An e-commerce site that has been performing well for three years suddenly sees its acquisition costs rising month after month. The advertising campaigns that used to bring in customers at an acceptable rate are no longer working the same way. The problem does not stem from the budget, but from a European regulatory framework that has changed targeting rules and from saturation of traditional channels. The digital marketing strategies that generated results two years ago need a concrete update.
Advertising Targeting and DSA: What Changes in Your Campaigns
As of February 17, 2024, the Digital Services Act applies to all online platforms active in the European market. For marketing teams, the consequences are direct and operational.
Targeted advertising based on the profiling of minors is prohibited, regardless of the network (Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat). The threshold is set at 18 years, with no exceptions related to consent. In practice, one can no longer rely on young audience segments built through behavioral profiling.
Advertising based on sensitive data (health, sexual orientation, political or religious opinions) is also banned for targeting. All programmatic campaigns that relied on these criteria must be cleaned up. This applies to both custom audiences and segments derived from third-party data.
The major platforms now maintain public registries of advertisements that display targeting parameters and the identity of the advertiser. Your competitors can see your campaigns, and vice versa. Transparency becomes a strategic parameter. There is a presentation of the Cyber Business site that details the implications of these new constraints on campaign structuring.
The reflex to adopt: shift to contextual targeting rather than behavioral. Place an ad on a page whose content corresponds to the product, instead of tracking a user profile across the web. Feedback on this point varies by sector, but initial tests show often more stable cost-per-click rates.
SEO Content Strategy: Produce Less but Better Indexed
Publishing three articles a week on a blog is pointless if Google does not rank them. It has been observed that sites that focus their efforts on a reduced number of pages, but better structured, achieve better results in organic visibility.
Choosing Your Battles by Keyword
Before writing, check if the targeted keyword is achievable. A young site targeting “digital marketing” in a short query will not rank above HubSpot or major business schools. However, long-tail queries related to a specific sector offer a realistic playing field.
Each published piece of content should aim for a unique search intent. An article that mixes definition, tutorial, and comparison does not adequately address any of these intents.
Structure for SEO and for the Reader
Search engines read the hierarchy of titles, tags, and lexical density. Readers skim. Content that works for both respects a few concrete principles:
- An H2 title contains the term that the target audience would type into Google, not a literary formula
- Each paragraph conveys a single verifiable or actionable piece of information
- Structured data (tables, lists) facilitate extraction by engines and improve the chances of appearing in rich results
- Internal linking connects pages with descriptive anchors, not “click here”
Social Media Campaigns: Balancing Organic and Paid
On most social platforms, the organic reach of a professional post has dropped in recent years. Posting regularly without an advertising budget often amounts to speaking into a void, except on LinkedIn where organic reach remains viable for B2B.
The balance between organic content and paid campaigns depends on the sales cycle. A product with a quick decision (e-commerce, subscription) benefits from sponsored campaigns with interest-based targeting. A B2B service with a long cycle derives more value from regular organic content that builds credibility.
The DSA also requires clearly declaring the advertising nature of sponsored content. Partnerships with content creators must be transparent, under penalty of sanctions. For influencer campaigns, it is essential to ensure that the creator visibly mentions the partnership.
Customer Data and Analytics Tools: Steering Without Flying Blind
Collecting data is not enough. There are still companies that accumulate contacts in a CRM without ever segmenting or triggering an appropriate sequence. A well-segmented email tool generates more conversions than a massive, unused database.
Analytics tools (analytics, heatmaps, conversion tracking) help identify what works and what needs to be cut. Two indicators deserve daily attention:
- The cost of acquisition by channel, to reallocate the budget towards the most profitable sources
- The conversion rate by landing page, to spot friction points in the customer journey
- The open and click rates of email campaigns, to adjust the frequency and content of sends
Marketing automation makes sense at this stage. Setting up simple scenarios (abandoned cart follow-up, welcome sequence, reactivation after inactivity) requires an initial time investment but then frees up bandwidth for higher-value tasks.
Digital marketing in 2025-2026 relies less on multiplying channels than on mastering a few well-calibrated levers. The regulatory constraints of the DSA force a rethink of targeting. SEO content requires editorial rigor rather than volume. Profitable campaigns are those that we measure and adjust each week, not those that we launch and forget.