  
• Hindered User Experience: Poorly managed consent banners can frustrate visitors, causing them to abandon your site, directly affecting sales and customer loyalty.
  
• Legal and Financial Exposure: Fines can reach up to 4% of global revenue for serious compliance breaches, which can cripple marketing budgets and harm your reputation.

Possible Solutions

• First-party data strategies: Encourage logins (e.g., membership, loyalty programs), so users willingly share data for personalized experiences.
  
• Enhanced analytics for opted-in users: Focus on higher-quality data subsets. Expand understanding with server logs or name server data.
  
• User-centric design: Make cookie pop-ups transparent and user-friendly, explaining the benefits of consenting to non-essential cookies (e.g., better product recommendations)
  
• Automated compliance governance: A tool like DX Spotlight helps monitor consent management, ensuring you stay compliant while gathering relevant insights.

5 Migration/site changes such as CMS change

The Challenge

Overhauling a website—whether merging domains for a global manufacturing conglomerate or switching the CMS for a boutique travel agency—carries high risk. Migrations that overlook SEO best practices can trigger indexing issues, broken redirects, and duplicate content. 

Even for a single-site business, minor missteps in URL structures or metadata can result in immediate visibility loss, jeopardizing revenue until SEO and technical fixes are implemented.

In a larger organization with multiple sites, the complexity multiplies thereby increasing risk. It’s therefore more likely to miss critical details that cause traffic drops across entire regions.

Why It Matters

• Immediate Traffic and Revenue Loss: A poorly planned migration can lead to a steep drop in organic visibility, directly impacting e-commerce sales or lead generation.
  
• Extended Recovery Period: If rankings plummet, it can take months to reclaim your position, leading to prolonged dips in revenue and higher make-good costs.
  
• Stifled Future Growth: Choosing the wrong platform or neglecting SEO considerations can hamper your ability to scale, wasting ongoing marketing spend and undermining long-term business objectives.

How to Migrate Better

• Integrate SEO from Day One:
  • DO involve SEO teams early to map old URLs, plan redirects, and avoid “SEO afterthought” scenarios.
  • DO NOT assume a new CMS is fully optimized out of the box.
    
• Adopt a Marketing- and Customer-Centric Approach: DO recognize that migrations affect user experience, brand perception, and revenue—not just back-end systems.
  
• Establish a Comprehensive Data Baseline: DO benchmark key metrics (rankings, traffic, conversions) before making changes so you can accurately measure post-migration results.
  
• Plan for Ongoing Measurement and Auditing: DO automate rank tracking and on-page audits before, during, and after launch to quickly catch and address any issues.
  
• Contact Cressive DX and discuss your options: info@cressive.com

Detailed Methodology & Stats

1. Data Collection & Sample
   • 4,000 queries total: 2,000 each in the US and UK.
   • Queries were classified by funnel stage, keyword length, and question vs. non-question.
2. AIO Incidence & Word Count
   • We recorded whether an AIO appeared and measured its word count if it did.
   • Sub-analyses split results by region, funnel stage, question format, and keyword length.
3. Citations
   • For each AIO, we noted whether it cited organic positions 1–10, and how many total sources it included.
4. Statistical Tests
   • We employed Kruskal-Wallis for comparing median word counts across multiple groups.
   • We used Z-statistics and McNemar’s tests to compare proportions (e.g., top 3 vs. positions 4–7, 1–7 vs. 8–10).
   • Significant differences suggest we can be confident the patterns (e.g., citation rates) are not due to random chance.

The post 5 Top Issues Facing Digital Marketing and SEO in 2025 appeared first on Cressive DX.

The event, “Getting SEO Measurement Right in 2024” provided an opportunity for attendees from the digital marketing discipline to understand more about the latest issues and trends, as well as hear updates and top tips on how to address these; important for maintaining a competitive edge in digital marketing.

The focus was on SEO hot topics for 2024 ‘so far’, including Cookie Consent, Bot Traffic, Google Results, the shift to GA4, and the AI impact on SEO – and conveniently, Google formally announced the release of their AI Overview the evening before. Thank you Google!

Cookie Consent Impacts and Problems

With increasing regulations around data privacy, the topic of Cookie Consent was the first major highlight to resonate with attendees – a dry and not normally exciting topic brought alive by the shared recognition. When it comes to this topic, businesses often ask, “Do I have to?” and the short answer is YES. According to gov.uk following the EU directive, “You must get the user’s consent before you set any cookies that are not strictly necessary.” The impact is usually a significant drop in recorded traffic numbers, affecting data analysis in perpetuity. Effective cookie consent management is essential to have a reliable baseline for digital marketing let alone maintaining user trust.

Bot Traffic Ruining Tracked Data in Google

Bot Traffic is spam traffic leading to short term spikes, with clear footprints such as time on site time (low), traffic from, er ‘unusual’ countries (Poland, Russia, etc). It is clearly automated, clearly not real or genuine to website tracking of user experience. It is an inconvenient mess, making month on month (MoM) and year on year (YoY) comparisons difficult, often invalid. Techniques were shared to block in GA (Google Analytics), but alas the effectiveness in tackling this issue can be low without reasonable attention. Cressive shared hints and tips to deal with bot traffic, but one inevitable consequence is greater reliance upon GSC (Google Search Console) as a reliable source of data – no bad this arguably for SEOs. It is less affected compared to GA, however not immune. 

Google Results and Congested SERPs

The landscape, format and content of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) continues to change, and it is becoming increasingly cluttered considering both paid and free results such as products, FAQs, mobile scrolling, news etc – a collage of fragmented snippets. This creates both challenges and opportunities. To make the best use of Google Results latest updates for digital marketing promotion, maps, business listings, videos and Wikipedia, and all the wide variants and options require consideration. Wikipedia is often overlooked, but it is one of the best ranking websites for many searches. Additionally, you can target Featured Snippets. Google says, “Featured Snippets are special boxes where the format of a regular search results is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first.” The increasing complexity of SERPs demands management and this can be automated using Cressive DX’s reporting, to record and highlight visibility in responding to and managing all search results.

The Forced Shift to GA4 and End of UA (now aka “GA3”)

One of the most significant events of the year is the transition from UA (Universal Analytics) to GA4 (Google Analytics). This shift changes the way data is collected and interpreted. Much has been, and is being, written on this subject so the focus on the briefing was on the more surprising impact and options. Many businesses didn’t have trouble with this transition, many others faced challenges, and few switched to alternative analytics tools such as Matomo or Adobe Analytics because of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – a European Union regulation on information privacy. The limitations and enforced changes to digital marketing analytics interpretation caused by this shift to GA4 are found in every SEO engagement currently and will be ongoing impact. The demise of UA/GA3 at the end of June necessitates a change in focus and management.

Read our article “GA4 and UA – What’s the Difference?” highlighting the shift to GA4 in more detail. 

AI, AI Overview and the Impact on SEO

Perhaps the fastest trending topic of the year is AI & SEO and its impact. It is changing often and rapidly, that by the time you finish reading this article, there can be a new AI update or release… The evening before the briefing meeting saw Google announce the new AI Overview ‘search result snippet’.

Google rolled out AI-Powered Overviews (SGE – Search Generative Experience) to US search results, powered by the new Gemini model. We can be certain of some immediate responses to interpreting SERPs and result snippets – by both users and for SEO, and Cressive shared actions that can be employed today to deal with and better manage SEO in response. We proactively research and incorporate AI into both the consulting SEO services and SEO software so we harness the latest innovations as well as react to the constant changes. The next wave of SEO has begun and Cressive remains determined to stay at the forefront of changes in digital marketing, and share these to the benefit of our clients.

At Cressive DX, with more than 3 decades of combined experience we guide businesses through these difficult transitions and challenges. We use our proprietary software and proven industry expertise, to turn your data into insights and insights into high value solutions. Best-practice brand control leads to better Digital Brand Performance. 

This was the first Breakfast Briefing organised by Cressive DX offering comprehensive information on 2024 SEO hot topics to attendees, but it won’t be the last. See you in the next event in Q3.

Originally published 25 June 2024 on LinkedIn.

The post “Getting SEO Measurement Right in 2024” – Breakfast Briefing Q2’24 appeared first on Cressive DX.

Thanks to all the sponsors and organisers operating in 2020 conditions. For more information see https://surrey-research-park.com/news-events/innovation-awards-2020/.

See Cressive on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/1108070/admin/.

The post Winner of Innovate Awards 2020 appeared first on Cressive DX.

Made possible by the EU Erasmus+ program, I was able to do an internship for three weeks at Cressive DX.  I was hoping to get some more insight into the whole world of SEO and online marketing. Luckily, I got accepted at Cressive and got to spend those 3 weeks in an apprentice SEO consultant role.

Cressive DX is a fast-growing technology and services company, located in the Surrey Technology Centre in Guildford. Their focus includes digital branding improvement and digital reporting for big brands, as well as doing local work such as sponsoring events.

Even though I have only been there for 3 weeks, I got the opportunity to do some really interesting work. Together with the Managing Director, Richard Game, I managed to create a new process for the comparison of SEO keywords across different markets for a client. Another one of my tasks included managing the social media for Cressive, such as promoting the Guildford Book Festival and the author they were sponsoring. I have also helped with the launch of their website in German, and did tasks such as the simple auditing of their clients’ websites or doing some research on keywords and domains.

Considering I had no knowledge of the whole subject when I started, I still think that I have learnt a lot and got a lot of new input. Overall, I am now certain about pursuing a career in digital marketing, even though I have got more exploring to do. I would also like to thank the team for the nice working atmosphere and the fun tasks I was allowed to help them with.

Pia Nitschke

The post Internship’19 – SEO Consultant appeared first on Cressive DX.

I decided to choose a Sandwich course for my degree at the University of Surrey. This meant that for my third of four years studying Economics & Finance, I would work for a year in industry.

I wasn’t really sure what line of work I wanted to go into so doing a years experience sounded like a great idea. SEO isn’t a widely known industry and as such I hadn’t heard of it before, however the more I looked into it and it was explained to me, the more I found it interesting and something I would happily work towards for my placement year.

Given Cressive is located near the university, it allowed me to stay in contact with friends and live within walking distance which was great. As a fast growing company, this enabled me to join in with larger projects and get real hands-on experience with clients. I felt I was a valued member of the team and I could actually see my impact within the company through helping with tasks and projects.

My job role was SEO Consultant Apprentice so I had the challenge of learning SEO in one year. Considering I had no knowledge of the subject when I started, I have learned a substantial amount. I didn’t only learn about Google, the Internet and digital marketing however – in a more simple way I was given office experience in a professional environment which is transferable to any future job.

In my economics course I learned how to interpret and manipulate data so when it came to my job at Cressive I had some experience in that area. Being able to apply this to real, live data for clients was great and showed me a useful application from my course.

I was trained in all aspects related to digital marketing to give an all round knowledge of the industry, including full SEO site audits, social marketing and digital reporting. Although not perfectly applicable, if I were to choose a different career path I believe these skills have a broader benefit and can be transferred to whatever line of work I go into.

Overall it has been an immensely positive experience and I have learned much more than I thought I would in just one year, about digital marketing and general working life. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this year, it’s that the more effort you put in, the more you get out of it. I now feel ready for my final year at university and subsequently to get a full time job.

George Crabtree, University of Surrey, Economics 2020

The post Placement ’19 – SEO Apprentice appeared first on Cressive DX.

After enjoying a full-spread breakfast, the event kicked off with Gavin from Kyan giving an intro to what WXG is all about, after which Robert from Wirehive took over to be the host for the day (and an excellent one at that).

The rest of the day involved listening to a series of very interesting speakers, who shared their stories of how they are doing some good in the world (using technology). I can’t do their talks justice in this short post, but let me highlight a few nuggets that we heard about.

Dr Tamer Shahin from mimitec shared his company’s development: a smart mirror which can learn your behaviour and monitor it to pick up subtle cues that hint at deteriorating mental health. The subject of mental health is very topical and with many of us knowing people who suffer from mental health issues, it is a widespread issue and often goes unnoticed. How cool is it that a mirror can evaluate your appearance and even monitor your heart rate to raise a flag for an expert to look into?

Staying on a related theme, Steven Woodgate from Microsoft came next, talking about the accessibility features available in Office 365. It was great to see how Steven was using these accessibility features in his own life and work. Something he stressed, which I admittedly hadn’t thought of myself either, was that these accessibility features aren’t just for those who need them, but are accessible and can make everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

One of the most interesting speakers was Chris Dowling from Unmade – a fashion brand. Chris’ talk was titled “Saving the world with SVGs – but he wasn’t wrong. He and his team have developed a fantastic web-based platform that allows their customers to design their own team sportswear, which can be sent to printing machines and the fabric gets printed and stitched exactly how the customer wants it. It doesn’t sound like much, but when factoring in the reduced setup times and taking away the need to print 1000s in stock to maximise efficiency, it all adds up and contributes to reducing a lot of waste.

It wasn’t all just neat tools and products though; Chris Todhunter from Studio Republic shared how his company, a small design agency, decided to go green and has since made it part of their company’s identity. Every decision is made considering the impact it has on the world, society and the planet. Chris is one of the bold businessmen who will turn down a client, if the project is related to anything that contributes to harming the planet.

Daniel Harvey from The Dots Global also used the stage to bring awareness, but this time on the negatives that technology can bring and how to counter them. From social media scandals, to data leaks, to kids getting exposed to things they really should not be, Dan’s talk was an eye-opener. My favourite talk of the day, you can read more about it on his Medium post on the same subject.

We also got to hear about how the World Wildlife Foundation has used technology to raise awareness about conservation efforts, and even produce a nature series released exclusively on Netflix: Our Planet (narrated by none other than Sir David Attenborough). We also got to hear how technology is bringing good change to the sports industry ,from Rebecca Hopkins from Sports Technology Awards; where one good eye opener was that sports is larger than just the big name clubs and athletes, which are a small drop in the big world of sports.

The event ended with a demonstration by Seb Lee-Delisle, a digital artist and laserist. He talked about arcade games and how those used to have a display which can only be mimicked by lasers; and then gave us a spectacular demonstration of how lasers worked and a re-creation of classic arcade games like Space Invaders! Not really revolving around the tech for good theme, but LASERS! How cool is that?!

All in all, I think it was a fantastic event and all of the speakers deserve a (virtual) shout-out for their excellent talks and the work they do. Kyan and Wirehive did a great job organising this year’s WXG and I look forward to attending it again next year.

The post WXG 7 – “Exploring the good technology brings” appeared first on Cressive DX.

During the summer before my last year of University, I was hoping to get some experience in a working environment and try something that may relate to my Economics degree. I was fortunate enough to find that locally with Cressive DX and spent 10 weeks working in an apprentice SEO consultant role.

Cressive DX is a fast-growing technology and services company, located in the Surrey Technology Centre on Surrey Research Park in Guildford. Their focus is digital branding improvement and digital reporting for big brand names – I’ll be honest I didn’t really know what that was before this summer but I had a great time finding out and contributing.

Despite being a small team currently, they have some huge clients, which made it a really interesting and fun experience (I’m impressed how they got such large clients and manage them so well). They also love to try and explore new things – including hiring a summer intern, which I’m happy to report worked out well!

I was offered a huge variety of tasks to choose from and try, including data checking their proprietary software, managing their social media, “branding myself” (even building my own social profiles and website) and data analysis – and I even learnt some coding. My highlight was to design some software in order to enhance their reporting system (following my data checking, I tried to formulate a way to automatically detect any noticeable changes in the data), and felt like a valued member of the team when they asked for my input.

They were so supportive and encouraging throughout, allowing me to focus on the aspects I found more exciting or get involved with other tasks and projects that interested me. They answered any questions I had about business, digital reporting or SEO, or anything else and they speak so passionately about it – they love what they do and just want you to as well. Nevertheless, they were very understanding that I had no real understanding of digital marketing to begin with and just wanted me to get the most out of it.

As I still don’t know exactly what I want to do after University, they said that even if I get to the end of the summer and decide it isn’t what I want to do as a career, then that’s still useful too. If you put the effort in yourself it is difficult not to learn a lot during an Internship. This meant I could just enjoy my time there and try to get the most out of it without worrying or stressing about anything, and whilst the time at Cressive hasn’t answered all my job questions it has helped me appreciate and understand both marketing and technical roles in the work place.

I was previously more inclined towards working for a larger company; however, having completed an internship in a smaller company, I would highly recommend it to any prospective interns! There are varied tasks as all the projects are going on around you and you are more integrated into the team. As for my future plans, I am quite keen on working in a fast-moving technology environment. All in all, it couldn’t have worked out better and I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.

Jacqueline Powling, University of Birmingham, between Yr 2 & 3

The post Summer Internship ’18 appeared first on Cressive DX.