First and foremost, a huge thank you to our wonderful clients. We love working with you and appreciate your continued trust and support. Let’s keep growing!

Another year is coming to an end, and what a year it was for Digital Marketing. One of the wildest I’ve seen in my 12 years as a digital marketer, without a doubt.

AI emerged into the daily lives of millions, skyrocketing AI platform value as a traffic source for businesses. In mid-2025, 40%+ of working-age adults were using AI, a number that is probably pushing 50% by now.

Hackers, Bots, and Spammers got more crafty. In a recent poll I put out, 56% of employees get 3+ spam emails per day. Data security for businesses continues to become more important. With this, in September, Google fought back against bots skewing Search Console Data, and they just rolled out another core update that likely targets bots and spam. The bad guys are not going away.

Google further monetized the search results, forcing businesses to “pay to play” in many instances, given that everything above the fold (pre-scrolling) is a paid advertisement.

A lot is happening out there, and it’s a bit overwhelming! I’m here to explain what happened in 2025 for businesses marketing online, where we’re at currently, and what needs to be done in 2026 to give your business the best opportunity to succeed and leverage digital traffic channels.

Takeaways from 2025

• Google is still #1 for driving business-related traffic, but AI bots and search need arguably just as much attention. This article has some great usage statistics that showcase why, like the fact that AI search traffic converts 11% higher than Google, AI Overviews appear in 18% of Global searches, and 38% of decision makers have allocated budget to AI SEO.
• Users and AI want content and companies to showcase trust signals. Having credible mentions, accreditations, affiliations, certifications, and awards will go a long way to build trust. Making your business a trustworthy reference for AI and a confident choice for prospective customers. Google likes this too!
• Spam/Hacking is intensifying. Cybersecurity on every level has never been more important. Things like 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) are annoying, but worth it if it protects your information.
• It’s important to consistently re-evaluate strategy with the extremely frequent, significant changes in the online landscape. Taking a fresh look could identify a large ROI opportunity with a minor adjustment. For example, adding targeted ads, making a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) improvement, etc.
• Ads are becoming more automated, but more difficult to manage. I strongly advise having a professional manage your Google Ads campaigns. There are a lot of campaign types and settings now, and following Google’s simplified steps for a new account/campaign setup leads to more spend with less results. We hear this all the time from our clients regarding their previous experiences with Google Ads. We can leverage ads in a way that generates the ROI through proper targeting, rather than mass spending/visibility
  • “In 2026, advertising platforms will be so automated and complex that the margin for error is very small. The real key to success is dedicated, strategic optimization—not just “setting and forgetting” ads, but fine-tuning them relentlessly for profit and efficiency. This strategic focus is what allowed our collective clients’ campaigns to achieve a 6.5% average success rate in 2025 (the standard is 4-6% per Google). Businesses must prioritize this level of strategic focus to protect their budget and create a reliable sales funnel.” -Justin Marshall (Head of Paid Advertising)
• Search behavior is shifting towards community-based answers, not polished corporate messaging.
  • “With social platforms like Reddit and Quora now appearing prominently in search results, users and AI are turning to conversations (not campaigns) for truth.” -Warren Ponticos (Head of Social Media) It’s also worth mentioning that Google and Reddit struck a licensing deal in 2024.

“2025 showed us just how quickly digital marketing can change, especially with AI becoming part of everyday life. It’s interesting how most people I spoke with in the past never really understood digital marketing or SEO, but now everyone knows about AI, even my grandparents. I think this shows how powerful AI is and will become – there’s no running from it. Businesses that stay agile and invest in the right partners will win in 2026. Our job is to help you do exactly that.” -Jake Ostmann (Head of SEO)

2026 Digital Marketing Focus

Every business is different, so it’s tough to generalize, but there are certain focal points that should apply to all businesses.

• Pay attention regularly to the search results, and where prospective customers are looking for your business online. Be ready to adapt. For Example, if you’re a local florist. You should search “Florist near me”, and see what appears. When I do a search, I see a lot of ads (search text, shopping, map), Google Business Listings in the map pack, and then the organic listings. Within those organic listings a Yelp listing. So if I wanted to dominate the floral space in my town and surrounding towns I would run those ads, do my best to appear organically, and ensure my Google Business profile and Yelp profile were in tip-top shape. I would also test Yelp Ads-they usually give you a free $300 for testing (~1 month).
• Don’t skimp on website hosting, designers, or cybersecurity measures. It’s the wild west online, and there are bandits everywhere! A proactive effort to protect you, your website, your client data, and more can save you a lot of hassle long term. This is especially true if you’re using WordPress, as it has many different components that need to remain updated to keep vulnerabilities closed. Trust us, you don’t want to deal with suspended ads, business listings, skewed data, and the many other negative implications from a hack or script injection.
• Get a fresh digital marketing review to establish an updated game plan that maximizes impact.
• Run key ad types, and optimize them for ROI to create a lead and sales machine you can count on. We had several clients generate 4x-6x their ad spend in return in 2025.
• Make your business more trustworthy by earning and displaying trust signals. Get involved in more online discussions like Reddit threads. Try to win some local awards. There are lots of opportunities. This also contributes to CRO to turn more site visitors into customers. A worthy effort.

Improvements for Our Clients

• Opportunity for more targeted AI Efforts with our AI Package in partnership with semrush
  • Note: We incorporate AI SEO into SEO plans. This will be an add-on focused on improving visibility in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc. with the help of an expanded toolset. We’ll announce when it’s available this week.
• Better custom reporting
  • We often create multiple detailed reports for our clients. In 2026, our clients will have access to live data to check in at any time, and we’ll continue to custom-build reports to our clients’ liking.
• Ultra-Proactive Website Security, Hosting, and Email Spam efforts
  • It’s been difficult the last couple of years managing Spam emails, dealing with script injections, and the repercussions with Google Ads. We got through it, strengthened our posture, and will continue to do so. CIO Jeremy Maurer is leading the charge along with Grey and our production team of talented designers and developers on this to further minimize website outages, hacks, and uphold consistent full functionality. If there is ever an issue, you can count on us to help quickly. We also partnered with DartPoints to upgrade hosting and security for our clients.
• Dedicated Specialists in every department
  • We’ve shifted things around slightly so each area of expertise has a dedicated team member. This ensures each team member has a narrow focus where we can learn, grow, and excel for our clients, while still implementing periodic collaborative efforts as well.

“Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail”

One of my favorite sayings, and why we are always prepared and ready to adapt. We ensure that our clients are too.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please don’t hesitate to reach out: ray.cheselka@webfeatcomplete.com

Here’s to a fantastic 2026!

Ray Cheselka

COO of webFEAT Complete

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raycheselka

*Photo by Studio | MC https://www.studioxmc.com/