The European regulatory framework has profoundly changed the rules of digital marketing since the beginning of 2024. With the fully applicable Digital Services Act and the first obligations of the AI Act, companies building their online communication strategy can no longer simply optimize their channels: they must rethink how they collect, use, and justify the use of their customers’ data.
Digital Services Act and advertising targeting: what changes concretely for campaigns
Since February 17, 2024, all platforms operating in the European market are subject to the obligations of the DSA regarding online advertising. Three constraints directly modify the management of digital campaigns.
The first concerns transparency of targeting parameters. Each ad must clearly identify the advertiser, the payer, and the criteria used to select the audience. Very large platforms must also maintain a public register of the ads displayed, accessible to anyone.
The second relates to sensitive data. Targeting based on religion, health, political opinions, or sexual orientation is prohibited. Targeting minors is also prohibited. For a company that relied on very fine audience segments, this implies a need to revise its segmentation strategy.
The third obligation requires platforms to offer a non-profiled recommendation system. Users can therefore choose to see content without algorithmic personalization, which mechanically reduces the reach of traditional behavioral targeting.
In practice, advertisers who wish to deepen digital marketing on Ô Business find that the shift towards contextual targeting (based on the content of the page rather than the user’s profile) is no longer a theoretical option but an operational necessity.
AI Act and automated marketing tools: obligations to anticipate
The European AI Act introduces a risk-based classification that directly affects digital marketing tools. Artificial intelligence systems used for behavioral scoring or large-scale personalization fall into categories that impose documentation, auditing, and transparency.
For marketing teams, the most tangible consequence concerns chatbots and conversational assistants deployed on websites or social media. Any AI system interacting with a user must identify itself as such. A customer service chatbot or a product recommendation assistant can no longer present itself as a human interlocutor.
Field reports vary on the actual impact of this obligation. Some brands report that the explicit identification of AI does not affect conversion rates. Others observe a decrease in engagement, particularly in sectors where the trust relationship relies on perceived human contact.
Documenting the logic of recommendation algorithms
Beyond identification, the AI Act requires documenting the logic of recommendation systems. A company that uses an algorithm to personalize the content displayed on its site or to segment its email campaigns must be able to explain the criteria used. The available data does not yet allow for measuring the cost of compliance for SMEs, but the administrative burden seems significant.
Content strategy and SEO in 2024: quality as an anti-AI filter
Search engines have strengthened their criteria for detecting content generated by artificial intelligence. For an effective natural referencing strategy, content production can no longer rely solely on volume.
- Content that demonstrates verifiable sector expertise (field data, documented feedback, analysis of concrete cases) is favored by recent algorithmic updates from Google.
- Implementing robust consent pathways on websites improves user trust, an indirect signal taken into account in positioning.
- Long and structured formats (guides, surveys, sourced comparisons) maintain an advantage in terms of organic visibility compared to automatically generated short content.
The temptation to multiply articles via generative AI tools remains strong. Data on the actual penalties imposed by Google on this type of content are still partial, but several documented cases show significant drops in organic traffic on sites that have published massive amounts of automated content without editorial oversight.
Social media and social commerce: a rapidly changing channel
Social commerce (purchasing directly from a social platform) continues to grow, but its adoption varies greatly by market and age group. In Europe, conversion rates remain lower than those observed in Asia.
TikTok and Instagram concentrate most of the innovation in terms of advertising formats integrated into the purchasing journey. Live shopping features are multiplying, with mixed results depending on the sectors.
For companies building their presence on these channels, two questions remain open:
- The sustainability of formats: recommendation algorithms change frequently, making it difficult to build a stable organic audience on a single platform.
- The measurement of return on investment: multi-touch attribution tools remain imprecise for quantifying the actual contribution of a social network to a final conversion, especially in B2B.
- DSA compliance: advertising transparency obligations also apply to sponsored content distributed by creators, complicating the management of influencer campaigns.
The Reech 2024 study confirms that influencer marketing continues to grow in France, with increased professionalization of relationships between brands and content creators. However, performance measurement practices remain heterogeneous from one company to another.
Building a digital marketing strategy in 2024 requires navigating an environment where European regulation weighs as heavily as technological innovation. The companies that will stand out are those that integrate the constraints of the DSA and the AI Act from the design of their campaigns, rather than treating them as last-minute adjustments.
