Paid social moved fast in 2025. Platforms, consumer behaviour, and technology all shifted the way brands drive growth. Looking back, it’s clear that paid social is no longer just a supporting channel. It sits right where media, commerce, and tech meet, with clear expectations around performance, scale, and accountability.
Here’s a wrap-up of the biggest lessons from 2025 and how brands can use them to plan smarter in 2026.
Social Commerce Keeps Accelerating
The biggest shift we saw in 2025 was the rise of social commerce. Social isn’t just for discovery anymore, it’s where people are actually buying.
Global social commerce sales hit around $700 billion in 2024, up 23% from 2023 (Whop, 2025). Platforms are investing heavily in in-app checkout, shoppable formats, and native commerce features that make it easier for inspiration to turn into action. TikTok Shop and similar features show that platforms are serious about end-to-end shopping experiences.
To succeed, brands need to think beyond clicks. Maximising social commerce performance requires alignment across creative, media, and measurement. Brands should leverage automated creative testing and personalisation at scale, optimise bidding and budget allocation across high-performing segments, and monitor attribution models to capture incremental lift. Even small optimisations like these can drive measurable improvements in revenue, ROAS, and scalable growth.
Consumers Are More Selective Than Ever
2025 made one thing very clear: consumers are more informed and strategic than ever. They understand how ecommerce works, and they know how brands show up across paid social.
Shoppers are increasingly promo-literate. Many understand that adding a product to cart or browsing multiple times can trigger retargeting or unlock a deeper offer. They’re timing purchases around known promotional moments, comparing prices across platforms, and actively weighing options before committing.
As a result, purchase journeys are getting longer. Consumers are taking more touchpoints before converting, moving between brands, platforms, and formats as they research, validate, and wait for the right moment to buy. Paid social often plays a supporting role across this journey, even when it isn’t the final click.
For brands, this means performance can’t be judged in isolation or on a single exposure. Sequencing, frequency control, and full-funnel measurement matter more than ever, particularly as last-click attribution continues to underrepresent social’s role in conversion paths.
AI and Automation Are Core to Performance
AI and automation were table stakes in 2025. Platforms like Meta nudged advertisers toward automated solutions like Advantage+ campaigns and signal-based audiences.
Done right, with strong creative, clean data, and clear budgets, automation unlocks scale and efficiency. But AI isn’t a magic wand. Success still comes down to strategy, testing discipline, and clear direction. AI helps teams move faster, not think for them.
For 2026, the takeaway is simple: combine human insight with automation. Run automated campaigns while monitoring performance signals closely to scale what works without losing control.
Test-and-Learn Is Essential, Especially for Creative
2025 reinforced that creative is not a one-and-done exercise. As platforms, formats, and consumer expectations continue to evolve, creative testing has become one of the most important levers in paid social performance.
High-performing teams are running structured creative test-and-learn programs, developing clear hypotheses around formats, hooks, messaging, and value propositions. They’re using performance data to understand why an asset worked, not just that it worked, then feeding those learnings back into the next round of creative.
For 2026, creative experimentation should be ongoing and intentional. Rapid testing cycles, clear success metrics, and a willingness to iterate quickly allow brands to stay relevant, improve efficiency, and scale winning ideas faster.
What This Means for 2026
Paid social in 2025 proved that growth doesn’t come from chasing tactics. It comes from strong foundations: seamless social commerce, disciplined optimisation, and creative that evolves as fast as consumer behaviour does.
The brands that performed best weren’t the loudest or the flashiest. They were the ones that understood how consumers shop, built systems that supported longer decision journeys, and used automation and testing to scale what worked.
Heading into 2026, the opportunity is to move earlier and more deliberately. Apply these learnings upfront, invest in smarter creative experimentation, and use measurement to guide decisions, not just report on them. When those pieces come together, paid social becomes a consistent, compounding growth driver rather than a reactive channel.
Ready to turn paid social into a growth engine in 2026?
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