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In business, it’s rare to find a single solution that solves multiple problems at once. But when it comes to the greatest challenges marketing executives face today, one underlying issue connects nearly all of them: data.
Fragmented data, poor-quality data, overwhelming amounts of data, and/or a limited ability to extract actionable insights from it exacerbates all of marketing executives’ top pain points—from driving revenue to proving ROI to harnessing the incredible potential of AI.
The good news? By improving the quality, integration, and accessibility of their data, marketers can address all of those pain points at once, creating exponential value.
Read on to learn how challenges related to media fragmentation, visibility, revenue generation, proving ROI, talent effectiveness and retention, and AI adoption are all affected by data problems, and what steps marketing leaders can take to alleviate them.
If data challenges lie at the heart of marketers’ biggest pain points, then media fragmentation lies at the heart of those data challenges. From social media fragmentation to emerging complexity in the search space to the rise of commerce media, marketing efforts are increasingly spread across a growing number of platforms, channels, partners, and tools. This is creating major challenges for marketing organizations, with agency leaders naming siloed/disconnected systems as one of the most urgent issues facing their organizations.
Data fragmentation stemming from those siloed systems makes it difficult to track the customer journey at even a basic level. “When the view of the customer journey is fragmented, it’s difficult to identify quality touchpoints and how they’re working together,” says Lisa Olszewski, VP of Brand Development at Basis. “Which, in turn, makes it difficult to build a smooth and valuable experience for the customer.”
Building that seamless customer experience is crucial to marketing teams’ primary goals: driving revenue, building their brand, and forging trust and lasting connections with target audiences. Fragmentation in media and data doesn’t just complicate customer journey tracking—it sets the stage for many of the other challenges marketing leaders face today.
Data problems make it difficult for marketing executives to drive revenue efficiently—a goal that’s under increasing pressure from all sides.
For marketing leaders at brands, that pressure is compounded by growing skepticism around the CMO role itself. Some companies are experimenting with eliminating the role altogether, while others are turning to fractional CMOs. And even for those retaining full-time CMOs, the role is evolving. “CMOs today aren’t just expected to be brand stewards as they were in years past—the role is now blended with finance and tech,” says Grace Briscoe, EVP of Client Development at Basis. “Their biggest challenge, and objective, is to shift the view of marketing from a cost center to a profit driver.”
Agency leaders face similar demands, as rising costs and shrinking profit margins increase the need to demonstrate measurable business impact. At the same time, as economic volatility persists, marketing budgets are under greater scrutiny, with many agency and brand leaders expected to do more with less.
Amidst all this pressure, fragmented data hinders marketing teams from driving revenue. Specifically, it slows their ability to evaluate the effectiveness of investments across channels and make real-time adjustments. Even when raw data is technically accessible, it doesn’t always lead to meaningful insight due to fragmentation or a lack of tools or skills. “Most leaders have visibility into campaign data, but they might be lacking the strategic context for what story those data points are telling, and how it’s actually moving the business forward,” says Olszewski.
The manual effort required to stitch together data from disparate sources not only causes delays, but also raises the risk of human error, further limiting a team’s ability to act strategically. What’s more, this lack of visibility makes it challenging to connect media investments to business outcomes in a cohesive, narrative-driven way. A recent survey of marketing leaders found that the top activity they struggle to implement regularly is demonstrating how marketing activities translate into financial outcomes.
This difficulty to prove ROI has serious consequences. “Gone are the days when awareness-driving marketing investments are seen as a positive, long-term investment for a brand,” says Olszewski. “Everything needs to show some level of return with CMOs now reporting into CFOs, shareholders, and finance-minded CEOs, all of whom are scrutinizing every dollar.” Fragmented and inconsistent data makes it harder to show clear returns on marketing budgets. This not only weakens the case for future investment but, for agency leaders, can also strain already delicate client relationships.
In short, without unified, organized, and accessible data, it becomes difficult not only to understand performance and drive revenue, but to prove out even the strongest results. This makes it harder to earn internal alignment, external confidence, and continued investment.
Data fragmentation is also compounding the pressures facing hands-on-keyboard marketers. Team members typically spend hours manually pulling information from different sources and piecing it together in spreadsheets, which creates costly operational inefficiencies and raises the risk of human error.
This fragmentation has increased the difficulty of digital advertising work, with a growing majority of agency professionals reporting that their work has grown more difficult in just the past two years. This increase in complexity affects not just employee efficiency, but job satisfaction and fulfillment: When the skills of top marketing talent are underutilized, they’re less likely to stay, making data not only a performance issue, but a retention risk as well.
“If you’re finding the kind of talent that can pull insights from data and craft valuable stories around those insights, they do not want to spend six hours of their day cutting and pasting in spreadsheets to compile reports,” says Briscoe.
Finally, data issues are standing in the way of another top marketing priority: maximizing AI. In fact, 58% of industry professionals cite data quality and accessibility as major barriers to successful AI adoption.
When data is scattered across multiple systems, it's difficult to feed it into AI models in a usable form. And when that data has been stitched together manually, human error can lead to inaccurate inputs and, ultimately, unreliable outputs.
While the industry is still grappling with important questions around how to use AI in ways that safeguard data security and privacy, it’s clear that the teams that have unified and streamlined their data processes will be the ones best positioned to harness AI’s full potential.
“AI’s ability to rapidly aggregate and analyze huge data sets has the potential to give marketing organizations a wild advantage right now,” says Briscoe.
When marketing teams embrace technology that unifies and streamlines their data, they can alleviate nearly all of their most pressing pain points.
With unified data, visibility improves—not just into campaign performance, but into the stories that data tells. Revenue-driving opportunities become easier to spot and act on. The impact of marketing is easier to measure and communicate. Teams can spend less time wrangling spreadsheets, ensuring their time is spent more efficiently and more rewardingly. And as AI transforms the marketing landscape, unified, high-quality data will separate teams who can leverage it to drive real impact from those who can’t.
In these ways, by leveling up their teams’ approach to data, marketing leaders can turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s competitive edge.
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Curious to learn more about how leading brands, agencies, and publishers are approaching AI? Our report, AI and the Future of Marketing, explores how industry professionals feel about the technology today how they expect it to transform the space moving forward.
In this episode, Tameka Kee, SVP of Programming & Operations at the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), joins Adtech Unfiltered to unpack the state of media measurement.
From CTV to attention metrics and synthetic data to privacy compliance, Tameka explains how CIMM brings together platforms, publishers, agencies, and more to tackle the industry's most pressing challenges. Listen in for expert insights around why last-touch attribution is outdated, how value exchange must drive data usage, and why nerds run the show when it comes to measurement.
In this episode, Nova Chief Commercial Officer Matt Barash joins host Noor Naseer to challenge how the advertising industry works on a fundamental level.
As holding companies undergo seismic shifts and agencies battle inefficiency, Matt argues that workflow is more than an operational layer: it’s a business system of record. He explores the disconnect between creative, media, and tech teams, the hidden costs of outdated tools, and why most adtech platforms undervalue the infrastructure agencies rely on. From the rise of AI copilots to the future of real-time creative optimization, this episode unpacks how marketing organizations can either evolve or be left behind.
Holiday shopping habits are changing so fast that, for advertisers, crafting campaigns can feel like trying to hit a moving target.
Frustrating as these shifts may be for marketers and media planners, their emergence marks an evolution in the marketing funnel that’s critical for advertisers to understand. As platforms increasingly blur the line between browsing and buying, traditional shopping patterns—such as the gradual build from early research to Black Friday purchases—are giving way to more condensed customer journeys. The rise of social commerce, in particular, highlights this shift.
Below, we break down the trends behind this evolution—and what marketers need to do to evolve their strategies for the holiday season and beyond.
The digital marketplace is now firmly entrenched as holiday shoppers’ top option: In 2024, 90% of gift givers purchased gifts online vs. 68% who purchased them in-store.
However, the journey to purchase remains a hybrid one: This year, most shoppers plan to split their gift buying between online and in person, while just 5% expect to shop exclusively in person and only 8% plan to shop solely online.
In this context, to best capture holiday spend, marketing teams should craft digital-first strategies that reach consumers seamlessly across both online and in-store touchpoints. Doing so will require a deeper investment in understanding how target audiences behave across both spaces.
Among shoppers looking for inspiration, social media has firmly established itself as a core resource. In 2024, social platforms ranked third through sixth among the most-used sources for gift ideas, behind only friends and family and search engines.
But social media is growing from a space primarily for inspiration into a destination for product discovery and purchasing as well. US retail social commerce is forecast to grow from $85.58 billion in 2025 to $137.06 billion in 2028—and this holiday season, social commerce is set to play an even greater role in guiding shoppers’ journeys.
As these shifts take hold, advertisers need to reframe social media not just as an awareness tool, but as a full-funnel driver of holiday sales. By matching their strategies to evolving consumer behavior through social commerce adoption, brands can gain a competitive edge this holiday season.
Social commerce is gaining traction across all age groups, with 18% of US consumers planning to buy gifts directly through social media this holiday season. That figure jumps to 26% for millennials and 35% for Gen Z, underscoring the channel’s long-term potential—and the need for advertisers to adapt their strategies to fit these consumers’ behaviors and expectations.
Younger generations are especially important for brands to reach given their growing economic influence. Millennials now represent the largest generation in the US, with significant spending power. Gen Z, which is on track to be both the largest and wealthiest generation in US history, is poised to surpass Baby Boomers in spending in just a few years. And on the heels of Gen Z, Gen Alpha’s economic influence is projected to reach a whopping $5.46 trillion by 2029.
To build relevance with these consumers, brands should establish robust social media presences and strategize around how to leverage social as one aspect of a hybrid, omnichannel approach to holiday campaigns. For maximum impact, teams should prioritize platforms where their target audiences are most engaged and ensure their creative and messaging align with each platform’s unique shopping behaviors.
What’s happening on social platforms offers a window into broader shifts across digital advertising. This holiday season, 9% of all shoppers report plans to purchase a gift directly through an online ad. Among millennials, that number rises to 14%.
These behaviors point to a shrinking gap between inspiration and purchase, as platforms increasingly streamline the path to conversion. And it’s not just happening on social media: Other channels are evolving in the same direction, from shoppable TV to commerce media more broadly. For advertisers, capitalizing on these trends means designing holiday campaigns that collapse the funnel: meeting consumers where they’re inspired and making it easy to convert in the same moment. This marks more than just a shift in tactics—it requires a fundamental rethinking of strategy, where media, creative, and commerce are planned as a unified experience.
Online shopping is reshaping the path to purchase, particularly during the holiday shopping season. To capture demand, advertisers must embrace digital-first strategies that reflect the new funnel: one where inspiration and conversion can happen in the same moment on virtually any channel.
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Looking for more insights to inform your holiday campaigns? In our latest webinar, Get Ahead of the Holidays: Your June Jumpstart to Q4 Wins, digital advertising experts explore exclusive holiday shopping research and unpack what it all means for advertisers.
What makes an ad "acceptable"? And who gets to decide? In this episode, Terry Taouss, President of the Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC), joins host Noor Naseer to explore why user experience is at the heart of ad standardization.
Terry discusses the AAC's research-driven approach to setting ad standards, how the committee balances industry needs with user rights, and common misconceptions about ad blocking. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone navigating the future of sustainable, user-first advertising.
The 2025 holiday season is poised to arrive amidst a perfect storm of economic woes.
High interest rates, persistent fears of a recession, worsening consumer confidence, and job market concerns are creating a high-pressure environment. While inflation has cooled slightly, the lingering effects of the past few years—coupled with current challenges—are squeezing consumers and businesses alike.
Even so, holiday retail projections still forecast growth. Research shows that 90% of US holiday gift givers plan to spend the same amount or more than they did last year. However, this isn’t a sign of confidence—it’s a reflection of rising prices. Most consumers who plan to spend more are doing so to maintain tradition, not because they feel financially optimistic.
At the same time, marketers are being asked to drive performance with fewer resources and higher expectations. The majority anticipate budget cuts due to ongoing economic volatility, and pressure to prove ROI is intensifying.
Succeeding in this environment means focusing deeply on value: not just providing discounts, but delivering relevance, reliability, and trust. And it means using the holiday season strategically—both to boost Q4 revenue and to create opportunities for long-term growth and customer retention. The brands and advertisers that seek to understand this year’s holiday shoppers, show up with purpose and precision, and deliver value while staying emotionally resonant will be the ones that stand out in this year’s crowded, cautious market.
In 2025, holiday shoppers aren’t necessarily expecting to spend less, but they are planning to spend with more scrutiny. Amidst shifting economic pressures, shoppers are setting budgets—more than two-thirds say it’s important to set a budget, and over half plan to stick to it—and are being more selective in how they allocate their holiday dollars.
This caution underscores the importance of value for 2025 holiday shoppers. Some are spending more just to get the same number of gifts as in years prior, while others are actively scaling back. In either case, spending is more calculated, and there’s heightened sensitivity to cost and convenience.
“Given that consumers are still spending, but doing so more thoughtfully, advertisers should focus on messaging that builds both urgency and confidence,” says Page Kelley, Basis’ Group VP of Integrated Client Solutions. “That could look like time-sensitive promotions that motivate action within tighter budgets, bundled gift offers that highlight value, or other tactics that reinforce smart, cost-conscious choices,” she says.
This holiday season, intentional spending will require intentional marketing. Advertisers who speak directly to the needs of financially cautious consumers will be best positioned to earn attention, trust, and long-term loyalty.
To succeed in 2025, advertisers also need to learn from the 2024 holiday advertising season. Last year, shoppers cited high prices, shipping delays, and limited inventory as their biggest holiday frustrations. These issues not only impact short-term sales but also can erode brand trust.
That trust is even more fragile in today’s economic environment. Rising prices remain consumers’ top concern outside the holiday season, and when wallets are tight, expectations are often higher. Shoppers have less patience for friction and will be less likely to shop again with brands who can’t deliver on the basics.
In this context, operational excellence is more than a behind-the-scenes function—it’s a core part of brand strategy. Accurate inventory, dependable shipping, and competitive pricing can serve as powerful differentiators during the 2025 holiday season. Considering this, marketing efforts should be grounded in what the business can reliably deliver. When marketing and operations are aligned, brands can both drive conversions and build confidence. And in the long run, that confidence can be the difference between a one-time buyer and a loyal customer.
The days of planning holiday campaigns around a single weekend (or even a few) are well in the past. In 2025, shoppers are continuing the trend of kicking off their holiday buying early and spreading purchases out across months or weeks, not days. In fact, 63% say they want to finish their shopping as quickly as possible (which could be before events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday). And more than half say they shop year-round to take advantage of sales. For marketers, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity: The path to conversion is often longer, more fragmented, and harder to pin down, but it’s also rich with potential for testing, learning, and sustained engagement.
Savvy advertisers will use the full arc of the holiday season to their advantage. “Holding budgets until the very end of the cycle—post-Thanksgiving, for example—can leave marketers flat-footed, without the build-up needed to truly understand and engage shoppers,” says Kelley. Instead, teams should prioritize using earlier moments to test creative, warm up audiences, and understand which segments are most likely to convert. Using the full span of Q4 to build momentum ensures that each dollar works harder when peak demand hits.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that teams can afford to overlook high-intent retail windows, such as the week before Christmas: “Brands need to show up with strong, compelling offers during those times to avoid disappointment or brand switching,” says Kelley. “But staying present and relevant across the full journey is key.”
Ultimately, holiday advertising isn’t just about driving a single sale. It’s about using the extended season to build brand trust, optimize performance, and convert high-intent buyers into long-term customers.
Amidst economic uncertainty, many shoppers have heightened expectations around value. While 79% of global consumers reported trading down in Spring 2025, that doesn’t always mean cutting back on quantity or turning to discount stores. More than half now actively hunt for deals with every purchase, while others are shifting spend across categories, cutting back on one area to splurge in another. In this environment, it’s critical for marketers to prove value.
But value isn’t always just about cost. It’s about convenience, consistency, and confidence that a product is worth the investment. With more than one-third of consumers reporting cross-category trade-offs, marketers must be clear: Why should someone choose your product over a competitor’s? What lasting value does it deliver?
In this landscape, promotions, loyalty programs, and free shipping are now the norm, not a perk. “Marketers can lean into personalizing both messaging and incentives by using segmentation based on past behavior or loyalty status,” says Kelley. “Building momentum through well-timed promotions can also help generate organic buzz, allowing your budget to stretch further.”
At the same time, emotional resonance still matters. The holidays are a time of joy, connection, and tradition—especially during periods of volatility or uncertainty. Campaigns that pair clear value with thoughtful storytelling will earn trust, drive results, and leave a lasting impression that can extend well beyond the holiday season.
In a year defined by economic uncertainty and financial caution, advertisers must align their holiday strategies with the realities of the moment. That means spending efficiently, showing up consistently, and speaking directly to holiday shoppers’ desire for both value and connection.
“The most effective holiday plans build momentum that carries into the new year, not just a spike that fades in January,” says Kelley.
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Want even more insights into how to maximize holiday campaigns in 2025? Our newest research report, 2025 Holiday Shopping & Advertising Trends, explores insights from a GWI x Basis ImpactIQ survey of 2,000 US consumers and unpacks the key trends that advertisers need to know about holiday shopping this year.
From the rise of ad-supported streaming and direct-to-glass strategies to shifting consumer behavior driving FAST adoption, the world of TV advertising is evolving, well...fast.
In this episode, Tony Marlow, CMO of LG Ad Solutions, joins host Noor Naseer to unpack the TV trends marketers can't ignore in the CTV-first era. Listen in to gain insights around shoppable ads, measurement, AI-fueled creative and segmentation, and how marketers can better plan and optimize campaigns in an increasingly fragmented TV landscape.
Fragmentation in the marketing industry isn’t new—but the pressure to make faster, smarter decisions in today's increasingly complex landscape is. In this episode, Greg Dolan, CEO and co-founder of Keen Decision Systems, joins host Noor Naseer to discuss how marketing mix modeling (MMM) is evolving to meet these challenges.
Greg outlines how breaking down marketing silos with a top-down and bottom-up approach can drive better decisions, collaboration, and results across teams and organizations. He and Noor also explore why real-time insights and holistic measurement are critical in a world of shrinking budgets and exploding channels.
Takeaways from this episode include:
Traditional attribution models and siloed campaign analysis miss the crucial interaction effects between channels that drive real business outcomes. Dolan explains how modern MMM provides a complete view of how all marketing touchpoints—from PR and offline tactics to digital campaigns—work together to influence consumer behavior and drive measurable business results.
The days of expensive, months-long consulting engagements are over. Today’s MMM solutions can be implemented in weeks rather than months, require minimal data infrastructure (just one year of weekly activity metrics and outcome data), and are accessible to teams with marketing budgets in line with mid-market companies, not just enterprise giants.
The future belongs to marketers who can create continuous feedback loops among planning, execution, and measurement. Dolan envisions a “headless martech stack” where humans step away from manual media planning, and AI systems automatically optimize budget allocation based on real-time performance data and marginal return analysis across all channels.
Listen to the full episode to discover how MMM can identify untapped opportunities, optimize cross-channel budgets, and achieve profitable growth in competitive markets.
From AI advancements to regulatory crackdowns, the biggest changes in advertising often start with Big Tech.
While the industry remains as complex and fragmented as ever, the major players—Google, Meta, Amazon, and the like—have a significant influence on how advertisers work and influence the trajectory of the entire industry. For marketing leaders, keeping up with the latest Big Tech developments is essential to understanding where the industry is headed, crafting forward-looking strategies, and staying competitive.
To that end, we’ve compiled this running list of the most important Big Tech news that advertisers need to know, with key details and analysis to help marketers thrive in an ever-evolving environment. Bookmark this page and check back often for the latest.
In the latest chapter of AI’s transformation of search engine marketing, Google recently rolled out AI Mode to all US users. Like AI overviews (AIOs), AI Mode offers a more conversational search experience, delivering AI-generated responses that pull together information from multiple sources to provide greater breadth and depth. Unlike AIOs, however, users aren’t automatically opted in to AI Mode—rather, it’s presented as an option that searchers can choose to engage with.
Google’s immersive search experience is already raising concerns around visibility, while some publishers have gone so far as to characterize its impact as downright traffic theft. While the feature is still new and will doubtless evolve over the coming months, marketers would do well to track how it optimizes for citations and begin to adapt their content strategies accordingly. For example, SEO strategies should shift beyond traditional ranking goals to prioritize visibility within AI Mode’s responses.
On the paid side, AI Mode reflects a broader shift toward more automated, AI-driven ad platforms that require less manual setup from advertisers. “AI Mode represents a new era in advertising, where machine learning plays a central role in audience targeting, creative iteration, and performance optimization,” says Heather Crider, VP of Search Media Solutions at Basis. To succeed in this new era, Crider notes that advertisers should prioritize collecting clean first-party data to make sure Google’s AI tools have high-quality inputs to work with. This will help the systems drive more accurate targeting and improve overall campaign performance.
While Google works to transform search, Meta is embarking on an ambitious plan of its own: automating nearly the entire advertising workflow, from creative development to targeting and measurement.
In an interview with Stratechery, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described his vision for advertisers to simply state their advertising objective, connect their bank accounts, and let Meta automatically handle everything else. The tech giant says it aims to roll out the new AI-driven system on Facebook and Instagram as soon as next year.
Responses to the announcement have ranged from “Zuckerberg is declaring war on the entire advertising industry” to “AI has been headed in this direction for a while, and human oversight will remain critical to avoiding low-quality content and low-quality results.” Either way, it’s clear that advertisers must proactively prepare to position themselves competitively in a future where AI increasingly shapes nearly every aspect of advertising. To that end, leaders should prioritize ongoing AI education for their teams to ensure employees understand how to work effectively with these tools. Additionally, investing in data consolidation will be essential, as high-quality inputs directly impact the effectiveness of AI systems. At the same time, human creativity and strategic guidance will remain indispensable—ensuring campaigns not only leverage AI’s efficiencies but also connect meaningfully and authentically with their audiences.
As for engaging with these capabilities once they’re launched, it will be important to weigh both the advantages and challenges. “Meta’s vision presents opportunities to boost campaign efficiency and personalized ads in real time and at an impressive scale, especially as privacy restrictions reduce data signals,” says Lauren Kramer, Director of Social Media Solutions at Basis. However, Kramer cautions that overreliance on certain automated tools can limit insights and risk diluting a brand’s unique voice. For this reason, advertisers should exercise careful strategic control when leveraging new advertising functions from Meta to avoid potential pitfalls.
In other Meta news, the company recently announced the launch of an AI superintelligence lab, which will be personally overseen by Zuckerberg. The lab aims to build an AI system that surpasses human intelligence, reflecting the company’s commitment to overcoming Google, OpenAI, and others in the race to create increasingly-powerful AI tools. Meta is pursuing top AI talent from rivals with compensation packages reportedly reaching nine figures.
Whether AI can “surpass” human intelligence—and how such a thing would even be measured—remains unclear. However, Meta’s investment in the lab could result in exciting developments for advertisers. “The technologies that emerge from the lab could drive more efficient algorithmic performance and enable advanced features like predictive results to improve media planning accuracy and forecasting,” says Kramer.
For years, Amazon’s advertising strategy was focused on keeping brands within its own walled garden. However, like some others in the commerce media space, Amazon is now positioning itself as an entryway to the open web, encouraging advertisers to leverage its data beyond Amazon properties to reach audiences elsewhere online via its DSP. “With this move, Amazon is aiming to compete with other DSPs by offering customers expanded access to the open market,” says Soleil Schiller, Group VP of Media Investment at Basis.
The company’s latest pitch deck makes that ambition clear, claiming that its DSP can reach up to 90% of the US population and offering competitive pricing—for example, a 1% tech fee on programmatic guaranteed deals on premium open web inventory. While Amazon’s DSP already commands a strong presence in the market, this move signals an intent to compete more directly with enterprise DSPs, especially by leaning into its unique advantage: commerce data. This shift underscores a broader trend of advertisers evaluating DSPs not just by scale, but by differentiated value—whether that's retail inventory, transparency, integrated cross-channel capabilities, or advanced brand safety controls.
As advertisers adapt to rapid innovation from Big Tech, they must also stay alert to another force reshaping the industry: regulation. The following antitrust lawsuits are ones to keep an eye on, as they could spark significant structural shifts across the digital advertising ecosystem.
In April 2025, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ruled in favor of the DOJ, finding that Google engaged in a variety of anticompetitive practices to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for display advertising on the open web. However, she dismissed the DOJ’s claim that Google also holds a monopoly in ad networks. Google has said it plans to appeal Brinkema’s ruling.
One month later, the DOJ proposed a sweeping set of remedies—including a dramatic one: forcing Google to sell off AdX and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Given that AdX and DFP are the dominant products in their respective markets, such a divestiture would cause major structural changes in the advertising industry, driving increased competition and fragmentation across the open web. The remedies trial will begin in September.
The adtech case isn’t Google’s only legal battle. In August 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the company is a monopolist in the search advertising space, pointing to exclusive deals with companies like Apple and Samsung as evidence of anticompetitive behavior. Google has said it plans to appeal this decision.
In November 2024, the DOJ proposed a range of remedies for Google’s search monopoly, including one particularly industry-altering option: forcing the company to divest from Chrome. Like the proposal to force Google to sell off AdX and DFP, this would trigger major changes within the search advertising space. The remedies trial ended on May 30th, and Judge Mehta has said that he plans to rule by August of this year.
“The remedies in the Google antitrust cases could drive major shifts across the advertising industry, especially if they lead to divestitures of key Google products,” says Robert Kurtz, Business Outcomes Partner at Basis. “Advertisers should take this moment to diversify their media strategies, ensuring they’re prepared for potential fragmentation and a more competitive landscape.”
Meta is also facing regulatory scrutiny. In 2020, the FTC and a coalition of attorneys general filed two separate but collaborative antitrust lawsuits against Meta, both alleging that the company holds a monopoly in the US personal social networking market.
The trial between the FTC and Meta began in April and concluded in May. The FTC’s main argument was that Meta sought to monopolize the market through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. It’s unclear when Judge James Boasberg will rule on the case, but it could happen before the end of the year.
If the court sides with the FTC, Meta could be forced to divest from one or both platforms—a decision that would have far-reaching implications for advertisers. Fragmentation in the social media space would likely increase, potentially opening up new opportunities for both platforms and advertisers. As with Google’s antitrust cases, marketers should keep a close eye on the outcome and be ready to adapt their media strategies accordingly.
In 2024, Apple was hit with a lawsuit from the DOJ and 16 state and district attorneys general, alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in the smartphone market. In August 2024, Apple filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which Judge Julien X. Neals has yet to grant or deny. While this case doesn’t directly involve advertising, any forced changes to Apple’s ecosystem could impact data access, app behavior, and user tracking—all of which have major downstream effects for marketers.
Amazon, too, is under the microscope. In 2023, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the retail giant, accusing it of holding monopoly power in two key areas: the online retail market for consumers and the marketplace services market used by third-party sellers.
While the FTC asked for a delay in the trial in early 2025, citing “extremely severe resource shortfalls in terms of both money and personnel,” it has since withdrawn that request and the trial is set to begin in September.
The FTC has also filed a lawsuit against Amazon for using dark patterns to encourage users to enroll in auto-renewing Prime subscriptions and to discourage them from canceling those subscriptions.
Marketers should closely monitor these legal challenges, as outcomes could reshape e-commerce competition and consumer experiences—impacting how brands engage with shoppers both through Amazon and across the broader retail landscape.
It’s clear that regulators are pushing back on how much control Big Tech is allowed to have over the digital ecosystem—and while these cases will likely take a while to play out, it’s critical for advertisers to prepare for all possible outcomes. “If any of these platforms are forced to change how they operate, or even break up parts of their business, that could shake things up in a big way,” says Kurtz.
Kurtz recommends that advertisers stay nimble, diversify their media strategies, and scenario plan for how access to data, inventory, and targeting capabilities might evolve if these antitrust suits introduce more fragmentation and competition into the industry.
“More competition and transparency could ultimately benefit advertisers—unlocking new audiences, lowering CPMs, and offering clients a clearer view into what works best for their target audience,” says Kurtz. “But those benefits will only be realized if we’re prepared for them.”
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