The pressure to be seen and heard in a crowded digital space is immense.
Marketers are in a perpetual race, deploying every new trend—from AI-driven hyper-personalization to viral short-form video campaigns—to capture audience attention.
The mantra has long been “more is more”: more content, more channels, more exposure.
But as consumers become more discerning and digitally fatigued, a new question is emerging: at what point does aggressive marketing become a liability?
Chasing every trend without a sustainable strategy can lead to significant risks, including brand dilution, audience burnout, and costly public backlash.
The line between being visible and being invasive has never been finer.
To navigate this complex terrain, the BoostMyDomain turned to a panel of distinguished digital growth experts and business leaders from across industries with a critical, forward-thinking question:
“In your opinion, what is a single digital marketing trend that companies should approach with restraint to avoid sustainability issues, unwanted or excessive exposure, or even backlash?”
Their responses offer a crucial dose of strategic caution, providing a much-needed guide on how to build a lasting brand presence by choosing not just what to do, but what not to do.
Read on!
AI Retargeting Crosses Line Between Helpful and Invasive
One digital marketing trend companies should approach with serious restraint is hyper-personalised retargeting, especially when powered by increasingly aggressive AI engines. It might seem efficient on the surface—showing users products they’ve clicked on or mentioned—but the line between helpful and invasive gets crossed quickly.
When you’ve worked with fast-scaling brands and watched performance metrics closely, you see how quick wins can turn into brand erosion if trust isn’t protected. Audiences are savvier than ever. If they feel watched or manipulated, especially in sensitive categories like health or finance, you risk not just poor engagement but public backlash.
The better play is to focus on value-led content and timing over over-engineered behavioural tracking.
Sustainable digital growth doesn’t come from squeezing every click—it comes from building long-term relevance and respect in your audience’s mind. That requires a bit more patience and nuance, but it pays off in brand equity and lifetime value.
Limit Retargeting: Personalization Should Feel Like Relevance
In my opinion, one digital marketing trend companies should approach with restraint is the overuse of hyper-personalized retargeting ads, especially those driven by behavioral tracking and third-party data.
While retargeting can be highly effective for conversions, when it becomes too aggressive or invasive, it risks alienating users rather than engaging them. We’ve all seen it—browsing a product once and then being followed around the internet for days with the same ad. This not only creates ad fatigue, but also raises serious privacy concerns, especially in the post-Apple ATT and GDPR landscape.
At Clearcatnet, we’ve learned to limit the frequency of retargeting and focus more on value-based remarketing—like offering fresh content, a study guide, or a time-sensitive reminder—instead of just repeating the same product message. We also segment audiences more thoughtfully, ensuring our ads feel helpful rather than intrusive.
The takeaway? Personalization should feel like relevance, not surveillance. Brands that overstep can face not just poor performance, but loss of trust—and that’s much harder to win back.
Hyper-Personalized Ads Burn Trust, Trigger Privacy Concerns
The trend to approach with restraint? Hyper-personalized retargeting. I’m talking about the ads that follow you around after looking at one product for two seconds.
Yes, it boosts short-term conversions. But long-term? It creeps people out, burns trust, and triggers privacy concerns. With growing awareness around data ethics and tighter regulations (like GDPR and CCPA), aggressive tracking can backfire—hard.
Dave Lavinsky
President, PlanPros
Purposeful Personalization Balances Data Ethics and Value
Hyper-personalization powered by AI is a digital marketing trend that companies should approach with significant caution. While collecting vast amounts of consumer data to deliver highly targeted experiences might seem like the holy grail of marketing, it’s creating serious sustainability and ethical concerns.
In the 3PL and eCommerce space, I’ve witnessed companies rush to implement AI-driven personalization without considering the complete picture. The environmental impact alone is substantial – these systems require immense computing power and energy consumption. One analysis I recently reviewed showed that training a single AI algorithm can generate as much carbon as five cars over their lifetimes.
Beyond the environmental concerns, consumers are becoming increasingly wary of brands that seem to know “too much” about them. We’ve seen major backlash against companies perceived as crossing the privacy line, even when their intentions were to provide better service. At Fulfill.com, we believe in transparent data practices that respect boundaries while still providing value.
The most sustainable approach is what I call “purposeful personalization” – collecting only what’s necessary, being transparent about usage, and ensuring real value creation. For example, instead of tracking every mouse movement and building invasive profiles, focus on understanding core shipping preferences to recommend appropriate 3PL partners.
I’ve guided countless eCommerce businesses through this balance, helping them avoid the pitfalls of over-personalization while still leveraging technology effectively. The brands that will thrive long-term aren’t those collecting the most data, but those using it most thoughtfully.
Remember that sustainable marketing isn’t just about environmental impact – it encompasses ethical considerations around data usage, consumer trust, and creating genuine relationships rather than exploitative ones. As the industry evolves, the companies that approach personalization with restraint and purpose will ultimately win both consumer loyalty and market share.
Joe Spisak
CEO, Fulfill
Personalization Without Trust Becomes Customer Surveillance
I’ve seen brands fall in love with personalization so hard, they forget there’s a real person on the other side of the screen.
As someone who runs a private driver service in Mexico City—and previously scaled businesses in AI and fintech—I’ve watched “hyper-personalized marketing” go from a smart growth tool to a risky obsession. When done without restraint, it crosses into invasive territory. Companies collect too much data, deploy it without context, and then wonder why customers feel uncomfortable or even manipulated.
At one point, I ran a campaign that matched high-end transportation offers to traveler behavior from booking sites. Conversion jumped 23%. But by the third email or ad “just for them,” many customers pulled back. It felt like we were following them—not serving them.
The lesson? Use personalization to build trust, not extract attention. Be transparent about data use, limit frequency, and always let your customer opt in emotionally—not just technically. Respect leads to sustainability.
Viral TikTok Trends Sacrifice Strategy for Fleeting Attention
Chasing viral TikTok trends for brand visibility is one area that needs more restraint. Too often, companies treat virality like a strategy, but it’s really just a short-term spike with little lasting value. So instead of building meaningful content, brands end up reacting to fleeting cultural moments. That makes them feel reactive instead of intentional.
Because of that, it creates noise instead of connection. The real risk isn’t just in the budget or time spent. It’s in how quickly a brand can lose its identity. When marketing decisions are driven by trending audio or meme formats, it’s easy to dilute core messaging.
People notice when a brand jumps on a trend without adding meaning. Sometimes it gets ignored. Other times it leads to backlash for coming off tone-deaf or opportunistic.
There’s also a sustainability issue. Trends on platforms like TikTok move fast. What worked last week might already be irrelevant. So that kind of pace burns out teams and makes it harder to build long-term trust. It also leads to inconsistent performance.
High view counts might look good on paper, but if they don’t contribute to positioning, pipeline, or retention, they’re just vanity metrics.
Virality can be a bonus if it happens naturally through good content. But making it the goal turns into an expensive distraction that pulls focus from real strategy.
Josiah Roche
Fractional CMO, JRR Marketing
Hollow Purpose Marketing Backfires Without Authentic Action
One trend brands need to approach with serious restraint is “purpose-driven marketing” done for optics, not impact.
At Co-Wear LLC, we’ve seen how powerful authentic brand values can be—especially with younger audiences. But we’ve also seen how quickly consumers call out performative campaigns. If you’re going to speak on social issues, sustainability, inclusivity, or mental health, it better be rooted in truth, not trend-chasing.
The mistake companies make is thinking they have to say something about everything. You don’t. In fact, saying something just to stay “relevant” can backfire fast. One mismatched message or hollow hashtag, and you’re branded as inauthentic. That’s a hard reputation to recover from—especially in an era where screenshots live forever.
Sustainability is a good example. If your supply chain isn’t clean, don’t slap a green logo on your packaging and call it a day. If your brand hasn’t done the work, don’t fake the stance. Today’s audience can sniff out shallow messaging in seconds, and they’re not afraid to drag a brand for it publicly.
As marketers, we’re responsible not just for reach—but for integrity. Marketing can’t fix what the brand hasn’t addressed internally. So before launching a campaign tied to any value or cause, ask yourself: Is this something we actually live by? Can we back it up?
The answer needs to be yes—every time. Otherwise, silence is better than backlash.
Illustrious Espiritu
Digital Marketing Expert, Co-Wear LLC
Smart Retargeting Respects Boundaries, Not Just Algorithms
Hyper-personalized retargeting is one digital marketing trend that I think businesses should really avoid, especially if it seems invasive or excessively persistent. As a CMO with over ten years of experience in performance marketing, I have witnessed firsthand how effective this strategy can be in the short term, but when overdone, it can have detrimental long-term effects.
Dynamic product ads that aggressively followed users across platforms were the foundation of the retargeting strategy we once implemented for a client in the beauty sector. Although the ROAS initially appeared to be strong, people began to complain that they were seeing the same advertisement everywhere, even days after making a purchase. Some even left unfavorable comments on the posts, claiming that they were intrusive or “creepy.”
It became evident from that experience that you shouldn’t follow a user through all of their touchpoints just because the technology permits it. Retargeting that lacks contextual sensitivity, frequency caps, or appropriate exclusion logic may come across as stalking rather than helpful.
These days, we incorporate post-purchase exclusions, frequency limits, and creative variation into each and every remarketing campaign. In addition to the algorithm, we also take into account the customer’s emotional state and purchasing history.
The brands that thrive in a world where ad fatigue is real and privacy concerns are growing will be those that understand when to back off, not just when to show up.
Aggressive Legal Ads Transform Trust Into Suspicion
We’ve seen law firms burn goodwill fast by chasing users around the internet with aggressive injury, immigration, or family law ads.
While 80% of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized experiences (Accenture), there’s a fine line between relevance and creepiness especially in sensitive industries.
When personalization crosses into surveillance, you risk turning trust into suspicion.
Overexposure fatigues your audience and triggers ad blindness or worse backlash. We’ve had better long-term success with value-based content that earns clicks, not demands them. If your audience feels hunted, your brand’s not trusted. That’s a lose-lose for sustainability.
On behalf of the BoostMyDomain community of readers, we thank these leaders and experts for taking the time to share valuable insights that stem from years of experience and in-depth expertise in their respective niches.
BoostMyDomain invites you to share your insights and contribute to our authoritative publication. Reach a wider audience, build your credibility, and establish yourself as a thought leader in an industry that caters to every business with an online presence!