The European advertising market has been operating since February 2024 under a regulatory framework that profoundly alters targeting levers. The Digital Services Act (DSA) requires all platforms to be transparent about the targeting parameters used in each advertisement. The Digital Markets Act (DMA), applicable since March 2024, redistributes the rules of the game between advertisers and gatekeepers. These two regulations reshape the marketing strategies of companies that rely on behavioral targeting for their growth.
DSA and DMA: What European Regulation Changes for Advertising Targeting
Most analyses on marketing trends for 2024 mention the gradual end of third-party cookies. The issue goes further. Since February 17, 2024, the DSA mandates that each platform display, on every advertisement, the identity of the advertiser, the campaign’s funder, and the main targeting criteria. This transparency requirement applies to all digital services accessible in Europe.
Two structural prohibitions accompany this obligation. Advertising based on the profiling of sensitive data (health, political opinions, sexual orientation) is now prohibited. Targeted advertising for minors based on profiling is also banned, regardless of the platform.
For marketing teams, the consequence is direct: behavioral segments built on fine personal data lose their exploitability. The return to contextual targeting and declarative segments is not a trend; it is a regulatory adaptation. An overview of content on Business Futur allows for measuring the extent of these transformations on digital strategies.
Meta and Google Campaigns in Europe: Performance Decline and Concrete Alternatives
The DMA directly targets gatekeepers, dominant platforms like Meta and Google. Since its implementation, these players must offer explicit consent mechanisms for data sharing between their various services. In practice, a significant portion of European users refuse this data sharing.
Field reports vary on the exact extent of the performance decline, but the trend is clear: exploitable audiences on Meta and Google are shrinking in Europe. Campaigns that relied on multi-service retargeting are losing precision.
Adaptation Strategies for Advertisers
- Strengthen first-party data strategies by directly collecting customer preferences through forms, loyalty programs, or member areas
- Invest in contextual targeting, which places ads based on the content being viewed rather than the user’s profile
- Test campaigns on platforms less dependent on behavioral profiling, such as retail media or sponsored newsletters
The challenge is not to replace one channel with another but to diversify acquisition sources to no longer depend on a single advertising ecosystem whose rules are changing under regulatory pressure.
Content and Generative AI: Between Marketers’ Enthusiasm and Operational Limits
According to Kantar’s 2024 Marketing Trends report, 67% of marketers express optimism about the possibilities offered by generative AI. Adoption is rapid, primarily for producing textual and visual content and personalizing messages.
The available data does not yet allow for conclusions about the actual effectiveness of this content in terms of conversion. The enthusiasm centers on reducing production costs and speeding up execution. However, the question of differentiation remains open: if all brands use the same tools to generate similar content, the competitive advantage cancels out.
What Works Already
Generative AI shows measurable results in two specific uses. Personalizing marketing emails, where the content adapts to the recipient’s declarative segment, improves open rates. Generating ad variants for A/B testing accelerates campaign optimization cycles.
In long-form content creation (articles, white papers), limitations appear more quickly. Content produced without industry expertise remains generic, and search engines are refining their ability to assess editorial depth. The content strategy in 2024 relies less on volume and more on sector relevance.
Consumer Trust and Brand Engagement: A Growth Lever Under Conditions
Kantar notes that the majority of consumers worldwide report making efforts to support companies that advocate for causes they care about. This figure masks a more nuanced reality: brand engagement only serves as a growth lever when perceived as consistent with the company’s activities.
Brands that take a stand on societal issues unrelated to their business expose themselves to negative backlash, amplified by social media. Consistency between discourse and business practice conditions trust. A food retailer that communicates about supply chain transparency has more credibility than a fast fashion brand that claims environmental commitments.
For medium-sized companies, the most cost-effective strategy remains documenting their actual practices rather than building image campaigns. Consumers seek proof, not statements of intent. A loyalty program backed by traceability data has a greater impact than an institutional campaign on brand values.
Marketing in 2024 is not just about choosing between AI, short video, or influencer marketing. The European regulatory framework redefines the rules of advertising targeting, and this constraint weighs more heavily on budgets than any creative trend. Companies that integrate these regulatory parameters into their marketing planning gain an advantage over those that merely adjust their content formats.
