In 2025, advertisers face mounting challenges. From economic volatility, to increasing job complexity, to a rapidly evolving tech environment, teams are under pressure to adapt in a variety of ways. At the same time, consumers’ digital habits are shifting as quickly as the digital media space is evolving, making it difficult to keep campaigns aligned with where, when, and how people engage online. And though new tools like AI promise automation and efficiency, they can also add layers of complexity when not implemented thoughtfully.
All of these challenges share one thing in common: They’re intensified by fragmented data. Without a holistic view of what’s working, where audiences are engaging, or how budgets are performing, it becomes much harder to make real-time optimizations and build a clear, unified picture of campaign performance. At the same time, without unified data, it can be difficult for teams to incorporate new tools like AI in a way that reduces complexity rather than adds to it.
Data consolidation can provide advertisers with clarity and control, helping them to address many of their most pressing challenges. When teams have clear and actionable data, they can better adapt to external forces like economic uncertainty and shifts in consumer behaviors. And by unifying fragmented data sources into a single view, advertisers gain faster access to insights, reduce manual and redundant tasks, and minimize errors. Perhaps most importantly, they can craft smarter, more agile campaigns—and prove the value of every ad dollar spent.
Fragmented systems and siloed data remain persistent challenges for brands and agencies today.
Agencies, in particular, operate in an increasingly complex tech environment, with more than half of industry professionals saying they use eight or more tools to manage campaigns and 40% juggling 10 or more. This tech sprawl means data often ends up scattered across multiple platforms and dashboards, making it difficult to get a clear, unified view of performance. It also leads to costly inefficiencies, such as fragmented workflows, time wasted on manual tasks, and the inability to adapt in real-time. It’s no wonder, then, that agency leaders rank disconnected systems as one of their top organizational challenges.
Many brands also grapple with data silos and fragmentation. For instance, a brand might use one platform to manage its programmatic buys, another for social media ads, a third for paid search, and a separate analytics tool to track website engagement. Add in data from CRM systems and third-party measurement partners, and it’s easy to see how performance insights can end up scattered across multiple teams and dashboards.
Without a consolidated data strategy, even the most advanced tech stack can work against brands and agencies. Fragmentation breeds confusion and forces teams to spend more time organizing data than acting on it. It also contributes to data accuracy and quality issues, exacerbates challenges with managing large volumes of data, and increases integration complexity—factors that marketers consistently cite as top barriers to effectively leveraging their data and infrastructure.
The costs of disconnected data extend beyond technical headaches—they can also directly impact business outcomes.
Advertising teams managing campaigns across multiple platforms can face slow reporting cycles and inconsistent metrics, making it difficult to see what’s truly driving performance. And with economic volatility prompting more than 60% of advertisers to anticipate reduced budgets in 2025, disconnected data only magnifies the risk of wasted spend and makes it more challenging for leaders to prove out the worth of advertising investments.
For agencies, disconnected data systems can also make it harder to provide the level of transparency clients desire. With over half of agencies saying their client relationships are more strained today than they were two years ago, delayed reporting and unclear performance insights can further erode trust. In this context, the inability to access unified, real-time data doesn’t just impact campaign results—it also threatens long-term partnerships.
When data lives in one place, advertisers can run smarter, more effective campaigns. Instead of toggling between disconnected systems, teams can rely on a single, consolidated view to guide strategy and improve outcomes. And, with a platform that offers access to real-time insights across all digital channels in a single interface—from search, to programmatic, to social, and beyond—advertisers can identify what’s working and what’s not and quickly pivot strategies accordingly.
For instance, consider a team trying to troubleshoot an underperforming video campaign. Without data consolidation, they might spend hours pulling reports from multiple platforms and manually piecing together performance trends. Alternatively, a team that uses a unified, automated platform can surface those insights in real-time, allowing them to compare channel results and shift budget to better-performing formats on the fly.
The benefits of data consolidation extend beyond optimization as well. When a client or stakeholder requests a performance update, disconnected systems can slow the response and heighten the risk of error. With real-time, consolidated reporting, teams can access the right data immediately and respond with confidence.
When data is scattered across disconnected platforms, valuable time and resources are spent simply trying to locate and organize it. Instead of diving into analysis and optimization, teams are stuck performing manual tasks: hunting down metrics from multiple point solutions, stitching them together in spreadsheets, and trying to make sense of it all. This fragmented approach not only slows down workflows but also increases the likelihood of errors that can negatively impact decision-making.
With technology that unifies DSP, direct, search, and social data in one place, advertisers can reduce the time spent wrangling data and instead spend that time analyzing and leveraging it. By freeing up teams to focus on high-impact work, like optimizing performance, refining creative, and developing long-term strategy, data consolidation helps advertising leaders gain both time savings and greater confidence in their decision-making.
AI is swiftly transforming how digital advertisers work. In fact, more than 87% of marketing and advertising professionals believe the technology will radically transform the industry in the next three to five years. But to realize the benefits of AI, advertisers need a strong, consolidated data foundation. Today, 58% of industry professionals identify data quality and accessibility issues as key barriers to adopting AI.
Take generative AI-driven solutions, for example. These tools offer benefits like boosting efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up teams to focus on higher-impact work, and enhancing creative output. Yet despite their potential, many organizations are struggling to tap into these advantages, with poor data quality acting as a key barrier.
Data consolidation is key to unlocking AI’s full potential. When data is unified and unhindered by human error, AI tools can analyze complete, accurate datasets—thus enabling smarter decision making. Conversely, when disconnected, low-quality data is fed into AI systems, their outputs are unreliable, leading to flawed recommendations. With data consolidation, advertisers create a strong foundation that allows AI to work effectively, enabling teams to operate efficiently and adapt to new innovations and opportunities.
In today’s complex and ever-evolving advertising landscape, data is power. As advertisers contend with tighter budgets, shifting consumer behaviors, and an explosion of new tools, a unified, consolidated data foundation offers a clear path forward, empowering teams to adapt meaningfully and unlock more value from every channel and tool.
Whether it’s optimizing media spend, integrating AI tools, proving campaign value, or tapping into new levels of efficiency, consolidated data leads to better outcomes across the board. By investing in data consolidation now, brand and agency leaders can set their teams up to work smarter and more efficiently, ultimately driving stronger ROI, reducing wasted spend, and laying the groundwork for long-term financial health in a rapidly changing industry.
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Looking for more insights on how advertisers are harnessing AI tools in their workflows? Our report, AI and the Future of Marketing, shares insights on how top agencies, brands, and publishers are using and feeling about the technology today, and how they anticipate it shaping the industry moving forward.
