Digital Marketing News & Trends: April 10, 2025

Here are some relevant news, trends, and updates from the business and marketing world that you may want to know about…

• Google has released a recap of its biggest AI updates from March. They include Gemini 2.5 Pro, the release of AI Mode, and more.
  
  
• Google has updated Merchant Center rules, which affect product listings and shipping attributes. More details here.
  
  
• Google Ads has made some updates to policies related to account suspension. This update aims to provide clearer information to advertisers regarding misrepresentations, account and billing suspensions, and more.
  
  
• Meta Ads has added UTM parameters to all ads. These parameters allow advertisers to track campaign results using external analytics tools. 
  
  
• Meta has introduced new built-in restrictions to teens’ Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger accounts. Teens under 16 will not be able to go Live or turn off certain protections without their parent’s permission.
  
  
• Facebook has added a downward arrow in the comments, but not for everyone yet. Looks similar to the downvote arrow you’d see on Reddit.
  
  
• Meta is testing a new ad feature called Comment Keywords – an AI-generated snippet of positive feedback.
  
  
• Snapchat introduced a new way to create immersive, generative AI ads with Sponsored Lenses.
  
  
• TikTok lives to see another day (or 75). The POTUS has granted the platform a second 75-day extension to either sell or face a ban in the United States. Amazon is now on the list of bidders, too.
  
  

Google Search Trends:

• “Affiliate marketing” started to pick up recently, likely due to the recent economic uncertainty and people’s natural tendency to look for alternative income opportunities when fearing potential job loss.
  
  
  
  
• Both “SEO” and “email marketing” reached an all-time high on April 5. This is interesting because many marketers believe that AI chatbots are the end of traditional SEO, and people have been saying “email is dead” for many years now (but apparently not yet).
  
  
  
  
• “ClickFunnels” continues to decline. Seems like they’ve had a rough 2.5 years. The culprit? Most likely HighLevel. The first week of August 2023 was a defining moment – that’s when HighLevel finally caught up and then quickly surpassed ClickFunnels in search volume.
  
  That being said, we don’t cheer for any company’s failure. Russell Brunson is a brilliant entrepreneur, and we hope he will figure things out and make a massive comeback.
  
  
  
  

Team Vavoza Reacts 🗣️

Here’s what our content and marketing team has to say about the latest news and trends report…

Researcher:

I am glad to see social media companies prioritizing the online safety of kids and teens.

I grew up with some quite strict rules, one of which was that I was not allowed to have any social media until a certain age. 

Back then, of course, it made me upset ‘cause all my piers had it, and I didn’t, but I also heard some horror stories about cyberbullying, some of which, unfortunately, had a very tragic end. 

There were not enough policies, guidelines, and enforcements regarding online safety – a lot was unregulated, and the tech-savvy bad guys definitely took advantage of that. 

It is a relief to see how seriously most platforms take this matter now.

– Stephanie Hill

Agency Manager:

Here is why experience running ads is more important than “knowing what and where to click.”

Just this week, I launched some Search campaigns for one of our clients, which I haven’t done in a while because I’ve primarily been managing video ad campaigns.

Within a few hours, the new campaign was getting impressions and had around 85 clicks, so I decided to look at what “search terms” were getting clicks so I could do some optimizations.

And to my surprise, there was only 1 click on one of my target keywords.

I was a bit shocked, so I asked Vlad if he had any idea what was happening. Before I could even finish my sentence, he already had the answer for me. 

The problem was that I had the “Include Google Display Network” option enabled in the campaign’s settings, so all the clicks were coming from the display network instead of Search.

(This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s good to know where clicks are coming from.)

This is exactly what I mean when I say experience trumps knowing how to do something, even if you’re good at it.

If you want to learn how to run YouTube ads directly from Vlad, access our YouTube Ads Pro course with your Vavoza VIP Membership today.

– Vadim Silchuk

Social Media Guy:

TikTok lives to see another day…. 

If you’re an entrepreneur or online business owner on TikTok, how would the ban most likely affect your business? 

I would suggest to not fully depend on TikTok, and expand your views into other platforms, like Instagram, YouTube, etc. You don’t want to put your eggs in one basket, expand your reach and post content on all short form platforms. 

You’ll expand your reach, hit more audiences, and your business won’t be a hit or miss if TikTok were to get banned. 

Have a great week! 😎

– Vadim Strizheus 

The Founder:

I don’t like spotlighting anyone’s downtrends or potential failures, but I’ve added the bullet about ClickFunnels to our trends report because it offers us a powerful business lesson.

ClickFunnels is NOT a small fish by any means.

According to John Parkes (the CMO), “By 2023 ClickFunnels surpassed $265 million in annual revenue and 150,000 customers.”

That is a big f*cking deal and a hell of an accomplishment in just 9 years, and they did it without venture capital! 🤯

The lesson here is that nobody is too big to fail – unless you have high-level government contracts and vested interest from powerful entities or individuals in keeping your company afloat (e.g., companies like Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, etc.).

Being exposed to people who are significantly more successful than me, I learned that the bigger you are, the bigger your competition and the bigger your problems.

Eventually, running a business reaches a point where you no longer focus on making a higher profit for comfort but rather on staying alive as fierce competitors invest significant amounts of money in drowning you.

Your options become to either grow faster, innovate, and thrive, or struggle and fail – but nothing in between.

In ClickFunnels’ case, it appears that a group of people (with a lot of money) saw a blue ocean market with virtually zero worthy competitors and decided to launch HighLevel with the intent to capture ClickFunnels’ market share.

And they’ve done it very successfully – kudos to them! HighLevel has done an incredible job playing the game, and so far, it looks like they’re winning.

Will they last? I don’t know.

Will ClickFunnels make a comeback? I don’t know, but Russell is sharp, and my gut tells me he’ll figure something out not only to “stay alive” but thrive.

My advice to everyone reading this?

Don’t get complacent. You are not too big to fail, regardless of whether you earn zero-99 or hundreds of millions of dollars.

Plan on variables that you cannot control in advance. Form alliances, innovate, and grow as quickly as possible, as chances are that your business won’t always have peace and prosperity – eventually, you may have to fight a business war.

So, you know, maybe quit playing so much golf and get back to work! (But you do you.) 😄

P.S. The quickest way to grow your business from zero to a million+ per month is through paid advertising.

Learn how to run successful YouTube ads as we do at our agency in YouTube Ads Pro (become a VIP Member to get access).

– Vlad Strizheus

Tune in to Vavoza Insider weekly for more relevant business and marketing news, trends, and ideas from our team. 🗞️ 📈 🗣️