PH Digital CEO Christine Kearney shares seven things ecommerce brands are getting wrong in 2025 and how to fix them.
In an increasingly competitive digital marketplace, many ecommerce brands are still falling into familiar traps that limit their growth and impact.
As consumer behaviours evolve and platforms shift, the old playbook no longer guarantees success. To thrive in 2025, brands must rethink their approach to performance marketing, moving beyond short-term wins and vanity metrics to adopt holistic, long-term strategies that balance acquisition, retention, creative innovation and brand building.
Here’s what many are getting wrong and how to fix it.
1. Mistaking vanity metrics for business growth
Many agencies are still prioritising cheap wins – retargeting existing customers to inflate ROAS and conversions. These results look good on a dashboard, but they often come at the cost of real growth. You’re effectively paying to talk to people who already know you, rather than growing your customer base. At PH Digital, we do it differently – we align paid media strategy to broader business outcomes, not just platform metrics. Paid media should be a growth lever, not just a dopamine hit. New customer acquisition needs to be at the centre of any strategy. This includes: tight exclusion audiences at the top of funnel, getting users into your first-party data ecosystem early (email, SMS, etc), and strong top of funnel creative and messaging focused on cut-through and connection. If your ROAS looks strong but your total revenue is flatlining, this is likely the reason.
2. Over-prioritising ROAS at the expense of scale
ROAS isn’t a business goal – it’s a metric. Sometimes it’s the wrong one to chase. Relentlessly chasing high ROAS means you’re leaving scale and future profit on the table. New customer acquisition is more expensive. That’s normal. The CAC (customer acquisition cost) is higher, but so is the potential lifetime value. A strategy focused on scalability accepts short-term ROAS dips to enable long-term growth. Brands who understand this and back their acquisition strategy now will be the ones leading their category when the market rebounds.
3. Lack of a retention strategy
Acquisition is expensive – but without retention, you’re burning cash. Many brands neglect retention, assuming once someone buys, they’ll naturally come back. That’s not true. Retention isn’t passive – it needs strategy, systems and segmentation. A solid post-purchase journey, automated lifecycle communications and compelling retention offers are crucial. Customer retention increases average lifetime value and the ROI on your acquisition efforts. Smart brands invest equally in bringing customers in and keeping them engaged.
4. Strategies to increase average order value (AOV)
Retention strategies also present opportunities to increase AOV through upselling, cross-selling and bundled offers. Personalised recommendations based on purchase history, limited-time offers, and loyalty rewards encourage customers to spend more per transaction. These tactics maximise the value of each customer and further improve the return on your marketing investment.
5. Failing to invest in brand (alongside performance)
Performance alone won’t cut it. You need brand to drive trust, emotional connection and long-term loyalty. In 2025, the most successful ecommerce brands don’t separate performance and brand – they build them together. Creative that reflects your brand values, consistent storytelling and recognisable assets all increase paid media effectiveness. Brand marketing helps reduce CAC over time and supports conversion at every stage of the funnel. It’s not a “performance versus brand” conversation – it’s about how they fuel each other.
6. Cutting marketing spend in economic downturns
One of the biggest mistakes brands make in 2025 is pulling back on marketing due to economic pressure. It feels like a safe cost to cut, but it’s not. If you lose visibility now, you lose customer acquisition momentum, brand recall and market share. The brands that continue to show up, even when it’s tough, will win when the economy rebounds. As difficult as it sounds, redundancies and leaner operations should come before cutting your marketing engine. Marketing is how you survive the tough times and thrive in the better ones.
7. Creative strategy as a growth engine
Creative isn’t just decoration – it’s a key driver of performance. Strong creative grabs attention, speaks directly to customer pain points and aspirations, and differentiates your brand from the competition. In a crowded market, experimentation with formats, messaging and visuals is essential to find what resonates and drives conversions. The best brands constantly test and refine their creative to maintain freshness and relevance, keeping their audience engaged and growing.
In a tough market, mediocre marketing is exposed. The cracks that were papered over in boom years are now fault lines. The brands that win in 2025 will be those who commit to long-term customer growth, creative experimentation and full-funnel strategy – and who partner with agencies that think like business people, not media buyers.
