What’s new in the realms of paid search and social media? This month, Erik Chellberg, VP of Social Media Investment, and Jesse Foley, VP of Search Media Investment, compiled all the latest news, trends, and resources that advertising pros need to know.
THE NEWS: After a 26-day ban that began on January 19, 2025, TikTok was reinstated on both major US app stores. The app's return follows President Trump’s executive order granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve to resolve ownership issues. Discussions are ongoing, with a final decision expected before the extension expires in April.
THE CONTEXT: President Trump has also said he wants the app to be owned by at least 50% US investors. The president’s promises to save TikTok represent a 180-degree turn from him backing its ban in his first term.
EXPERT POV: This news should be seen as a small confidence boost for advertisers previously worried about a TikTok ban. Campaigns have continued running as usual, and user growth will likely continue to grow as downloads resume from Apple and Google stores. While the long-term future of the platform is still uncertain, the current administration has shown an eagerness to keep the platform active. That said, it may be prudent to have contingency plans in place in case of future disruptions. – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Meta is undergoing a significant restructuring to prioritize AI development. So far, this shift has involved laying off approximately 4,000 employees, accounting for about 5% of its global workforce. Concurrently, Meta is expediting the recruitment of AI engineers.
THE CONTEXT: This move aligns with Meta's broader strategy to integrate AI across its platforms. The company has been investing heavily in AI, with plans to spend $65 billion on AI development this year. In addition to workforce changes, Meta is reorganizing its business structure, including merging the Facebook and Messenger teams and integrating the Reality Labs division more closely with its main operations.
EXPERT POV: Restructuring and re-prioritization at Meta presents advertisers with both opportunities and challenges. On the positive side, advertisers should see increased efficiencies as expanded AI-driven ad solutions focused on reducing manual workload hit the platform (i.e., Advantage+ shopping). Conversely, these layoffs may cause a temporary slowdown in Meta’s ad services and support. As a result, advertisers should be cognizant of possible delays in communication around technical issues and platform updates. – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: In conjunction with Safer Internet Day, TikTok introduced a new Digital Safety and Privacy Guide to inform users about how to enhance their security and privacy in the app. Accessible within the app by typing "check my settings" in the search bar and selecting "learn more" on the banner, the guide offers a comprehensive overview of available safety features, including practical tips to help users—especially parents—manage privacy settings and establish appropriate usage guidelines for their children. This initiative aims to alleviate concerns about the platform's safety by empowering users to customize their experience according to their preferences.
THE CONTEXT: TikTok's safety initiative comes amid continued scrutiny of social platforms' effects on users, especially younger ones, as well as a looming lawsuit against Meta, filed by 33 US states’ attorneys general, accusing Meta of fueling teen mental health problems. TikTok's approach follows similar moves by Meta and Snap, which have published and updated their safety measures and available resources.
EXPERT POV: While improved safety and privacy for users is undoubtedly a net positive overall, advertisers should monitor for any potential impacts on targeting and data. If large segments of users adjust their privacy settings to be more restrictive, there could be future rollbacks to audience targeting capabilities. – Erik Chellberg VP | Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google has released updates to Performance Max designed to increase transparency and advertiser controls. Key updates include added controls for guiding AI in campaigns, enhanced search reporting, and new segmentation options for asset group reporting.
THE CONTEXT: So many of last year’s Performance Max updates favored Google’s AI and machine learning over advertiser oversight. Whether it’s an olive branch, a tug-of-war, or a cat-and-mouse game, this newest move is likely a strategic response to advertisers’ frustration over losing that oversight and their desire for more control and transparency.
EXPERT POV: If its lack of transparency has limited Performance Max investment for some advertisers, now may be the time for them to give it another test. That said, it remains to be seen if these changes will truly provide the transparency and control advertisers want. – Jesse Foley | VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Microsoft Advertising introduced several enhancements to its Performance Max campaigns, many of which were available for other campaign types. The enhancements include LinkedIn profile targeting, conversion value rules, new customer acquisition goal strategies, and new reporting features with more granular detail by audience segment and asset.
THE CONTEXT: While Microsoft’s ad business is relatively small, the company is hoping to make its Performance Max offering more attractive to advertisers via regular updates like these.
EXPERT POV: While Microsoft Ads has a smaller audience, it tends to be more affluent, meaning that it can be a great area of investment for higher-ticket price retailers. So, if limited capabilities have been holding you back, Q2 is a great time to test Microsoft's version of Performance Max. – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google has improved the Google Merchant Center by restoring filtered product downloads, returning a needed efficiency to inventory management.
THE CONTEXT: After a previous update that removed the filtered product download option, clients had to sift through large data exports to troubleshoot specific product listings, optimize categories, and analyze portions of their inventory. With this update, they can now export only the necessary product subsets instead of downloading entire product feeds, making the process easier to manage.
EXPERT POV: This update simplifies product data management within Google Merchant Center, reducing reliance on third-party tools like Feedonomics. With filtered product downloads, advertisers and merchants can efficiently manage their feeds, focusing on optimizing specific product subsets without navigating large data exports. This leads to faster troubleshooting, improved inventory management, and more precise category optimization, ultimately enhancing ad performance and efficiency. – Sofia Petrovsky | Director of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Starting in March, Demand Gen campaigns will gain additional placements and inventory options, including the ability to serve vertical video ads on YouTube Shorts and extend reach through Google Display Network. New product feed experiences, designed to drive deeper product discovery, will also become available.
THE CONTEXT: This appears to be an evolution of last year’s announcement that Video Action Campaigns would merge into Demand Gen campaigns in early 2025. The update is likely meant to help Google compete for social advertising dollars—Google touts Demand Gen campaigns as ideal for social advertisers thanks to the reported trustworthiness of YouTube ads and the fact that consumers frequently use the platform to research products and brands.
EXPERT POV: These updates to Demand Gen campaigns present new opportunities for advertisers to expand reach and engagement across key platforms. The ability to serve vertical video ads exclusively on YouTube Shorts allows for more tailored, mobile-first creative strategies, while expanded inventory on the Google Display Network increases visibility and awareness. Additionally, new product feed experiences will enhance product discovery, making it easier to connect with high-intent audiences and drive conversions. – Sofia Petrovsky | Director of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Pinterest is launching new product features to help users find, save, and shop for their holiday gifts, including the ability to create personalized, shoppable wish lists and share gift ideas within the platform. Pinterest is also offering shoppers more than a thousand curated gift guides across 27 categories by partnering with celebrities, creators, and brands.
THE CONTEXT: Pinterest has been working to ride the growing wave of shoppable social media for years now, releasing several new product features and advertising opportunities. The platform’s efforts appear to be paying off, with Q3 2024 revenue increasing by 18% year over year.
EXPERT POV: “Pinterest’s new product features align with the mindset of its user base, people on a journey of seeking inspiration. We see this to be especially true around the gift-giving and holiday-hosting season. Brands can take advantage of these features from both an organic and paid standpoint. With features like "quick save," Pinterest is streamlining the process for users to save products they've discovered, and brands can capitalize on that with tactics like pin engagement retargeting or promotional creative messaging to help users continue down the path to purchase and increase overall conversion opportunities.” – Jenny Lewis | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Meta is revising its ad-free subscription option in Europe to comply with the European Union’s evolving data protection requirements. In response to regulatory pressures, Meta has lowered the subscription cost by 40. Additionally, it’s added an option allowing free-tier users to opt for "less personalized" ads. The new option limits data sharing, but also comes with unskippable ad breaks and less relevant ads, which may ultimately prove to be less appealing to users.
THE CONTEXT: These revisions come after EU regulators called Meta’s subscription offer a “pay or consent” scheme and a breach of the Digital Markets Act, saying it doesn’t give users much of a choice at all between paying a monthly fee or giving more personal data to Meta for targeted advertising.
EXPERT POV: “Advertisers using Meta in the EU should be cognizant of lower potential reach among target audiences compared to historical initiatives, given that a larger percentage of the more than 400 million Meta users in Europe may be tempted to begin paying the smaller monthly fee to avoid ads within their daily scrolling. Additionally, be mindful of possible performance dips due to Meta giving nonpaying European users the option to see ads that are less personalized. It is doubtful that Meta will publicize how many users ultimately opt into this feature. Still, we would not be surprised if cost metrics—especially CPMs—start to increase across campaigns that target a potentially dwindling pool of European users.” – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google announced it will no longer display political advertisements in the European Union, adding the EU to a growing list of regions where the company has already halted the practice, including France, Canada, and Brazil. The decision is in response to the EU's new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulations—which are intended to curb election interference and enhance voter decision-making—that Google says will create operational and legal challenges.
THE CONTEXT: This is far from Google’s first scrape with EU policymakers, including an ongoing investigation over anti-competitive practices and, in a rare win, Google getting a €1.49 billion antitrust fine overturned. And that’s to say nothing of Google’s ongoing legal headaches in the US.
EXPERT POV: “This move won't affect most American advertisers, but it's something EU political advertisers must certainly keep in mind. In general, those advertisers should review the reach and targeting opportunities in other channels while, at the same time, maintaining their awareness of government and platform policy changes, as the risks for noncompliance are high.” – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: As we enter the holiday shopping season, consumers can now search for specific products within Google Maps and find nearby stores with that product in stock. Product categories available to search include home goods, electronics, apparel, and grocery store items. Google Maps pulls from Google Merchant Center product feeds to serve these results, expanding the inventory of shopping results from just Google Search and Google Shopping to now include Google Maps.
THE CONTEXT: This expands the available inventory for a business’ Google Merchant Center product feed beyond Google Search, Shopping, Images, and YouTube. It’s also one of several recently released Google Maps features or feature improvements, many of which are beneficial for route planning and more informed driving.
EXPERT POV: “This update to Google Maps now makes it even more important for advertisers with brick-and-mortar locations to keep their Google Merchant Center feed current. Shoppers on the go can easily discover what’s available in local stores, so ensuring your product feed is up to date—especially during the busy holiday season—helps make your inventory more visible to shoppers nearby who are ready to purchase.” – Alyssa Theo | Director, Search Media Solutions
THE NEWS: Google has introduced confidential matching, a feature that leverages confidential computing to enhance the security of advertisers' first-party data. This technology processes data within Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), ensuring that even Google cannot access the information during processing. Confidential matching is now the default for Customer Match, requiring no additional action from advertisers.
THE CONTEXT: Data privacy continues to be a top concern for consumers, advertisers, and legislators alike, as consumers’ trust in tech companies diminishes, those companies try to earn it back, and privacy-focused digital advertising regulations continue to evolve.
EXPERT POV: Privacy concerns are a real and relevant concern for advertisers (your search team has likely mentioned "enhanced conversions” a hundred times!). As privacy concerns war with the need for data, any step in the direction of providing that data in a privacy-safe way is a good one. – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Earlier this month, X officially launched a beta version of X TV. This new TV app is X's move toward positioning itself as a video-first platform. Ad offerings are not available yet, though X has noted that they will be rolled out soon.
THE CONTEXT: Amidst the fragmenting/merging/“great rebundling” of streaming services, YouTube now tops the share of time spent with TV in the US. Not so coincidentally, X’s new offering looks a lot like the YouTube TV app.
EXPERT POV: Ad revenue on X has steadily declined from its peak in 2022, and with many projecting a continued decline year over year given the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the company, I hypothesize X will aim to monetize its new video platform sooner rather than later. Advertisers, stay tuned! - Erik Chellberg | VP of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: As a new way to encourage engagement on Instagram, Meta is rolling out comments on Stories. These comments will be visible to anyone who views the Story content, and will be displayed along the bottom of the frame so as not to be intrusive to users. If post creators prefer, commenting on their Stories can be switched off.
THE CONTEXT: Over the years, Instagram has continuously added features like these to formats like Reels and Stories to encourage engagement, and perhaps also to reduce passive scrolling. Engagement is good for business: More ways for users to interact means more ways for Instagram to understand user behavior and preferences, tailor content accordingly, and ultimately keep users on the platform for longer periods of time.
EXPERT POV: For anyone who has been paying attention to the updates Meta has been making to its suite of products over the past half-decade, this update comes as no surprise. Time on site rules supreme for social media platforms, and with Instagram already producing an average stay-on-site of over 3 minutes, the ability for users to comment on Stories may yield even more time on site for the average user. For any advertisers historically averse to running on Instagram Stories, now would be a good time to test out this placement, as doing so will open additional avenues for user interaction, which can lead to improved brand affinity and stronger paid efforts. - Erik Chellberg | VP of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google Ads plans to merge its Video Action Campaigns (VAC) into its Demand Gen campaign type in Q2 2025. This will offer advertisers expanded reach, creative flexibility, enhanced audience targeting, and more.
THE CONTEXT: Whereas Video Action Campaign ads typically ran on Google’s video-friendly sibling channel, YouTube, this fold-in to Demand Gen will expand inventory across Google platforms and into external partners and outside properties. No telling if this in response to questions of Google’s video ad quality or the antitrust lawsuit leveled against Google by the US Department of Justice, which in part accuses the tech giant of favoring its own ad inventory—or if it’s simply another case of Google’s affinity for infusing AI into its newest ad products.
EXPERT POV: Google will introduce a migration tool in Q1 of 2025 and will force migration in Q2 2025. Migrating manually and adding assets for the additional ad formats Demand Gen offers will expand reach into available inventory. Testing and optimizing Demand Gen campaigns with video and image assets ahead of the migration could make results more efficient in preparation for when Video Action Campaigns are officially sunset. - Alexa Dillon | VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google Ads’ Enhanced CPC (eCPC) bidding option will be removed for new Display and Search campaigns in October 2024, and all remaining campaigns using the strategy will transition to Manual CPC bidding by March 2025. This change effectively removes advertisers’ ability to lightly experiment with automated adjustments of campaigns set to manual bidding, in favor of newer Google Ads machine learning options and advanced automated bidding strategies.
THE CONTEXT: Google made the same move with Shopping campaigns last year, claiming that new, more advanced strategies like Target ROAS, Maximize Conversion Value, and Performance Max helped achieve the same or improved results, thanks to its enhanced technology. This is part of a larger trend of platforms pulling back on the manual controls they offer advertisers, instead pushing them towards more automated and AI-driven tools.
EXPERT POV: Rather than automatically migrating eCPC campaigns to manual CPC, consider testing the more advanced automated bidding strategies first. Determine whether click, conversion, or conversion value bidding is most in line with your objective and begin an experiment to measure whether a fully automated bidding option can improve your performance. The experiment results can inform whether to move fully to an automated bid strategy or migrate to manual CPC. - Alexa Dillon | VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Starting in November, advertisers with Google’s Gambling and Games certification must be recertified if they have undergone significant changes to applicable product offerings, regulatory compliance, or licensing. Failure to do so will lead to immediate Google Ads account suspension.
THE CONTEXT: The timing of this announcement lined up with the start of the NFL season and has direct effects on many of today’s popular online betting and gambling websites. The change also comes amidst concerns over traditional and some nontraditional gambling advertisers targeting younger consumers and other vulnerable populations.
EXPERT POV: Advertisers in the gambling industry should closely review the Google Ads Gambling and Gaming policy and understand which segments of the policy are applicable to their business. If certification is required and there are significant changes to product offerings, regulatory compliance, or licensing, be transparent with your advertising partners so they can help submit new certifications when applicable and prevent the risk of account suspension. - Alexa Dillon | VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: As a new way to encourage engagement on Instagram, Meta is rolling out comments on Stories. These comments will be visible to anyone who views the Story content, and will be displayed along the bottom of the frame so as not to be intrusive to users. If post creators prefer, commenting on their Stories can be switched off.
THE CONTEXT: Over the years, Instagram has continuously added features like these to formats like Reels and Stories to encourage engagement, and perhaps also to reduce passive scrolling. Engagement is good for business: More ways for users to interact means more ways for Instagram to understand user behavior and preferences, tailor content accordingly, and ultimately keep users on the platform for longer periods of time.
EXPERT POV: For anyone who has been paying attention to the updates Meta has been making to its suite of products over the past half-decade, this update comes as no surprise. Time on site rules supreme for social media platforms, and with Instagram already producing an average stay-on-site of over 3 minutes, the ability for users to comment on Stories may yield even more time on site for the average user. For any advertisers historically averse to running on Instagram Stories, now would be a good time to test out this placement, as doing so will open additional avenues for user interaction, which can lead to improved brand affinity and stronger paid efforts. - Erik Chellberg | VP of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: A shorter season (five fewer shopping days) between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year means one thing for marketers: It's crunch time! Consumers are already planning their holiday purchases, and here, Google provides insights—geared around what the company calls a consumer mindset framework—to help advertisers stay ahead of their holiday strategy.
THE CONTEXT: While the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas is short (26, to be exact), consumers’ holiday shopping season essentially starts on October 1, meaning Google’s “deliberate” planning mindset is just on the horizon. Marketers who start planning now will be better positioned to earn their share of expected retail sales growth, forecast between 2.3% and 3.3%, if not as much as 4.8%.
EXPERT POV: While Cyber Week is the highly anticipated peak of holiday season purchases, more consumers are beginning to shop and hunt for deals early. A holistic approach to reaching customers throughout their research and purchase journey, then, is key during the holiday season. Pairing campaign types—such as Search, YouTube, and Shopping or Performance Max—that support different phases of the purchase funnel will help you stay top of mind with consumers through their whole journey. - Alexa Dillon | VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Despite competition from generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft's Copilot, recent data suggests that Google Search traffic has not only held steady, but grew by 1.4% from May 2023 to May 2024.
THE CONTEXT: While Google is still the dominant force in the search space, it’s battling several threats to that dominance—a significant one being its recent loss of the DOJ’s antitrust suit against it, which found that the company illegally leveraged its power to suppress competitors and hinder innovation in the search space. While Google doesn’t appear to be losing traffic as a result of genAI platforms yet, several experts believe AI is more of a threat (or at least more of an urgent threat) than the antitrust suit loss, with Gartner forecasting a 25% drop in search engine volume in just two years thanks to chatbot-like applications.
EXPERT POV: Google continues to innovate its search experience in an effort to stay relevant in the face of AI—for example, by creating snackable results that engage consumers (and younger consumers at that) on Google itself. I think it’s going to be years before we see a true impact on Google on both the “generative AI taking away a large share” and “effects of a pending lawsuit” fronts. - Lindsay Martin, Group VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google’s AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience, or SGE) search results now match its organic top 10 results a whopping 99.5% of the time. An algorithm update appears to be responsible for this change, as Google may now be incorporating more traditional search ranking signals as part of its custom Gemini AI model.
THE CONTEXT: This is a major turnaround from earlier this year, when the answers generated by SGE didn’t match links from the top 10 organic search results a majority of the time, which resulted in less authoritative and trustworthy content.
EXPERT POV: The verdict is still out as to what these AI Overviews mean for clicks and click-through rates. I’m eager to see how Google chooses to monetize these results, knowing that it’s on the roadmap. - Lindsay Martin, Group VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google has provided several back-to-school shopping options that include virtual clothing try-on experiences, photo-based product searching options, and high-ranking product results that display the discounts and sale prices shoppers seek.
THE CONTEXT: With the rise of shoppable media—as evident by consumer adoption, the additions of shoppable features on Pinterest and TikTok, and agency pros’ beliefs that shoppable video and AR/VR are “the next frontier”—it’s no surprise that Google wants in the game.
EXPERT POV: Features such as Google Lens and Circle to Search could be seen as “shortcuts” for consumers to identify products of interest. In other words, consumers may buy with fewer clicks. Keep in mind that these experiences are optimized towards mobile; therefore, the mobile purchase experience—including fast load times and mobile-friendly storefronts—is key. Optimized product feeds and high-quality photos and videos are also important. Lastly, take advantage of sale price annotations and local inventory ads to help stand out in highly competitive periods. - Lindsay Martin, Group VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Meta has now removed detailed targeting exclusions as an option for all new campaigns. Detailed targeting exclusions allowed advertisers to exclude people from their target audience based on demographics, interests, and/or behaviors. The intent for those exclusions was that advertisers would better refine their audiences, but Meta found through its own testing that they limited ad effectiveness rather than improved performance.
THE CONTEXT: Advertisers were made aware of this change months ago… sort of. In May, some Meta advertisers received an alert stating that detailed targeting exclusions would be removed in June. Meta claimed the alert was the result of a bug and that the company had no plans for immediate changes.
EXPERT POV: This shift in targeting abilities may cause some concern, but Meta’s AI system is becoming more advanced by the day. Meta shared that, in its own testing, the median cost per conversion for ad campaigns improved by 22.6% when detailed targeting exclusions were removed. Rest assured, if excluding audiences is of high priority, there are alternative exclusion options that can be set within account-level advertising settings. However, I recommend advertisers hold off on applying any settings to see how their campaigns do. You never know: Performance may come as a pleasant surprise. - Lauren Brown, Director of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Meta has unveiled plans to update its approach to ad campaign measurement and attribution. These updates include adding segment-level conversion values within campaigns, a new opt-in attribution setting that optimizes for incremental conversions, and the option to integrate data directly from a CRM to give Meta more insights for targeting. The company says these updates will help connect advertisers’ Meta ads to conversions while also giving Meta more data points to work with for campaign optimization.
THE CONTEXT: These changes appear to put some of Meta’s levers back in the hands of advertisers, which may be a welcome change for advertisers concerned that Advantage+ has taken away too much of their control.
EXPERT POV: With any big change, there is usually a period of adjustment, and that’s likely what’s going to happen here. Advertisers will likely see a dip in performance as Meta’s system ramps up with this update. Don’t panic: The numbers will adjust themselves and hopefully show the improvement Meta intends. - Lauren Brown, Director of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google announced new insights for AI-powered campaigns, including Performance Max, taking the stance that creative is likely the largest opportunity to maximize the success of this campaign type. Insights include conversion data at the asset level, which can inform future creative development; improved image-editing capabilities using AI; and new creative partnerships with brands like Canva and Typeface to help with creative development at scale.
THE CONTEXT: Google isn’t the only platform encouraging advertisers to use its genAI tools for content creation—many others, including Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok, have rolled out AI-powered ad creative tools for image and text generation in the past year. Of course, as these tools and technologies are still relatively new and come with distinct risks, advertisers should set up quality control systems for any AI-driven content creation.
EXPERT POV: We know that Performance Max has left brands and marketers with very little control over campaign optimizations or how and where their ads serve. Creative reporting within PMax is also still a challenge regardless of this update, and we’re still waiting for Google to consider adding features that help advertisers match their brands’ creative styles and guidelines. At the same time, Google has made fantastic strides in PMax campaigns in terms of performance, and I would recommend this ad format for any CPA- or ROAS-based advertiser. - Lindsay Martin, Group VP of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Reddit has introduced its own Lead Gen Ads option, allowing marketers to collect prospective customer information directly through their in-app promotions. Reddit also revealed a new integration with Zapier, which will simplify the process of transferring lead information from Reddit directly into your preferred CRM.
THE CONTEXT: With a growing monthly average user base of incredibly engaged and passionate Redditors, the platform’s leaders have stated aspirations to lead in various advertising types and targeting techniques, including efforts in performance and measurement beyond branding and community growth.
EXPERT POV: While lead gen ads are not a new product in the social world, this is a big leap forward for Reddit as it continues to grow its product offerings and become more competitive against other social platforms. While Redditors are extremely loyal to Reddit, that doesn’t mean advertisers should dive right in without a strategy. The last thing you want is a flock of Redditors giving you a thumbs down on your ad. - Lauren Brown, Director of Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: After years of shifting promises and timelines, Google won't deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome after all. Instead, the tech giant is working on a “new experience” that will let users make informed decisions about cookie use and privacy across their web browsing, with settings they can adjust any time.
THE CONTEXT: Despite this change in Google’s cookie plans, consumers, regulators, and tech platforms alike are still pushing our industry towards a privacy-first paradigm. Bonus: Check out this video for even more context around Google’s announcement and what it means for advertisers.
EXPERT POV: This is undoubtedly a huge pivot for Google, but it doesn’t change the fact that advertisers still need to embrace cookieless solutions and privacy-first advertising. Google’s enhanced conversion tracking, which uses hashed first-party data to help supplement cookie-based conversion tracking, is one option that I’d recommend advertisers test and learn on. – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Italy’s competition and consumer watchdog group is investigating Google, saying the company uses misleading practices to collect user data and link it to other data across its platforms including Google Search, YouTube, Chrome, and Maps.
THE CONTEXT: In early March, Google became subject to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which sets guidelines for how internet platforms like Google, Meta, and others are allowed to collect and use consumer data. Shortly after the Digital Markets Act took effect, the EU began an investigation into Google’s parent company, Alphabet, for what they characterize as anti-competitive business practices. This is all part of a larger trend of regulators cracking down on Big Tech.
EXPERT POV: This is the fourth time Google has been charged with antitrust law violations and, unless they change their practices, the investigations are likely to continue. It’s a high-stakes issue for Google, as 77.8% of its income is from advertising. It’s important to stay up-to-date on these types of regulatory developments, as the results of these investigations could have significant impacts for advertisers. – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Meta has launched Llama 3.1, the largest open-source AI model, claiming it outperforms GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. With 405 billion parameters, it was created using over 16,000 Nvidia GPUs and will be integrated into WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Quest headsets. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects it to surpass ChatGPT in popularity by year-end.
THE CONTEXT: Meta has been in rapid AI development mode this year, rolling out several new generative AI features for advertisers in addition to Llama 3.1. Marketers will, of course, still want to apply human intervention to confirm the accuracy of these features’ output.
EXPERT POV: I expect the biggest players in tech and data to release shiny new variations of their generative AI tools while the AI market grows. That said, brands and advertisers should closely monitor the integration of these tools, especially as Meta continues to develop and promote generative AI tools that dramatically impact ad creation and delivery at the auction (Advantage+ comes to mind). As Meta enhances both user- and advertiser-focused AI tools, both audiences must approach these new capabilities with cautious optimism, leaning into proven strengths and avoiding the pitfalls that often riddle early versions of these tools. – Bryan O’Loughlin | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: On July 1, Apple extended its 30% fee on Facebook and Instagram ad purchases through iOS devices to advertisers globally, a measure that could impact digital advertising costs and strategies in significant ways. Advertisers can avoid the fee by using desktop web browsers, with Meta updating its web platforms to match mobile app functionality.
THE CONTEXT: Critics label the fee as anti-competitive, while Apple defends its right to charge for access to its platform's audience. One of the fee’s critics is Meta’s Director of Privacy & Fairness Policy, Pedro Pavón. He notes that European Union investigators have determined Apple’s fee is in breach of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and that a US federal judge has criticized Apple for not complying with a court order related to its fee structure.
EXPERT POV: Marketers who use an iPhone or iPad to boost an organic post will face the 30% fee, which I anticipate will primarily impact small advertisers and business owners who rely on mobile for convenience and ease of use. Given that this upcharge on ads and boosted posts is avoidable—which may not be obvious to a busy small business owner without context or background for how these platforms work—it's more important than ever that brands work with trusted partners to ensure they can stretch their dollar as far as possible. – Bryan O’Loughlin | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Younger generations are increasingly moving to visually engaging content on social media platforms like TikTok to find what they're looking for, rather than traditional search engines. And it’s not just younger generations: Nearly a quarter of Americans primarily use social media for searches.
THE CONTEXT: This trend echoes another recent report that shows brand discovery on social media outpacing both search and word of mouth, and yet another specifying that Gen Z prefers product discovery through video content (more easily viewed on social) over search. It’s important for advertisers to keep track of significant shifts like these in younger generations’ digital habits in order to reach them effectively.
EXPERT POV: This change is a long time coming and has significant implications for planning and buying, as it blurs the lines between search and social. From a practical perspective, I recommend that marketers focus on video content, especially short form, including vertical video for both TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Advertisers shouldn't skimp on creative or media planning efforts on these platforms, especially as it relates to vertical video and/or keyword planning. With this trend, integrating a marketing approach across search and social is now more important than ever. – Bryan O’Loughlin | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Deloitte’s new report details the impact of the creator economy from the perspectives of creators and influencers, brands, and consumers. One takeaway of note for advertisers: The report found that bonds between consumers and their favorite creators can lead to increased trust between consumers and the brands those creators partner with.
THE CONTEXT: Brands are upping their investment in the creator economy, with 92% planning to increase their spend on creator marketing this year, and 36% planning to spend at least half their entire digital marketing budget in the space.
EXPERT POV: Marketers can no longer afford to sit out on creator marketing. Creator content, whether owned, organic, or sponsored, is here to stay and is fast becoming the key to winning new customers. As we look at investment across social channels, advertisers may need to be wary of platform-managed creator marketplaces, where exclusive contracts can limit brand usage rights across the open internet. – Jess Kaswiner | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Global ad spend across social media platforms is up by a whopping 14.3% year-over-year, making it the leading media channel in the digital ecosystem. This surge is fueled mostly by advertising spend on Meta platforms, which is set to surpass linear TV for the first time in history. The report attributes some incremental increase in social spend to artificial intelligence, suggesting that new tools that automate creative development and media planning, such as Meta Advantage+, are growing in popularity.
THE CONTEXT: The surge in social media ad spend comes on the heels of a rough couple of years for many of the biggest players in the social space, which were marked by plummeting stocks and missed revenue expectations. However, things haven’t turned around for all the major players: While Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat are forecast to enjoy double-digit growth this year, the report notes that X’s revenue woes will continue.
EXPERT POV: Brands show no signs of slowing down their social ad investments. To ensure the social presence of a business acts as a buttress rather than a mere prop, advertisers must understand what that businesses’ audience wants to hear/read/see, while simultaneously differentiating from competitor content. – Jess Kaswiner | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: After screenshots surfaced on social media, Meta confirmed that it’s testing a non-skippable ad unit on Instagram. These new ad breaks will display a countdown timer that stops users from being able to browse through more content on the app until they view the ad. The functionality is similar to YouTube, which requires users to view some ads in full before and in the middle of watching videos. Information about the test is limited, such as where the test is running from a geographic standpoint, or how long the test will run.
THE CONTEXT: With 44% of consumers preferring to learn about products and services through short-form video (where Instagram excels), and 87% of marketers reporting that video has directly increased sales, an unskippable ad unit would likely strengthen the impact of Instagram’s video ad offerings for advertisers.
EXPERT POV: Should this “forced view” ad unit on Instagram become available more broadly, advertisers will have the opportunity to fully capture a user’s attention with guaranteed visibility, which will help to drive awareness and engagement. Brands will want to ensure the content of the unskippable ad is engaging, with clear messaging and CTAs. – Laura Kubiesa | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Young people are increasingly using social apps—TikTok and Instagram in particular—to find products. Gen Z users search social apps primarily for fashion, beauty, food, and craft-related trends, but turn to Google for bigger purchases, places to go, and professional services.
THE CONTEXT: Whether looking to drive sales from younger or older consumers, there’s gold in those social media hills: Both product discovery and purchase happen on social media at rates higher than on messaging apps, video, or through influencers. This trend goes hand in hand with the rise of social search, with over 25% of 18 to 54-year-olds preferring to perform their online searches via social media.
EXPERT POV: The integration of generative AI into search and social platforms is likely to further blur the lines between different types of product discovery channels. By staying informed about these consumer trends, marketers can better navigate the shifting landscape of product/brand discovery and optimize their strategies for maximum impact. – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google announced the launch of the Google TV Network, a network aimed at leveraging Google's vast audience to distribute and monetize TV content. This network is available within the Google Ads platform through YouTube and display campaigns and currently focuses on the six-second bumper ad format, with more formats coming. The platform offers a range of content, including sports, news, and entertainment, and focuses on personalized recommendations and targeted advertising.
THE CONTEXT: This move from Google empowers advertisers to make the most of the rapid growth of free ad-supported television (FAST) channels like Amazon’s Freevee, Pluto, Tubi, and Roku, in light of rising subscription costs for other streaming services.
EXPERT POV: For now, my team is opting in to the Google TV Network within non-skippable and bumper YouTube campaigns. As we see more data coming from this network, we will evaluate whether performance is of high enough quality to continue opting in—I recommend other advertisers do the same. – Heather Crider, VP of Search Media Solutions
THE NEWS: On August 30th, Google Ads will complete the rollout of its new design to all markets. New features include a left-side menu that organizes pages into several high-level categories, a more comprehensive search function, and an overall cleaner and more modern-looking UI.
THE CONTEXT: Google trialed two different looks in 2023 before landing on this UI, based on user feedback, for the full rollout.
EXPERT POV: You can expect all the same functionality in the new Google Ads design, but the tools and menus have moved around a bit. Users should adopt the new Google Ads UI early and get as familiar as possible with the various changes, as there will be no way to opt out after August 30th. Certain things have shifted, from tools and menus to more efficient campaign segmentation for Performance Max, and it will take some time for the new navigation to become second nature. – Sofia Petrovsky, Director of Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Content at Google Marketing Live 2024 focused on AI-driven updates, including those that enhance creative production and consumer engagement. Key highlights include:
THE CONTEXT: Google has been on an AI tear as of late, adding AI-powered tools meant to help marketers with creative development, campaign management, and seemingly everything in between. Their stated purpose? To respond to an “evolution of [consumer] attention.”
EXPERT POV: This year’s GML was a continued push into AI, adding incremental features to a lot of what was released during GML 2023. Agencies and brand marketing executives should swiftly educate and integrate Google's AI-driven tools to streamline creative production, enhance consumer engagement, and optimize campaign management. By leveraging these advancements, they can achieve deeper customer connections and more efficient marketing outcomes in an increasingly AI-centric landscape. – Robert Kurtz | Group VP, Search Media Solutions
THE NEWS: TikTok has been given a deadline of January 19, 2025, to shut down in the United States or sell its assets to a new owner not based in China, or else face a nationwide ban. In the meantime, advertisers and marketers are proceeding with 2025 planning, setting budgets and developing content for the new year, with the future of the popular social media app hanging in the balance.
THE CONTEXT: Coincidentally, January 19, 2025, is also the day before Inauguration Day, when President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office. Trump has promised to “save” the social media app, which continues to see growing consistent revenue and user growth with every quarter.
EXPERT POV: “As marketers, responding to industry change is just part of the job. As a social media marketer, however, you live for the quick pivot; the “move fast and break things” motto is in your DNA. The key to preparing for a potential ban on TikTok is to have a Plan B ready to go. Be sure not to just shift dollars as a reactive solution but to make thoughtful decisions about who you’re reaching on TikTok and how to reach those segments elsewhere, the objective you’re optimizing toward and if other channels have proven track records for driving your desired action, and ensuring influencer contracts include language for TikTok organic or Spark post substitutions that fulfill their agreement and maximize your investments.” – Jess Kaswiner | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: After years of Washington lawmakers scrutinizing the platform, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that will ban TikTok in the US if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, does not sell the app within a year. Lawmakers say their main concerns are around data privacy and the perceived possibility of “espionage, surveillance, [and] maligned operations”. ByteDance has called this ruling “unconstitutional” and has promised to sue.
THE CONTEXT: If they aren’t successful in court, ByteDance says that they’d rather shut down TikTok in the US than sell the app and its algorithms to an American buyer. A shutdown would be a big deal for advertisers, particularly those working for small- to medium-sized businesses: TikTok recently released a report that claims SMBs using the platform’s free services and paid advertising contributed a total of $24.2 billion to the US GDP last year.
EXPERT POV: Advertising on Tiktok will continue to operate as usual for now. However, with TikTok having risen to the top of the list of social platforms that provide value for SMBs, its political limbo status should cause advertisers to monitor and evaluate existing similar features across other social channels, like YouTube Shorts and Meta's Reels, while also keeping an eye out for any new copycat features or channels that come down the line. – Jenny Lewis | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Since the launch of TikTok Shop in September 2023, reports have suggested that the increase in TikTok Shop content was causing a decline in overall usage of the app. However, many users say they have increased their TikTok usage since TikTok Shop rolled out. Time spent on TikTok is plateauing and new user growth is slowing, but given that the app already has 107.8 million monthly US consumers who spend immense amounts of time on the app, this simply indicates a more mature growth phase.
THE CONTEXT: While time spent on the app and user growth may be slowing, forecasts still show that US adults will spend 58.4 minutes per day on TikTok in 2024, up from 2023 numbers and ahead of every other social media platform for most US social users.
EXPERT POV: While some headlines may infer growth on TikTok is declining, users are still spending a lot of time on the app, which presents a great opportunity for advertisers. Regardless of a brand’s location in the funnel, there’s something for everyone when it comes to advertising on the platform: TopView can be leveraged for boosting reach and awareness, while Video Shopping Ads maximize sales with tailored ads. TikTok is investing in rolling out new paid opportunities and features weekly, and there’s no time like the present for advertisers to ensure they’re capitalizing on the highly active user base and ensuring their paid social strategy encompasses TikTok. – Laura Kubiesa | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: In honor of International Fact-Checking Day, Google highlighted its fact-checking tools and shared expanded features within those tools. “About this image”, for one, appears to be very similar to Reverse Image Search, with additional features that provide information about the image’s history as well as what reputable sites are saying about it. There’s also a new version of “Fact Check Explorer” that allows users to explore images as well as topics and people.
THE CONTEXT: Several of these tools and features were introduced in October 2023; since then, an academic study has questioned the sufficiency of Google’s fact-checking information for most false claims, even as the search engine’s results themselves were deemed “relatively reliable”. Fact-checking is particularly critical today for both advertisers and consumers due to the rise in AI-generated disinformation.
EXPERT POV: For better or worse, AI is becoming a bigger part of the online world, making it much easier for bad actors to create mis- and disinformation, which can quickly erode consumer trust. Tools like this can help by providing users with options to weed out that noise. However, they don't have complete coverage and the results can be unreliable. This puts the onus on advertisers to be as transparent in their messaging as possible to foster trust and prevent misinformation from spreading. – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google’s 2023 Ads Safety Report highlights their efforts to maintain a secure online environment. The search engine suspended or removed 12.7 million advertiser accounts last year—nearly two times the amount from the previous year—and blocked 5.5 billion ads for violating the company’s policies. Key violations included misrepresentation, financial services violations, and malware promotion. Google took several actions in response to these threats, including launching its Ads Transparency Center and updating its suitability controls.
THE CONTEXT: Duncan Lennox, Google VP & GM of Ads Privacy and Safety, cites generative AI as both an opportunity to improve policy enforcement and a challenge—with “bad actors operating with more sophistication, at a greater scale.” Deepfake artificial intelligence has made it cheaper and easier to launch campaigns featuring, for example, fake celebrity endorsements for products and services, which fraudsters have used to scam people out of money and personally identifiable information.
EXPERT POV: While this added safety and security good in general, we at Basis Technologies are seeing more questionable violations that require us to push for re-review. For clients in sensitive verticals like politics, health, and finance, it can make running ads more difficult and time-consuming. Be prepared to file certifications proving your identity and bona fides before your ads go live (or shortly after launch). – Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: LinkedIn has confirmed that Pages Messaging is being rolled out to all businesses after initially launching the functionality with some company pages in June 2023. In addition to its direct in-app messaging expansion, LinkedIn is also partnering with various third-party platforms to facilitate company messaging via social management tools (e.g. Hootsuite).
THE CONTEXT: Adding Pages Messaging was a logical step for LinkedIn, as social media activity continues to move to private messaging, 78% of consumers surveyed say they have used a direct messaging tool to interact with a brand, and 86% of those consumers said those direct interactions positively impacted their perception of the company.
EXPERT POV: Company leaders and advertisers alike have long been anticipating this feature’s rollout on LinkedIn. The imperative now is to be ready to react, which means devoting resources to monitoring, responding, and possibly escalating customer concerns. While social media—and, increasingly, DMs on social—are a means of customer service, they can also serve as “free” listening tools to help guide other marketing and advertising efforts, like campaign themes and timely creative swap-outs. – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Instagram is testing out a new way to comment on specific images within a carousel post, with some users able to link their reply to a photo or video based on its assigned number in the display. This update is aimed at driving more focused engagement and encouraging more interaction around each content element, while also clearing up confusion around carousel post comments. Instagram is testing the new carousel tagging option with a limited number of users at this stage.
THE CONTEXT: Instagram carousels already have the highest engagement rate of all post formats. This new feature allows for even more engagement and could lead to strategic engagement opportunities and more learnings for creators, influencers, and brands.
EXPERT POV: Engagement rate rules supreme for Meta—the more a user engages with a brand, the more Meta “rewards” the brand for fostering that in-platform engagement. And with this content-specific engagement, advertisers are afforded more insight into what resonates most with their audience. They can use that information to inform other marketing and advertising collateral, from products to feature in display or shopping ads to tiles that could transfer from high-performing organic content over to high-performing advertising content. – Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google’s text ads appear to be showing up at different positions relative to organic results on a search engine results page. While “top ads” have generally appeared above the top organic results, this “definitional change” means top ads may also show below the top organic search results on certain queries. The placement of top ads is dynamic and may change based on the user’s search. Importantly, this will not affect how performance metrics are calculated.
THE CONTEXT: This change seems to be a by-product of Google’s search engine results page continuous scroll functionality, which allows ads to appear in more positions among organic results than just the top, and which has prompted Google to experiment with those positions. To that point, Google has provided tips for advertisers to help improve their ad positions.
EXPERT POV: If ads appear below the top organic results more frequently following this definitional change, we’ll be monitoring for downstream effects on click-through rate and other key metrics. In the meantime, maintaining a focus on ad rank factors such as relevancy remains key to securing top placements. – Alexa Dillon | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google recently launched Solutions, a free tool within Google Ads that automates and simplifies campaign management in an accessible and user-friendly way. It comes with several pre-built automation templates for the campaign management process, including Performance Reporting, Anomaly Detection, URL Validation, Budget Optimization, and Negative Keyword Management—all of which can be customized to meet different advertising needs.
THE CONTEXT: As part of this launch, Google announced it will sunset its manual solutions library. This focus on automation comes on the heels of Google’s new AI-powered approach to displaying responsive search ads and its application of Gemini for text and image generation within Performance Max (which has not been hiccup-free). Overall, the company continues to push advertisers towards automated processes across the campaign life cycle, from creative development, to ad placement, to campaign management.
EXPERT POV: Google continues to create new tools to help free up time for paid search managers to analyze data and make strategic decisions. By starting to use the Solutions tools now, search managers can get ahead on campaign management simplification, allowing them to spend more time on optimizations and recommendations that grow paid search accounts and drive business goals. – Nick Tuttle | Director, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Performance Max (PMax) campaigns are now available globally through Microsoft Advertising. PMax is an automated campaign type that uses artificial intelligence to create ad assets and automate ad optimization across different Microsoft Advertising formats and channels. The company will soon add more automated features, including brand exclusions (for less inflated performance metrics), search insights reports (for greater visibility into user queries), and video assets (for broader creative distribution) to its PMax campaigns.
THE CONTEXT: This global release follows a closed beta launch in May 2023 that Microsoft deemed successful. Time- and resource-strapped marketers who rely on manual efforts may appreciate PMax campaigns’ automated optimizations, even as some position the campaign type, similarly available through Google, as relinquishing control and decision-making power to artificial intelligence.
EXPERT POV: Rolling out PMax campaigns globally is another instance of Microsoft competing with Google, particularly by relying on AI and algorithms that identify when and where someone is most likely to convert. When it comes to the landscape of search advertising, Google is still far and away the most dominant search engine, but Microsoft integrating ChatGPT into Bing helped increase its market share from 6.35% to 8.07% over the past year. When determining whether PMax may be a valuable, additional layer in your search investment, consider your ideal demographic (as older generations are more likely to use Bing) and your vertical (as certain industries, like healthcare and financial services, attract larger shares of older users). – Nick Tuttle | Director, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: Reddit is launching a suite of tools, called Reddit Pro, for businesses looking to grow their organic presence on the community-driven platform. Currently in its beta testing phase, Reddit Pro uses AI to help brands identify trending topics and conversations, even allowing them to see when their brand has been mentioned in a subreddit. The suite of features also includes content drafting, scheduling, and reporting tools, as well as the ability to easily turn organic posts into paid advertisements. This is Reddit’s first set of free tools meant to inform businesses’ social media strategies, and the company plans to launch additional features within it later this year.
THE CONTEXT: The Reddit Pro launch came as the company prepared its initial public offering (IPO) at a stock price that valued the company at nearly $6.5 billion. Reddit is likely leveraging this new suite of free tools to entice brands to the platform and turn them into paying advertisers.
EXPERT POV: All eyes are on Reddit as the platform continues to make headlines with news of its successful IPO. Brands looking to connect with a wider audience may want to explore adding this channel to their organic and paid social portfolio. These new Reddit Pro tools—only available to brands that are active on Reddit—grant deeper insight into what Redditors are saying about brands, what aspects of products or businesses are resonating with customers, and which industry topics are trending. For brands not yet using the platform with a u/ (Reddit-speak for “username”) of their own, these new tools may incentivize them to create Reddit profiles and start an “OP” (“original post”) of their own. Pro Tip: Get to know the Reddit lingo! LSHMSFOAIDMT – Jess Kaswiner | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: TikTok has been under the US political microscope for some time, but now it’s ramping up its own political activity: TikTok users were shown a pop-up message earlier this month, urging them to call members of Congress to voice their opposition to a bill that aims to ban the app in the United States if its parent company, the China-based ByteDance, doesn’t sell it. Congress was quickly flooded with phone calls from TikTok users of all ages; the majority of calls, however, were from children. Since then, anonymous sources say some of the calls have turned threatening and concerning.
THE CONTEXT: Less than a week later, the US House of Representatives passed the bill, 352 to 65 in favor of a nationwide TikTok ban if the app isn’t sold, driven by concerns over the data security of US TikTok users. The bill’s future in the Senate is unclear, but President Biden has said he would sign the bill if Congress passes it.
EXPERT POV: While a ban on TikTok in US markets could have significant implications for brands already active on the platform—especially those leveraging it for influencer marketing and e-commerce sales—daily active usage is not showing any signs of slowing. The recent developments around TikTok highlight a continuing concern with and focus on data privacy in the digital advertising space. Taking a step back from TikTok specifically, this situation underscores the importance of diversification in media planning. In the short term, however, Committee and House votes are the beginning, not the end, of a long process. – Jess Kaswiner | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Pinterest’s recent campaign, “The P is for Performance,” touts the platform’s full-funnel approach to advertising, including lower-funnel case studies that show as much as a 28% increase in conversions and up to a 96% increase in traffic for its advertisers. Pinterest’s performance products include mobile deep links and direct links, making it easier for users to convert, plus shopping ads for greater inspiration and Pinterest API for Conversions for higher reporting visibility.
THE CONTEXT: In years past, Pinterest’s ethos of being a place for discovery has appealed to advertisers seeking upper-funnel awareness for their brands. With this campaign, Pinterest seeks to broaden its draw for advertisers who may only think of it as an upper-funnel platform. The campaign launched shortly after Pinterest released its Q4 2023 earnings, highlighting 12% revenue growth compared to the same period in 2022 and its 11% increase in global monthly active users.
EXPERT POV: Pinterest has thrived as one of the first social platforms to sit in a space that blends paid search and social channels. It’s no surprise that as a historically well-established traffic driver, Pinterest has now set its sights on also fiercely competing in lower-funnel effectiveness. Recent product releases have proven to be fairly low-lift activations for advertisers, particularly in the retail, e-commerce, travel, and professional services industries. Brands can significantly cut down the path to conversion by leveraging Pinterest to display product information, prices, and descriptions directly to their audiences’ feeds via shopping ads and simplify the consumer journey by tapping into direct links. – Jenny Lewis | Director, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Online sales for Cyber Week 2023 were up 7.8% year-over-year, with e-commerce sales totaling $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday. Paid digital marketing was a big driver of that growth, and advertisers are relying more on automated platforms to enhance efficiencies and expedite the scaling of campaigns. On the other hand, with advancements in automation and AI, invalid traffic has become more and more sophisticated over the past three years. One advertiser explained that tackling invalid traffic led to “more stable and predictable growth across our most important paid media channels.”
THE CONTEXT: 22% of ad spend in 2023 (or $84 billion out of a total $382 billion) was lost due to ad fraud. However, $23 billion of that amount would be recoverable with fraud mitigation platforms in place. Given that political advertising for the US presidential election will drive up ad costs at the start of the holiday season, driving efficiencies by leveraging the right technologies will be especially key for advertisers this year.
EXPERT POV: Ad networks aren’t incentivized to crack down on the increased bot traffic we’re seeing due to AI advances and the corresponding ease with which bad actors can create bots. So, the onus is on the marketer to stay alert for signs of high levels of bot traffic. These include high bounce rates and traffic spikes without corresponding conversion increases. Consider ways to block or limit these, like captchas, using conversion-based goals with machine learning bidding, and optimizing landing page content to be very specific to the intended conversion. — Jesse Foley | VP, Search Media Investment
THE NEWS: The IAB’s new comprehensive consumer privacy study found that nearly 80% of consumers would prefer to get more ads in exchange for not having to pay for websites and apps, and that 90% prefer personalized ads, but that nearly half feel websites and apps aren’t clear enough about how their data is used.
THE CONTEXT: With Google planning to fully deprecate third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by the end of this year, and signal loss across the industry as a result of data privacy concerns, figuring out how to use consumer data in ethical, transparent ways to serve personalized ads to consumers is a must for digital advertisers.
EXPERT POV: The fact that most consumers would rather receive more ads to retain their free access to websites and apps means that advertisers’ digital media investments are well-positioned to reach consumers who find them valuable. Advertisers should take a “test and learn” approach to understand which channels work best given their KPIs and to remain flexible and fluid with budget allocations based on results. —Laura Kubiesa | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Google’s responsive search ads rely on artificial intelligence to combine headlines and descriptions based on consumer behavior and predicted outcomes. New AI-powered features allow Google to decide when an ad should display only one headline versus two, with the second headline appearing at the beginning of the ad’s description section. Google can now also supplement or override an advertiser’s manual assets—like images, sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets—with its own AI-generated assets if it feels doing so will help an ad’s performance.
THE CONTEXT: AI’s influence on ad placement and creative continues to grow. Search Engine Land weighed the pros and cons of Google’s update, noting that while it may serve to drive engagement and performance, it also means that advertisers are surrendering more control to Google. At the same time, artificial intelligence tools often don’t perform with 100% accuracy—and as this is a newer feature, advertisers have no benchmark for how much accuracy these specific features can provide.
EXPERT POV: With the increased focus and adoption of AI capabilities in digital media, it’s no surprise Google continues to roll out these features within their campaign types and ad formats. As the industry continues to trend in this direction, getting left behind means being unable to capitalize on the reported improved performance of these AI-powered features. However, many advertisers need to maintain control over the images and copy that run within their ads, so turning off the auto-assets feature within Google Ads may be the better option. Advertisers who aren’t comfortable giving up control can still take advantage of some of the latest updates by testing the new campaign-level headlines and descriptions and scheduling them to run during certain time frames, which can help manage time-sensitive promotional copy. — Alyssa Theo | VP, Search Media Solutions
THE NEWS: AI and automation within Meta's ad products, such as its Advantage suite, helped fuel 24% year-over-year growth for Meta's ad business in Q4 2023. The social giant also shared advertiser success stories that included increased revenue and improved performance metrics for brands’ campaigns when they employed Meta’s AI ad tools. Meta plans to expand its generative AI features, including text and image variations, to further enhance advertising capabilities.
THE CONTEXT: Meta, along with every other social platform, is placing a high level of priority on building out further automation and AI solutions that work in tandem with their advertising algorithms to drive strong results for customers while making the lives of marketers easier.
EXPERT POV: In the face of ongoing question marks with Meta’s advertising platform (e.g. third-party cookie deprecation, ATT impacts, and data privacy regulations), capitalizing on AI and automation solutions integrated into the platform is an effective way to manage media campaigns efficiently, expand existing audience targeting to reach engaged new users, and create a high volume of ad iterations for easier creative testing. — Erik Chellberg | VP, Social Media Investment
THE NEWS: Pinterest has begun rolling out an integration that allows ads to show on Pinterest via Google’s Ad Manager. The integration will make it so that when Pinterest users come across a Google ad, they’ll be sent to the advertiser’s website to finalize their transaction. This partnership will not only broaden the reach of advertisers using Google Ads but will allow them to engage an active, high-value consumer base.
THE CONTEXT: Pinterest’s stock dipped almost 28% in early February, but bounced back after this Google deal was announced.
EXPERT POV: For those advertisers looking to generate discovery, this new inventory source could be very beneficial. Google is rolling out this new option over the next several quarters, and it will be available within Google’s Ad Manager. As of now, Basis Technologies is waiting to see how this inventory performs to inform future recommendations. — Robert Kurtz | Group VP, Search Media Solutions
THE NEWS: TikTok's Marketing Science team partnered with IPG's MAGNA Media Trials to conduct a study of digital video through the lens of TikTok’s impact on its advertisers. Contents of the report include TikTok’s positive effect on brand sentiment and consumer experience, higher engagement with skippable vs. non-skippable video ads, how contextual content adjacency increases ad view time, and the details of TikTok Pulse, a feature that guarantees ad placement next to top-performing organic content.
THE CONTEXT: TikTok has faced several hurdles in the past few years, not the least of which being several countries and US states implementing full or partial bans of the platform. And although TikTok’s growth is slowing, it still led 2023’s list of app downloads and consumer spending.
EXPERT POV: Advertisers are right to prioritize TikTok, given the time users spend on the app per day, averaging 53.8 minutes, and the platform’s abundance of out-of-the-box and accessible ad products, betas, incentives, and platform support. — Alana Putterman, Group VP, Social Media Investment
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Navigating a Shifting Landscape in 2025 and Beyond
As the Trump Administration settles into the White House in 2025, the digital advertising industry stands at a crossroads. After years of rising regulatory scrutiny and growing concern around consumer privacy, the industry now faces a dramatically different political environment—one that promises less scrutiny and diminished federal oversight but, simultaneously, comes with new risks and uncertainty.
For advertising agencies and in-house marketing teams, this shifting landscape presents both significant opportunities and complex challenges, all of which will require strategic foresight and operational agility.
Here, we’ll explore and analyze how the new administration’s policies and priorities are likely to impact the digital advertising ecosystem, examining how expected shifts in regulatory approaches, market dynamics, technological innovation, and brand positioning will reshape marketing in an increasingly polarized world.
The Trump Administration’s return signals a radical realignment in the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley. Unlike the Biden Administration’s aggressive antitrust actions and regulatory initiatives, the new regime is taking a broad deregulatory approach that, in turn, is expected to deliver benefits to major technology platforms and providers.
This reset, already evident in early administration signals, will likely come with several significant implications for the advertising industry:
“At a high level, I think this administration is going to be much more industry-friendly and focused on removing restrictions, so we’ll likely see some deregulation,” says Derek Zolner, General Counsel at Basis. “With Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and, of course, Elon Musk all donating to the Inauguration and cozying up to Trump, I think we could see some preferred treatment of the tech industry in general, which should also carry over to the ad tech space.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean the prospects of federal-level privacy regulation are completely dead. Industry coalitions, including the US Chamber of Commerce, have encouraged Republican lawmakers to introduce and pass a national privacy framework that establishes “a uniform privacy standard” for the United States. The theoretical legislation would likely have similar protections to those found in the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, but fall short of stricter regulations like those in the CPRA. And, perhaps most notably, it would supersede any existing state-level regulations, effectively neutering laws like those in California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia. The odds of such a bill becoming a law are still fairly long, but it does merit monitoring in the coming months.
In the meantime, for digital advertisers, this regulatory recalibration creates some breathing room after years of increased expectations and growing compliance challenges. However, it simultaneously raises the stakes for responsible self-governance, which will be essential to keeping consumer trust in an era where the public’s distrust around data privacy (and broader institutional skepticism) are on the rise. Industry leaders should view this not as an opportunity to revert to problematic practices, but rather to establish meaningful and durable self-regulatory frameworks that can satisfy consumers and weather any potential future political changes.
As federal oversight recedes, state-level regulation will increasingly fill the void, creating a complex patchwork of compliance requirements that may prove more challenging than unified federal standards.
California’s role as a leader in this space will almost certainly continue, and the CPRA’s expanded requirements may even inspire similar legislation in other Democratic-led states, creating an uneven regulatory map that further complicates advertisers’ efforts to reach audiences. “I could see the states that still have blue administrations—California leading among them—still taking very active roles on the privacy front,” says Zolner. “So privacy isn’t going to just ‘go away’ as a concern.”
The implication for advertisers is clear: National (or global) campaigns will need to navigate multiple regulatory standards simultaneously, taking the patchwork of legislation into account when crafting media plans that go beyond any single state’s border. This will require advertisers to continue developing modular approaches to data collection, targeting, and measurement that can adapt to varying compliance requirements across jurisdictions. Forward-thinking agencies and marketing teams will need to embrace technology that allows them to efficiently scale complex campaigns, while also building or onboarding compliance systems that are capable of applying different standards to different audience segments based on geography.
Of course, the impact of the Trump Administration on the advertising industry will extend beyond regulation.
The White House’s emerging economic policies—particularly around international trade, tariffs, and industrial policy—may introduce significant uncertainty into business planning cycles, with cascading effects for advertising budgets and strategies.
New or expanded tariffs could throw global supply chains into disarray, affecting product availability, spiking pricing, and disrupting promotional calendars for advertisers across multiple sectors. And potential tax cuts, paired with dramatic reductions in federal spending, could boost short-term consumer confidence…or, alternatively, create yet more longer-term economic volatility, further complicating media investment planning.
If the changes lead to a downward drift in consumer spending or bring volatility to the stock market, companies may come (as they often do) for marketing budgets, forcing leaders to grapple with increased pressure to demonstrate immediate ROI as businesses adjust to economic uncertainties. One potential result: a renewed focus on performance media over brand building, shifting away from the brandformance trend of the past few years.
In this type of uncertain environment, advertisers will increasingly depend upon advertising approaches and technology that allow them to rapidly adapt to changing market conditions. Future-friendly strategies could include:
The brands that thrive in the coming years will be those that embrace technology that provides a unified look at all of their campaigns and data across all channels and platforms, automation to more seamlessly integrate those solutions, and AI to identify and capitalize upon granular performance details. In doing so, those advertisers can pivot more quickly and effectively toward winning tactics, developing what might be thought of as “strategic reflexes”—or predetermined response patterns that can be activated quickly when economic conditions shift.
The Trump Administration’s pronounced pro-AI stance—paired with extraordinary private sector investment in the technology and reduced fear among marketers regarding AI’s societal and industry impacts—will converge to dramatically accelerate adoption across the advertising ecosystem.
Here are a few of the positives marketers can anticipate in the coming years:
For advertising professionals, this acceleration presents transformative opportunities. Unfortunately, it also comes with serious risks and somber ethical considerations. The rising adoption and sophistication of AI, coupled with fewer guardrails and a proliferation of synthetic content, will almost certainly lead to a corresponding spike in AI-generated misinformation, hate speech, and MFA-esque content and websites. Altogether, it could create unprecedented brand safety challenges, as deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation become increasingly indistinguishable from authentic content, making it all the more essential for advertisers to adopt robust brand safety and ad fraud protections and to cultivate connections with trustworthy, premium publishers.
In the absence of regulatory guidance, brands and agencies should prioritize the establishment of specific internal ethical frameworks for AI usage. Marketing leaders must develop their own principles for the responsible use of AI in customer targeting, messaging, engagement, and measurement—considering not just what is technically possible, but what maintains consumer trust.
“You will always have some players in the market that are willing to walk up as close to the line of what's either legally or self-regulatorily acceptable, because they see extra margin there,” says Zolner. “But ultimately, success depends upon the health of the industry and the individual businesses, and it’s always better to not be a target for public anger.”
While perhaps not as immediately visible or prevalent as during President Trump’s previous term, political polarization remains high across the US, and it's expected to further intensify under the new administration. Additionally, the White House, Republican attorneys general, and conservative activists around the US have made their displeasure known by explicitly targeting companies that openly embrace and promote policies like DEI and LGBTQIA+ inclusivity.
In this charged environment, brands could face heightened risks when engaging with social issues or political topics. Consequently, we are likely to witness a significant corporate retreat from public positions on controversial matters.
Many brands—including Target, Meta, Walmart, McDonald’s, and others—have begun to pivot away from some of the purpose-driven positioning and internal policies they had adopted (or highlighted) in recent years. In turn, diversity-focused advertising efforts could see a corresponding downward cycle. For most brands (save historical outliers like Nike or Patagonia), cause-based marketing efforts will likely shift away from politically charged topics and toward less controversial issues. Meanwhile, those companies that do maintain more progressive or inclusive internal policies are likely to communicate those policies less prominently toward external audiences, instead embracing a more neutral public position in the hopes of avoiding consumer controversy and governmental wrath.
For marketing and advertising professionals, this environment requires more sophisticated and nuanced approaches to positioning and issues management, and should prompt brands to pursue a firmer grounding in authenticity and company values rather than trend-hopping, clout chasing, or virtue signaling.
To ensure consistent strategic alignment, leaders should craft and adopt clearly articulated internal frameworks that identify which issues align with core values, and which fall outside their legitimate scope. From a paid media perspective, advertisers can focus on both tailored messaging and refined targeting efforts to facilitate more granular audience segmentation, which can enable brands to communicate different aspects of their values to different consumer groups.
Of course, even for those brands that try to stay apolitical, there is always a risk of unexpected backlash. In today’s hyper-charged political environment, even seemingly innocuous campaigns have the potential to trigger a significant response, so advanced preparation and robust crisis response capabilities could prove essential.
In all, the most successful brands will not chase every social trend, but neither will they remain entirely silent. Instead, marketers should identify specific issues that are closely aligned with their core business and stakeholder interests and strategically evaluate where they can make authentic contributions.
Perhaps the greatest immediate concern for marketers in this new political era is brand safety. With content moderation standards beginning to loosen across major platforms and AI enabling more prevalent and sophisticated forms of harmful content, brand safety challenges could intensify dramatically in the years ahead.
These mounting risks to brand safety have already begun. Meta began the year by joining Musk’s X in ending its fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram, instead turning to “Community Notes” for content moderation. It also updated its Hateful Content guidelines to allow users to post controversial and/or offensive content that was previously banned, including “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation,” and granting tacit approval to posts referring to “women as household objects or property” or “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it.’”
Then there’s the problem of AI-powered disinformation, as synthetic content creates unprecedented challenges in distinguishing between legitimate publishers/real users and bad actors. Research indicates that marketing and advertising professionals have already universally acknowledged and accepted AI’s brand safety risks, and those concerns will only intensify over the course of this new presidential term.
In the end, brand safety is not merely about avoiding reputational damage, but about fundamentally maintaining consumer trust in fragmented information environments. As such, marketing and advertising leaders will need to exercise caution and take proactive measure to navigate this challenging environment.
With different platforms taking different approaches to content moderation, advertisers need to deliberately evaluate and strategize around their use of individual social platforms for specific campaigns and audiences, leveraging any and all brand safety tools while doing so. Additionally, rather than relying solely on those platform standards, brands must also articulate their own definitions of acceptable adjacent content, developing proprietary brand safety frameworks to help avoid undesired context and uninvited controversy.
Sophisticated brand safety and ad fraud tools will become increasingly essential, while AI-powered contextual targeting will help advertisers implement their more nuanced strategies and avoid non-suitable content. Lastly, the premium inventory and curation trend that began in 2024 will remain a hot topic, as direct relationships with vetted publishers provide advertisers with a much-desired safe harbor in a chaotic content sea.
As the industry navigates the shifts brought on by the new Trump Administration, several strategic imperatives have begun to emerge for advertising agencies and in-house marketing teams:
In this environment of growing complexity and diminished federal oversight, industry leaders will need to carefully evaluate their tech stacks, their talent, and their internal frameworks to increase their likelihood of success and achieve marketing goals. Those who view the moment as an opportunity to establish more durable and responsible approaches to marketing—rather than an excuse to revert to problematic practices and exploit regulatory openings—will be in the best position to succeed over the long term, and to build lasting competitive advantages.
After all, while a successful campaign can deliver short-term value, consumer trust remains the industry’s most valuable and vulnerable asset—regardless of which party controls Washington.
As the Trump Administration enters the White House in 2025, the digital advertising industry faces a significant shift. Federal regulatory oversight is expected to recede, creating new opportunities for innovation, while policy changes and growing political polarization will simultaneously introduce uncertainty and risks. In this environment, industry leaders will need to navigate evolving regulatory landscapes, economic fluctuations, AI acceleration, and shifting brand safety concerns with strategic agility.
To stay ahead, advertising leaders must:
1) Develop regulatory agility: Build and deploy comprehensive compliance frameworks to navigate varying state and federal policies.
2) Embrace agility: Build flexible strategies for economic and political volatility, and adopt technology that allows your organization to quickly adapt and optimize campaigns.
3) Establish AI governance: Explore all the opportunities that AI can provide your agency or brand, and define detailed internal guidelines for responsible use.
4) Refine brand positioning: Align marketing messages with core business values while taking safeguards to minimize reputational risks.
5) Elevate brand safety measures: Implement comprehensive tools to avoid ad placements in controversial or harmful contexts.
In a rapidly evolving and highly-polarized environment, the most successful brands and agencies will be those that take a proactive stance—leveraging technology, refining messaging, and prioritizing long-term consumer trust over short-term gains. While the industry is poised for disruption, those who embrace innovation and positioning with responsibility will emerge as leaders in the next phase of digital advertising.
Read the full report for an in-depth analysis of these industry shifts and actionable recommendations.
Consumer attention is in short supply. From TikTokers to early education teachers to adults in general, it seems that few demographics feel like they (or the people around them) can stay focused for as long as they used to.
In this context, advertisers must contend with the challenge of consumers paying less attention to ads. To advertise effectively in today’s saturated digital environment, marketing teams must have an attention strategy—a game plan for leveraging the confines of attention-related constraints to outperform their competitors.
Perhaps the most important tool advertisers have at their disposal for capturing audience attention is personalization. But in addition to tailoring specific ad placements to capture attention, advertisers must also consider how to capture attention in a broader omnichannel context. Attention gained over time, via various interactions on various channels and platforms, is what garners the brand equity that leads to lasting connection, trust, and action from target audiences.
Ultimately, by empowering their teams to achieve both personalization at scale as well as a sophisticated omnichannel approach, advertisers can outperform their competitors and earn lasting audience attention despite shrinking attention spans and a saturated digital environment.
Multiple studies have tracked decreasing attention to the same tasks over time, appearing to confirm the idea that attention spans are shrinking. But the reality is likely more nuanced: The very concept of attention is hard to define, and attention spans can vary based on environment, activity, and mood, as well as channel, platform, and content.
Experts also challenge the idea that attention is fundamentally shrinking, attributing shifts in focus to increasingly distracting environments, rather than neurological changes. And others argue that attention spans haven’t changed at all, pointing to examples like gamers who play for hours in a single sitting (one 2022 survey found that PC gamers most commonly averaged 1-2 hours per session).
“I don’t think media is responsible for shortening people’s attention spans,” says Lauren Johnson, Client Strategy and Effectiveness Lead at Basis. “I believe what holds someone’s attention is what’s relevant to them. That’s a big reason why so many people, especially younger generations, are spending so much time on TikTok and YouTube: The content on those platforms is highly relevant and personalized to them.”
What is clear is that consumers have grown more discerning of ads. This is especially true for younger audiences, like Gen Z, who tune out of ads after just 1.3 seconds. “If you’re not relevant, younger audiences don’t care,” says Johnson. “It’s a learned behavior that these younger generations can filter digital noise out better than earlier generations, because it’s native to them.”
While advertisers may only have a second or two to capture audience attention, it remains possible to retain that attention for any number of seconds or minutes—that is, if the content is captivating and relevant enough.
Given that consumers typically only pay attention to advertisements for the first couple of seconds (especially in skippable or scrollable environments), marketing teams need a “first second strategy” to hook audiences within that time frame. Some proven tactics include:
Personalization can further strengthen these approaches, while helping retain audience attention past the first couple of seconds.
One of the best ways to capture and retain consumer attention is to serve the right message to the right person at the right time. (It may be an adage, but it’s an adage for a reason!)
Today’s marketing teams have both the advantage and the challenge of being able to hyper-personalize their marketing approaches based on consumer data. The best way to out-personalize competitors’ creative and media placements is through data—namely, by having the most efficient processes for collecting, organizing, pulling insights from, and activating data.
This is not always an easy task, with marketers citing finding and maintaining quality data, managing data and privacy regulations, and centralizing data/removing silos as some of their top challenges to executing a data-driven strategy.
The right platform, designed to streamline campaign workflows, increase interoperability, and expedite the process of collecting, organizing, storing, and activating on consumer data (while maintaining privacy compliance), can give marketers a considerable competitive advantage over their peers in terms of being able to achieve personalization at scale, and thus more effectively capture consumer attention.
At the same time, personalization doesn’t just mean tailoring the creative and media placement to the individual, but also to the context. “Our job as brands and advertisers is to try and make sure we are relevant to whatever environment consumers are in and that whatever content we serve them is interesting to them, or at least makes them pause,” says Johnson.
To achieve this, advertisers must plan around the environment and experience of each platform they advertise on. For example, tapping into popular trends and relevant influencers are effective ways to capture audience attention on TikTok, while digital out-of-home is well-suited for capitalizing on context and leveraging dynamic, showstopping creative. Marketing teams must use these insights to tailor bespoke ads for the platforms they run on, as study after study confirms that this draws more attention from viewers than generic ads.
At the same time, advertisers should be sure to maintain a level of cohesion across platforms—different, tailored ads within the same campaign have a higher impact on brand equity than using the same ads across platforms, or employing separate campaigns on separate platforms.
Advertisers can also capture attention by personalizing content to specific moments—for instance, by tapping into trends on social media.
Brands can use social media trends to their advantage, leaning into pop culture moments and trending audio to participate in the conversations their audiences are having in real time. To do so, they need to be able to move quickly, prioritizing the “messy realness” that characterizes these digital spaces rather than investing in high-end video production. This kind of agility can benefit advertisers beyond social media as well, adding a heightened level of relevance and personalization to advertisements on channels like DOOH.
To achieve this level of agility, leaders should embrace tools that streamline operations and reduce the complexity of working across channels and platforms. Advertising automation, which eliminates manual labor and streamlines workflows throughout the campaign journey, can make it easier for marketing teams to swiftly capitalize on cultural moments. Reporting tools that offer a holistic view of performance can also enhance agility, allowing marketers to assess cross-channel campaign performance in real-time and make in-flight changes if/when necessary.
Speaking of measurement…
Naturally, advertisers seeking to capture attention are interested in how effectively they’re doing so across platforms, formats, and creative placements.
Attention metrics have been characterized as an evolution of viewability—telling advertisers not just whether an ad placement is viewable, but whether consumers are paying attention to it. There are a variety of use cases, from supporting always-on measurement to inform in-flight campaign adjustments and optimizations to helping advertisers better understand which platforms and placements best capture audience attention.
These metrics have captured advertisers’ attention in recent years: 47% of advertisers reported they’d be significantly or somewhat more focused on attention metrics in 2024, up from 36% from 2023, and adoption should continue to rise in 2025.
However, like many measurement solutions, attention metrics are imperfect. A big factor here is the lack of standardization: With each provider offering different metrics, gaining a holistic view of measurement across campaigns can be difficult. Some providers use biometric signals to assess attention, which comes with privacy and compliance concerns. And while attention metrics can provide valuable data around consumer interaction with ads, they still can’t tell advertisers much about those consumers’ motivations or sentiments around those ads—in other words, just because someone interacted with an ad doesn’t mean they feel positively about it, or that they are interacting with it in a positive way.
Given these and other challenges, the jury is out on what place attention metrics will ultimately take in advertisers’ toolkits—or if they will even find a permanent home there. “I can’t tell if attention metrics are here to stay, or if they’re something new that the industry is excited about now but may fade out of relevance in the coming years,” says Johnson. “Until the industry finds a way to standardize it, it’s not going to scale.”
Ultimately, Johnson notes, it’s worth testing and experimenting with attention metrics—especially for brands and campaigns focused on upper-funnel objectives like awareness and consideration—as we know there is a strong correlation between attention and business outcomes. But it’s not currently a “need to have” measurement solution for all agencies and brands. Though perhaps imperfect, marketing teams can always leverage all the other data they’re used to looking at (ex. reach, frequency, etc.) to infer how effective their ads are at capturing attention.
Finally, it’s important that marketers consider audience attention not just in context of specific ad placements, but in terms of their broader marketing strategy. Campaigns that leverage multiple platforms and channels tend to perform better together than separately: According to Kantar, brand impact increases by 234% when the same budget is spent across five channels rather than just one. As such, Johnson notes, there’s a benefit to considering not just the attention garnered by one ad placement, but the breadth of attention across multiple platforms and channels over a longer time frame.
“Do all your ad impressions need to be in the highest attention environment? No—there’s a balance,” says Johnson. “There’s value in display and search ads, where maybe people are catching the logo subconsciously, and that helps with the brand recognition. Then, placements in more high attention environments like social media and CTV can complement that subconscious brand recognition with more direct appeals to attention.”
Enabling this kind of omnichannel approach goes back to an agency or marketing teams’ tech stack. Just like achieving personalization at scale requires tools that allow marketers the time they need to personalize content across channels, so too does effective omnichannel advertising. Managing media placements across a variety of channels and platforms puts considerable strain on teams unless they have software that streamlines the process—for example, a platform that unifies campaigns across channels so that marketers don’t have to waste time toggling between seven or more different platforms.
The complexity of capturing audience attention today mirrors the saturated and fractured digital landscape in which modern advertisers work. However, gaining a competitive edge when it comes to attention—which in turn leads to a competitive edge in terms of revenue and business growth—boils down to a few key strategic approaches:
By investing in the tools and solutions that give teams the agility they need to achieve personalization and omnichannel activation, advertisers can win in this new era of attention.
Basis drove an 80% surge in new users for a Global 500 financial client with a precision-targeted, multi-channel campaign, showcasing the power of expert insights and data-driven activation in B2B marketing.
A global financial services provider needed to boost awareness and engagement for its 529 savings plan among financial advisors. After previous disappointing results, they partnered with Basis to increase high-quality traffic and awareness, engage financial advisors to drive enrollment, and improve key metrics like time on site and page views.
Tailored Multi-Channel Strategy
Basis implemented a customized approach to drive quality site traffic and boost awareness of the client’s 529 plan.
Improved Engagement
Focused efforts led to stronger metrics, including increased time on site and higher page views.
Strategic Alignment
By aligning with the client’s goals and addressing financial advisors’ needs, Basis transformed an underperforming campaign into a lasting success.
Data-Driven Strategy
Using audience insights, Basis tested and optimized platforms like Bing, Meta, DSP audio, and native buys, ensuring ads reached advisors in the most relevant environments with multiple touchpoints.
Expertise & Flexibility
Acting as an extension of the client’s team, the Basis Consulting & Activation Team adapted to regulations, shifting business priorities, and real-time feedback to keep strategies aligned and drive better outcomes.
Clear, Actionable Insights
Integrating Google Analytics and platform metrics, transparent reporting enabled the client to track performance, justify budgets, and refine strategies.
Operational Excellence
Proactive problem-solving eliminated waste and optimized resources by resolving challenges like fraudulent traffic and tracking consent changes.
Performance Gains
Year-over-year increases in traffic, page views, and site engagement exceeded expectations without expanding the budget.
Industry Recognition
Highlighted as “Best in Class” by LinkedIn for innovative strategy and execution.
Stakeholder Impact
The client shared that the campaign established a trusted solution for financial advisors and led to improved marketing performance and increased stakeholder satisfaction.
Here we are again, halfway through February: Love is in the air, spring is peeking around the corner, and candy hearts are in high demand.
Brands spend all year trying to woo consumers, but what better time than Valentine’s Day to dive into how to truly win their hearts? While it all starts with having a standout product and/or service, building on that foundation with meaningful marketing and advertising strategies can take customer relationships to the next level and foster long-term loyalty. Brands that get clear on their values, communicate those values authentically to key audiences, use personalization to enhance that authenticity, and respect consumers’ privacy needs just might find their customers crushing on them like it’s night one of “The Bachelor.”
The strongest relationships are those built on trust, and trust isn’t possible when you’re trying to be someone you’re not. With 87% of shoppers reporting they have paid more for a product because it came from a brand they trusted, building trust with consumers should be paramount for brands in 2025. To earn that trust, brands must get clear on their values and communicate those values authentically to prospective consumers, through both words and actions.
“Consumer behavior is often aspirational—there’s something about your specific brand that consumers want to be a part of,” says Susan Mandell, Basis’ VP of Brand Development. “It’s crucial to understand what sets your brand apart and lean into that in meaningful ways.”
Aligning values with action is key for building lasting connections. “If you’re a brand that talks about making social change or giving back, you might embrace a model where each purchase includes an added benefit for someone or some cause—a pair of shoes or socks donated, a membership gifted, a tree planted," says Mandell. "Backing your brand’s values up with such actions can further deepen the unique relationship with your consumers.”
The reality of showing up authentically, however, is that not every brand will be every consumer’s cup of tea. By the same token, brands that try to appeal to everyone may end up not appealing to anyone at all. “The thing with authenticity is that people can smell lies,” says Mandell. “They can tell when brands are going back and forth trying to try to cater to everyone. People want what’s real and authentic, and brands that lean into that desire will be able to build trust and foster deeper connections with their audience.”
A worn-out opening line won’t do much for the date you’re trying to woo, and a generalized approach won’t win over your customers. Personalization has long been the key to a great customer experience: Nearly 90% of today’s consumers prefer personalized ads and 87% say they’re more likely to interact with ads for products they are personally interested in or searching for.
But effective personalization doesn’t mean simply changing the name of a city in ad copy or partnering with a trending content creator just because they’re trending. Instead, it can be helpful to think of personalization as an extension of brand authenticity—a way to speak to target audiences in a manner that both resonates with them and stays true to brand values.
“Knowing who you are, who you want to be, and what you stand for as a brand is critical,” says Kelly Boyle, Group VP of Client Strategy & Insights at Basis. “That foundation can then serve as a jumping-off point for personalization, which is key to fostering the types of long-term, deep connections that most brands really want.”
Once a brand understands its values and the audiences that connect with them, it can show consumers how they personally fit into its story. For auto companies, this could look like showing cars in hiking or adventure-focused scenarios for certain audience segments and urban environments for others. Or, a CPG brand might place ads alongside recipe videos on YouTube, personalizing both the creative and the placement to its target audiences’ interests and behaviors.
“So much of effective personalization comes down to understanding who your audience is, what they care about, where they spend time, and how that overlaps with your specific brand,” says Boyle. “A personalization approach that’s really going to resonate is one where it doesn’t feel obvious—where an ad just organically fits with the things a consumer cares about, and they might not even realize that it’s personalized.”
If you want a love (and/or a digital marketing strategy) that lasts, you need to focus on an approach that respects the needs and boundaries of your object of affection. And, today, data privacy is at the forefront of many audiences’ minds: More than 70% of customers surveyed in 2024 were increasingly protective of their personal information, and 64% felt that brands are reckless with their personal data. It’s clear that there’s a deficit of trust between brands and consumers when it comes to data privacy.
“Brands today are looking to connect with customers in exciting, meaningful, and privacy-friendly ways,” says Jane Frye, VP of Integrated Client Solutions at Basis. “Contextually aligning with trusted content is one powerful way to engage audiences while also respecting their privacy. Leveraging first-party data is another key strategy for accomplishing this: By analyzing behavioral insights from first-party data, brands can identify the channels and ad placements that resonate most with their customers. This allows them to personalize their approach while respecting consumer privacy.”
Indeed, building trust is not only essential for earning consumers’ hard-earned dollars and building lasting relationships with them; it’s also an important aspect of navigating increasing signal loss and privacy concerns. Using first-party data effectively is a key strategy for privacy-compliant marketing that offers valuable insights into customer needs, wants, and preferences, enabling brands to foster authentic connections. By embracing privacy-friendly marketing approaches like the use of first-party data, brands can strengthen relationships and enhance long-term brand equity with target audiences.
Just like cheese, wine, and blue jeans, strong customer relationships get better with time. For brands, then, the time to start building (or expanding upon) those relationships is now. To that end, it will be critical for them to get clear on their values, show up as their authentic selves, embrace meaningful personalization, and respect consumers’ boundaries in order to help strengthen trust across the entire customer journey. Brands that do so will not only foster stronger relationships but also position themselves for long-term loyalty and growth. And who doesn't love the sound of that?
Connected TV has become a driving force in digital advertising, with many media buyers now bringing over a decade of experience to the table. Yet, the landscape continues to evolve rapidly, as new technologies, shifting consumer habits, and advancements in measurement reshape how advertisers approach the space.
In this webinar, Comscore Vice President of Emerging Solutions Becca Marco joins host Noor Naseer to break down essential strategies, best practices, and trends to help advertisers make the most of the CTV opportunity in 2025.
How will the latest legislation out of Europe and the United States impact digital advertising in 2025 and beyond?
It’s been a busy few years for digital advertising industry regulators, with new regulations taking effect around the US and new legislation popping up across the globe. What’s the latest, and how will it impact advertising and marketing professionals?
While the United States has taken its time determining how to handle Big Tech regulation, the European Union has embraced its reputation as the world’s fiercest tech regulator.
Unrestrained by free speech rules like America’s First Amendment, the EU has taken the lead on matters like consumer privacy (with GDPR), walled gardens like Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store (with the Digital Markets Act), and misinformation and hyper-personal ad targeting on social media (with the Digital Services Act).
Though some requirements of the Digital Services Act (DSA) came into effect in 2023, with “Very Large Online Platforms” and “Very Large Online Search Engines” being subject to the law’s stipulations, it wasn’t until February 2024 that all platforms became subject to its broader implementation and enforcement. The law compels social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to dedicate more resources to stomping out misinformation and hate speech on their platforms, and bans any targeted online ads that are based on an individual’s ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Google and Meta are also now subject to annual audits to uncover “systemic risks” related to their social assets, search engines are required to suppress misleading search results, and even Amazon will have to comply with new rules aimed at curbing the sale of illegal products. Since the Digital Services Act went into effect, the European Commission has aggressively enforced it: X has been under investigation since 2023, while the Commission opened formal proceedings against Facebook and Instagram in 2024 to assess compliance.
While the DSA has somewhat inhibited targeting precision in the region, it is also helping to foster safer advertising environments—particularly on social media—helping both brands and users enjoy a more hospitable digital ecosystem. With brand safety looking like an increasingly-elusive proposition in the United States, an internet with less misinformation and more trust sounds downright novel, providing marketers with some welcome upside in the face of targeting limitations.
As for the Digital Markets Act, in September 2023, the EU designated six companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft—as “gatekeepers” under this regulation. Though TikTok and Meta appealed this designation and Apple filed a legal challenge to the DMA itself, these tech giants have been forced to make changes to meet the rules and requirements outlined in the DMA, such as allowing users to choose different default browsers and search engines, download iPhone apps outside of Apple’s App store, and control how their personal online data is used.
Altogether, social media platforms face strict regulation in the EU—and serious consequences when they breach the bloc's privacy laws. Meta learned this the hard way, incurring a nearly $1.3 billion penalty for transferring user data between the United States and countries in the EU and the European Economic Area. It’s the biggest penalty an EU regulator has levied on a tech company since 2021 and a clear signal that privacy compliance is non-negotiable. That said, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework should hopefully help prevent similar data flow-related fines and confusion going forward.
Back stateside, industry regulation is a bit more decentralized—at least, for now. While federal-level legislation has mostly lingered in congressional purgatory, 11 new state-level data privacy acts have already taken effect this year—with many more set to take effect throughout 2025.
The broadest and most impactful of these enacted state-level regulations is the California Privacy Rights Act, aka CPRA. Building off the foundation of 2018’s groundbreaking California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the act created a California Privacy Protection Agency that’s dedicated to (and responsible for) enforcing the law—indicative of increased enforcement—while also reducing ambiguity around how to interpret some of the data-related aspects of the law. The CPRA now requires companies to give consumers the opportunity to not only opt out of the sale of their personal information, but also of giving or sharing that data with someone else, including a third party that might use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
As Basis General Counsel Derek Zolner put it, “Essentially, the CCPA, CPRA, and the other data privacy acts that are popping up around the US are establishing legal enforcement mechanisms around personal control of one’s personal data and codifying many of the core principals of our industry—namely, transparency, notice, and the right to opt out. Only now, instead of the industry self-regulating these matters, state governments are intervening to take control of that enforcement.”
Meanwhile, at the federal level, privacy-focused legislation remains stuck in lawmaking purgatory. In April 2024, a bipartisan group of lawmakers released a draft piece of legislation that would establish a comprehensive federal consumer privacy framework, called the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA). In its original form, the APRA was expected to have serious implications for the digital advertising ecosystem—establishing strong data security standards as well as clear national data privacy rights and protections, giving individuals the right to sue those who violated these rights, and giving the FTC authority to enforce any violations of the bill. But the bill has since stalled and, with the change in administration, appears unlikely to be revived anytime soon.
As consumers grow increasingly skeptical of Big Tech’s handling of their personal data, state-based legislation has provided users with increased transparency and control…for the residents of those states. With national legislation looking increasingly unlikely, at least at any point in the near future, advertisers and publishers are likely to leverage different tactics in different states—or, alternatively, will default to the most stringent policies (such as the CPRA) across all their campaigns.
From a consumer perspective, as much as consumers say they want a unified, omnichannel experience, they’ve also made it clear that they want more control over who can—and who cannot—access their personal data as part of the advertising process. Private companies like Apple (with iPhone’s App Tracking Transparency and the lack of third-party cookies on its Safari browser) and even Google (which, while no longer deprecating cookies in Chrome, is planning to let users make an “informed choice” about third-party trackers in their browser) have shown a willingness to slowly but surely give consumers more control over their data. With signal loss having crossed 50% and third-party cookies heading toward the same fate as MySpace and the VCRs, advertisers should continue to embrace privacy-friendly tactics like alternative identifiers, contextual, and brand lift studies.
As if pending legislative action wasn’t enough, Google, Meta, and Amazon—which, together, account for almost two-thirds of the nearly $350 billion US digital ad market—are also facing both consumer scrutiny and federal lawsuits around monopolizing the adtech market, the social media market, and the online retail market in the US.
Google, in particular, has caught the eye of the Justice Department and several states. It has faced not one but two lawsuits alleging violation of US antitrust laws. The first case, brought by the Department of Justice and 11 state Attorneys General, aimed to prevent Google from “unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets.” This suit and its ruling come at a time when Google owns an almost 90% market share in search, though the company maintains that its supremacy in the landscape is because they “simply provided a superior product.” The 10-week trial for this case concluded in early May 2024, and in August 2024, a federal judge ruled that Google had, in fact, violated antitrust laws in online search. In his ruling, Judge Amit P. Mehta stated, “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” Potential penalties or remedies for Google’s misconduct have not yet been set, although the DOJ has proposed significant modifications to the tech giant’s business, including selling off its Chrome browser.
Additionally, Google is the subject of a second suit accusing the company of “monopolizing digital advertising technologies” in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. While the first case addressed its monopolization of the search landscape, this second case relates to Google’s overall presence within the digital advertising landscape. During the trial, which wrapped up in November 2024, the Department of Justice argued that Google monopolized the ad server and ad network markets, attempted to monopolize the exchange market, and applied monopoly power by uniting all of the products they used to do so into a single offering. A ruling on this case is expected early this year.
This antitrust regulatory action isn’t limited to the US. Across the pond, Google faces similar antitrust charges for its digital advertising practices, with the European Commission citing Google’s heavy involvement at “almost all levels of the so-called adtech supply chain” and noting concerns that the world’s fourth-most valuable company “may have used its market position to favor its own intermediation services.” This marks the fourth time Google has run afoul of EU antitrust regulations in recent years, and with the bloc’s history of action against US-based tech giants, the case is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Beyond these antitrust suits, recent years have seen a notable increase in class-action lawsuits against brands for allegedly making false and/or misleading claims in their advertising.
For instance, Starbucks was sued for advertising that they’re “committed to 100% ethical sourcing” despite sourcing coffee beans and tea from “cooperatives and farms that have committed documented, severe human rights and labor abuses,” according to the lawsuit filed by the National Consumers League. Soda company Poppi faced a class-action lawsuit for advertising “prebiotic” and “gut healthy” benefits, when such benefits are negligible—particularly given how much sugar their products contain. The makers of Liquid I.V. were sued for including a “no preservatives” label on their electrolyte drink powder, despite using citric acid and other well-known preservatives. And Grubhub faced a lawsuit that alleges the company deceives customers by promising free delivery, but then charging fees at checkout.
This uptick in false advertising lawsuits shows a growing awareness and intolerance towards deceptive marketing practices among consumers and regulators alike. Both are increasingly willing to hold companies accountable for misleading claims, reflecting a broader demand for transparency and honesty in advertising. Additionally, several new enacted and proposed state-level regulations echo these growing demands, including a California law that targets misleading product labeling around recyclable plastic, a proposed Arizona bill aimed at helping to eliminate misleading information in healthcare advertising, and a proposed Louisiana bill addressing truth in advertising, specifically as it relates to related to how foreign seafood is sourced and labeled.
Given the increased legal scrutiny, consumer sentiments, and uptick in legislation aimed at tackling misleading or false advertising, brands and marketers must be diligent in ensuring that they are not just satisfying regulations, but using messaging that is rooted in truth and authenticity, lest they risk both legal repercussions and lasting damage to their reputations.
Since its public release in 2022, generative AI has garnered a lot of hype—and for good reason. From AI chatbots like ChatGPT, to AI image and art generators like Midjourney, to Microsoft and Google both embracing new AI-powered search capabilities, this emerging tech is making some serious waves in the marketing and advertising world (and beyond). But for all the excitement around generative AI, its boom has also been accompanied by fierce warnings and concerns from experts across the globe.
Amidst these mixed emotions, it’s no surprise that AI regulation has become a hot topic. In 2024, the world’s first comprehensive AI law, the EU AI Act, went into effect. The act outlines the many potential benefits of AI, while establishing “obligations for providers and users depending on the level of risk from artificial intelligence.”
The US, meanwhile, has yet to take action quite as deliberate as the EU’s, but that doesn’t mean Washington has been ignoring AI’s emergence. In 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared before Congress and directly encouraged lawmakers to regulate artificial intelligence. Later that year, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order that aimed to address the “safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence.” However, President Trump has since rescinded that order and, more generally, has signaled that his administration will adopt a more relaxed regulatory approach to AI. Meanwhile, several AI-focused bills have stalled in Congress, with their paths toward enactment looking increasingly uncertain.
On the state level, Utah became the first state to enact a consumer protection law focused on AI. The 2024 Utah Artificial Intelligence Policy Act (UAIP) mandates that organizations disclose their use of generative AI tools to consumers, and restricts organizations from attributing consumer protection violations to generative AI. And in California, draft regulations around the use of AI and automated decision-making would amend the CPRA to give Californians the right to access information about how implicated businesses use automated decision-making tools, including AI tools, in relation to consumers, as well as the right to opt out of their data being used by those tools.
With President Trump’s increasingly-warm ties to the AI industry, federal-level regulation appears to be off the table for the time being. However, international and state-level AI regulations continue to move forward, and more are likely to be introduced in the coming months and years as the technology continues to proliferate. With nearly three-quarters of marketing and advertising professionals saying they believe AI’s development and usage should be regulated—and with its incredible potential benefits still tempered by its significant risks—it’s critical that advertisers stay up-to-date on this evolving landscape to both ensure compliance and to understand where the industry is headed.
Last but not least, while the majority of industry-focused regulation has centered around American-based companies, there is one notable exception to the trend: TikTok, whose fate in the US is increasingly tenuous.
In 2024, Congress passed legislation requiring TikTok parent company ByteDance sell its stake in the app within 12 months or else the app would be banned in the US. While TikTok filed a subsequent lawsuit seeking to halt the law, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban in January 2025. The app was set to go dark on January 19, but on January 20, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to delay enforcement of this ban until early April. The legality of such an order remains unclear, but for the time being, the app remains online in the United States.
Looking ahead, TikTok’s fate may hinge upon ByteDance’s willingness to sell the app to an American company—or, alternatively, on Congress passing new legislation that amends or supersedes the 2024 bill to permit TikTok’s return to US app stores. While that was long rumored to be a non-starter for the company, recent signals indicate that both the Chinese government and ByteDance’s leadership may be increasingly open to a sale. And though a number of potential buyers have shown an interest in acquiring the wildly popular app, none have emerged as a front runner, leaving TikTok’s future uncertain.
With TikTok’s fate still unknown, advertisers should continue to craft their contingency plans to swiftly shift budgets should the app ultimately be banned in the US. But the clock is ti(c)king...
For much of the past decade, regulators have increasingly turned their eye toward the digital advertising industry and its key players. Advertising leaders looking to balance innovation with compliance must take regulators’ concerns seriously—specifically, by prioritizing consumer privacy, staying abreast of antitrust lawsuits, avoiding false and/or misleading messaging, approaching AI with caution and intentionality, and keeping an eye on regulatory developments across the board.
While the US is likely headed toward a looser regulatory environment, one way or another, the digital advertising industry is going to have to prioritize privacy. Consumers and regulators alike are demanding increased transparency and individual control over user data. And if Big Tech—and the advertising industry—don’t want to make the difficult choices involved in regulating themselves when it comes to consumer privacy, then world governments will likely be all too happy to do it for them.
Recent years have seen an explosion of snackable, quippy video content—particularly on social media.
From live sports highlights and lifestyle content to product reviews, travel recommendations, funny animal videos, and beyond, short-form video has become a pillar of the digital media landscape. Where even a decade ago this content format was relatively niche and limited (except, of course, on Vine), short-form video is now mainstream, with 65% of people engaging with it multiple times a day.
This meteoric rise has transformed how audiences get information and discover products, as well as how advertisers connect with these audiences. Short-form video’s bite-sized, engaging nature makes it a particularly powerful tool for advertisers trying to combat shrinking attention spans, allowing brands and marketers to capture audience interest in mere seconds. As more and more platforms incorporate short-form video elements to engage and excite users, it’s clear that the format is here to stay. As such, advertisers who seek to understand its impact on the digital media landscape will be better positioned to connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
It’s nearly impossible to talk about short-form video content without talking about TikTok. Despite the looming threat of a ban in the US, TikTok’s immense impact on the video, social media, and advertising landscapes has long been solidified. While it wasn’t the first player to embrace short-form video, TikTok perfected the format and sparked a global shift toward shorter, more engaging content. Its rapid rise in popularity has driven a broader trend of audiences increasingly opting for short-form over long-form content. “Shortly after TikTok became an overnight sensation, we saw Instagram launch its Stories feature. There’s a direct correlation between TikTok’s rapid rise to fame, Instagram Stories, and the new user experience behavior of swiping ‘next,’” says Jess Kaswiner, Basis VP of Social Media Investment.
TikTok revolutionized how people consume video content, popularizing the full-screen, vertical feed of endlessly scrollable, bite-sized videos tailored to individual viewers through its highly personalized algorithm. It also changed how advertisers connect with audiences, offering a space for brands to create authentic, engaging, and highly targeted campaigns that made ads feel less like ads and more like…content. From viral challenges and hashtag campaigns to influencer partnerships and shoppable videos, TikTok set a new standard for creativity in digital advertising. This shift has been an impactful one, with nearly one in four users saying TikTok has influenced them to make a purchase within just three minutes of seeing it.
Now, short-form video extends even beyond social media. Streaming platforms, retail apps, sports outlets, and even news platforms are incorporating short-form video to engage their audiences. And even if TikTok is banned in the US, its influence will persist: Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook have long since adopted similar features (Reels and Shorts), and some users even turned to alternatives like Red Note to get their short-form video fix during TikTok’s short-lived ban-related blackout.
For advertisers, this shift signals a critical opportunity. As platforms continue to innovate and audiences increasingly demand fast, engaging video content, advertisers who embrace the lessons of TikTok’s (and TikTok advertising’s) success will be better positioned to thrive.
Much like how TikTok changed how users interact with content and find new products, short-form video is more broadly shifting the digital advertising landscape and will continue to do so in the years ahead. In today’s mobile-first world, these quick, engaging videos capture and hold attention effectively, as well as drive action, with three in eight people saying they have made a purchase based on short-form video content.
This obsession with short-form video is particularly pronounced among Gen Z, whose spending power is forecast to reach $12 trillion by 2030. Advertisers have noticed, with social video now accounting for more than 45% of total digital video ad spending.
So, just how is short-form video changing things for advertisers? First, it’s making engagement (aka capturing audience attention) an absolute must: When you only have a few seconds to connect with viewers, it’s key to make every moment count. It’s also blurring the line between entertainment and advertising, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels having normalized ad content that feels organic and entertaining rather than disruptive. Additionally, it’s forcing advertisers to rethink the more traditional advertising funnel, as short-form video drives swift decision-making and immediate action. It upends the traditional linear path from awareness to purchase, instead replacing it with a dynamic journey where viewers discover, engage with, and act on content all within the span of a single video.
Given how short-form video has caused many digital advertising norms to shift, taking a strategic and intentional approach is critical to leveraging this format effectively. By understanding audience behavior, embracing innovation, keeping a pulse on regulation, and safeguarding brand safety, advertisers can maximize the impact of this format and drive ROI.
With the near-ubiquitous presence of smartphones, it’s no surprise that many people multitask, often using multiple screens at once. For instance, the majority of Americans report using a second screen (often scrolling social media and—you guessed it—watching short-form videos) while watching TV. Planning for multiple intentional touchpoints across a variety of digital channels such as connected TV (CTV), display, and audio alongside short-form video on social is critical for building strong brand awareness and driving cross-platform engagement.
Among the many other lessons it has taught, TikTok’s tumultuous history and uncertain future in the US have shown just how quickly the short-form video landscape can change. Advertisers must be agile when assessing new opportunities, ensuring campaigns align with evolving regulations and platform policies. Additionally, keeping an eye on regulatory developments should go hand-in-hand with adopting privacy-conscious advertising strategies in the space. For example, short-form video is ripe for contextual targeting and creator partnerships that are inherently privacy-friendly, allowing advertisers to connect with audiences in a meaningful way while also respecting user privacy.
Short-form video’s speed and reach make it powerful—but also risky. False and misleading content is becoming more and more prevalent on social media as a result of the rise of generative AI, which can both create and fuel the spread of mis- and disinformation. This problem is compounded by Meta's recent announcement that it will get rid of independent fact checkers on both Facebook and Instagram, a move that is part of a larger trend of digital platforms reducing content moderation. As such, media buyers must craft a strong brand safety plan and prioritize tools that ensure their short-form video ads appear in brand-safe environments and align with suitable content, thus building audience trust rather than eroding it.
Short-form video ads are often different from more traditional formats: They’re typically more unpolished and “real,” aligning with the types of content they’re surrounded by. "Creating highly engaging content that aligns with the organic style of each social platform is crucial for encouraging users to interact with a brand's message, making it an essential component of any short-form video advertising strategy,” says Kaswiner. “Ads that look, sound, and feel like ads will fall victim to fast thumbs—often before the brand name can even register with the viewer.” Using creator partnerships, dynamic visuals, and storytelling techniques tailored to platform-specific audiences can make the difference between a campaign that resonates and one that gets scrolled past.
TikTok might still face an uphill battle in the US, but its role in popularizing short-form video content will leave a lasting impact. The rise of short-form video has reshaped how audiences consume content and interact with brands and products. And for brands and marketers, it’s not just about keeping up—it’s about leveraging this shift to stay ahead. By embracing the lessons of short-form video, from capturing attention to blending entertainment and messaging to taking an omnichannel approach, marketers can position themselves to connect meaningfully with audiences through this ever-evolving format.
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Interested in deeper insights on how to take a holistic approach to digital video within the broader media landscape? In our guide, Video Unleashed, we break down how advertisers can leverage the channel to connect with audiences at key moments of impact that inspire and engage.
