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Cannabis advertisers have long had to navigate a maze of industry-specific federal, state, local, and platform-specific digital advertising regulations. On top of all that, they’ve had to adapt to signal loss across the digital advertising ecosystem, driven by factors like privacy-focused digital advertising regulations, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency on iPhone, and consumers’ data privacy demands.
This year, it’s likely they’ll have to grapple with yet another complication: While Google no longer aims to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome, their plans to give consumers an “informed choice” over cookie-based tracking will present the same challenges for advertisers. It’s a tough gummy to chew, but by understanding and investing in the cookieless solutions best suited to cannabis brands—and doing so as soon as possible—cannabis advertisers can gain a competitive edge in the privacy-first world.
To better explore these solutions, as well as the most important privacy and identity considerations for cannabis advertising, we spoke with cannabis marketing expert Jane Frye, VP of Integrated Client Solutions at Basis Technologies. Read on for her top insights on how cannabis advertisers can adapt to signal loss.
Jane Frye: The good news for cannabis advertisers is they’re already used to navigating limitations, so they’ll have an advantage over many of their counterparts from other industries. Advertising cannabis in the digital space is very challenging—first you have to understand the matrix of regulations, and then you have to get creative in order to really get your brand out there in a way that resonates with audiences. As a result, cannabis advertisers already have a wealth of transferable skills and knowledge that will help them to navigate the cookieless and privacy-first world.
Beyond leaning into those skills, cannabis advertisers will want to take the lead with clients in terms of educating them about privacy-first marketing. At the same time, it’s important to set realistic expectations for campaign success, as the performance benchmarks clients are used to will change as third-party cookies go away. So, it will be critical to communicate early and often about the implications of cookie loss and what’s possible in this new era of digital advertising.
For cannabis brands, my biggest piece of advice is to select the right partners. The most successful brands will be those who have carefully selected partners who are digitally savvy, experts in the cannabis space, and have a thorough understanding of the privacy landscape and cookieless solutions.
JF: The three that should really serve as cannabis advertisers’ bread and butter are first-party data, contextual advertising, and purchase or point of sale (POS) data.
First-party data is a no-brainer: It comes straight from people who have already spent with you or who have demonstrated some interest in spending, and it’s privacy-friendly to boot, so investing in the collection, organization, and maximization of that first-party data should be a priority for cannabis advertisers. Investing in something like a customer data platform (CDP), which can help not only with targeting but also with measurement, might make sense for your team if you really want to prioritize this.
Contextual targeting is also key. Cannabis advertisers are already quite familiar with this tactic, as it’s a regulation-compliant form of advertising in many areas, and there are some prominent, high-traffic cannabis sites such as High Times, Leafly, Weed Maps and Jane that offer fantastic opportunities to connect with customers who want to learn about or purchase cannabis.
Finally, POS data can be used in the same way brands have historically used third-party data for targeting and attribution. If you’re not familiar with POS data, this is data gathered at dispensaries at the point of sale itself, such as when a customer enters their email during check out. It’s elective, so it’s privacy-friendly, and you can work with partners who anonymize that data and match it to a household ID. Using that household ID, you can then more accurately target people in different audiences—for example, people who spend over $300 per month on cannabis, people who buy edibles, or people who buy smoking devices. And once advertisers have that POS and household ID data at their disposal, they can also use it for measurement and attribution in the same way they are used to using third-party data.
One other example that I wouldn’t categorize as a “bread-and-butter” solution, but definitely something worth experimenting with, is geotargeting at big events where folks will likely be consuming cannabis. For instance, you could geotarget cities that people fly into when they’re headed to events like Coachella or Burning Man. Even things like yoga retreats or certain conferences could be ripe for location-based targeting.
JF: There are a ton of startups in the cannabis space, so let’s begin with one of those as the first example. As I mentioned earlier, first-party data, contextual, and POS data should all play into your strategy. For startups, however, contextual is a particularly attractive solution, because there are a lot of very affordable and impactful placements you can buy. Advertisers should align their brands with large, high-traffic publications: They’re the first ones that come up when you search “cannabis” online, and they offer placements in email, display, and homepage takeovers. This is particularly great for startups, because it’s important for these brands to place themselves at the beginning of the consumer journey when people are trying to educate themselves.
Next, let’s dig into an example for brands who are more established in the cannabis space. Again, first-party data, contextual, and POS data will be your foundation. However, for brands who have a bit more money to spend, you could experiment with contextual placements that cost a bit more, like host-read podcast ads. Podcasts are a really impactful advertising opportunity, especially host-read ads, because podcast listeners are very engaged and tend to trust their hosts. Because of this, consumers are often more likely to consider brands they hear about via a podcast.
There you have it: By investing in first-party data, contextual targeting, and POS data, cannabis advertisers can set up systems that will pave the way to success in the privacy-first world, while honoring consumers’ privacy demands.
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Mounting signal loss isn’t the only trend set to shape digital advertising in 2025: The shifting landscape of online search, the maturation of CTV advertising, evolving sentiments around AI, and the rise of commerce media will also change how brands engage with consumers, allocate budgets, and measure success. Check out Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report to learn more.
In recent years, digital advertisers have grappled with widespread signal loss as a result of factors like Apple’s App Transparency, new digital advertising regulations, and increased privacy demands from consumers. These issues will only heighten in 2025, especially once Google moves forward with its “opt-in” approach to third-party cookies in Chrome. While the tech giant no longer plans to fully deprecate cookies, their new plan will have effectively the same consequences for advertisers. For B2B companies already navigating the complexities of transitioning from traditional to digital advertising channels, this escalating signal loss presents even greater hurdles.
To help B2B teams amidst this transition, we turned to Natalie Lowe, Basis Technologies’ VP of Integrated Client Solutions, for her top recommendations on how B2B advertisers can navigate signal loss and continue to connect with the right businesses, on the right channels, with the right message.
Natalie Lowe: For B2B advertisers, it can feel like everything is changing at a whirlwind pace. There’s already been a huge shift from traditional to digital channels in recent years, and as investment in digital has grown, so too has reliance on third-party cookies and their attribution capabilities. So, within the B2B space, there’s been a lot of uneasiness and unrest as we’ve encountered signal loss and moved towards the cookieless future.
That said, we’re starting to see a shift now, and B2B marketers and brands have begun to reframe and rethink their advertising strategies in the context of this larger signal loss. Teams are realizing that there’s an opportunity to lean more deeply into connections with target audiences, and to focus on quality of leads over quantity of leads (which is, admittedly, a hard shift to make). B2B teams often already have a relatively narrow audience they’re trying to connect with, since B2B software and service offerings are quite specific. Within the context of Google’s plans for cookie-based tracking in Chrome and the larger signal loss taking place throughout the advertising industry, it’s going to become even more critical to lean into first-party data, ensure that data is collected and organized in a clean way, and then segment that data to create personalized advertising experiences for the most qualified leads.
NL: When it comes to targeting, contextual relevance will be key. Getting ads placed alongside other content that B2B brands know their key audiences are consuming will be crucial for ensuring their message is reaching the right people when they are in the right mindset. Additionally, leveraging first-party data to get customized messages in front of the right audience is going to be critical. Finally, B2B marketers can lean on using others’ first-party data (aka, second-party data)—for instance, by tapping into social media sites or premium publishers that have proprietary targeting capabilities based on user-entered information. As the industry moves towards a privacy-first advertising model, B2B marketing teams are going to need to strike a balance between using second-party data and building up their own first-party data.
Attribution, on the other hand, is a whole different ballgame. If B2B marketers don’t already have lead generation on their website, now’s the time to set that up so they can collect that info. Beyond that, there’s going to have to be both a shift in mindset and an acceptance that attribution isn’t going to be as precise as it once was. Third-party lift analyses can help measure things like brand awareness, and for companies that have loads of data, media mix modeling can be useful. But, ultimately, B2B brands and marketing teams will need to recognize that attribution is going to look different and adjust KPIs to this new cookieless landscape.
NL: Sure! Let’s take, for example, a SMB (small or midsize business). If they’re starting a campaign focused on awareness, they might decide to tap into LinkedIn to make the most of the growing trend of using social media to capture the attention of audiences in a personalized way. On LinkedIn, they can use the platform’s proprietary data to do job title/description targeting. They can also take advantage of the brand lift studies that LinkedIn offers to measure the impact of their ads.
Or perhaps there’s a software company focusing on collecting first-party data. They could consider a content-based strategy where they publish a whitepaper on a relevant topic, use contextual targeting to market that whitepaper in relevant places, and then require a form-fill to download the content, meaning each person that downloads it is another de-anonymized lead for future marketing efforts.
Navigating signal loss poses challenges for all marketers and is likely to prove especially tricky for advertisers in the B2B space. However, by homing in on first-party data collection, leveraging cookieless targeting approaches like contextual, and resetting expectations around attribution, B2B companies can effectively navigate the challenges presented by signal loss and succeed in this new era of advertising.
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Mounting signal loss isn’t the only trend set to shape digital advertising in 2025: The shifting landscape of online search, the maturation of CTV advertising, evolving sentiments around AI, and the rise of commerce media will also change how brands engage with consumers, allocate budgets, and measure success. Check out Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report to learn more.
After not one, but two delays, Google pivoted yet again in 2024 when it announced it would no longer deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. But Google’s new plans, which involve providing Chrome users with an “informed choice” experience around cookie-based tracking, don’t actually change much for advertisers: Cookie loss will remain the effective result.
This, along with the signal loss advertisers have grappled with in recent years—thanks to factors including Apple’s App Transparency, increased consumer demand for data privacy, and the continuing wave of privacy-related regulation—make the situation an urgent one. Automotive advertisers, in particular, will need to act quickly: Having invested heavily in digital advertising for over a decade, they are especially reliant on the targeting and attribution capabilities that third-party cookies have historically provided.
To learn how automotive marketers should approach this shift and what strategies they should invest in to set themselves up for success in a privacy-first world, we spoke with Jim Zabel, Basis Technologies’ VP of Agency Development – Auto, and a 25-year auto marketing industry veteran. Read on for his insights on how auto advertisers can adapt to a privacy-first model.
Jim Zabel: The auto industry is in a particularly interesting position because of the degree to which they’ve invested in digital marketing over the past 15 years. Even small and mid-sized auto businesses were early adopters. As we move towards a privacy-first advertising model, the biggest question for brands and dealers is this: Can you accept the fact that cookie loss will lower the performance benchmarks you’re used to seeing? I think this is going to be a big challenge to overcome. Companies will need to redefine success, and that’s going to require a significant mindset shift.
To use a non-cookie-related example, sometimes we’ll see clients want to stop a display or video campaign because they’re not seeing the same metrics as search. But performance for those channels isn’t comparable: Search is a lower-funnel tactic where you can see the conversions roll in, and the higher-funnel brand awareness achieved via display or video isn’t trackable in the same way. But that doesn’t mean those tactics aren’t revenue-driving and critical to a well-rounded campaign.
Similarly, without third-party cookies, brands and dealers won’t have access to the same depth of performance metrics. However, that doesn’t mean that their tactics and strategies aren’t driving revenue. For agencies working with dealers and brands, educating clients early and often on this point will be especially important.
A lot of auto brands and dealers are likely to want to stick with the status quo and prioritize short-term success and the maintenance of previous benchmarks, even if that means embracing cookie-like solutions that don’t fully honor the spirit of what consumers are asking for. But the brands and dealers who embrace the shift towards privacy-first advertising, and find new ways to measure performance, will have the most success in the long run.
JZ: A handful of solutions come to mind here.
First, defining audience segments specific to the channels you’re advertising on is key. Advertisers need to really understand where their customers are consuming media, and media mix modelling can be helpful here to identify the highest value tactics in your campaigns. Automotive marketing teams should also up their investments in audience research and develop highly defined, channel-specific audience segments to enable their targeting. Of course, this goes along with investing in the collection, storage, and extension of first-party data—in a cookieless world, first-party data is king.
Contextual targeting will play a major role as well. Contextual allows advertisers to get very specific about who they’re serving ads to without directly relying upon third-party user data, thus respecting consumer privacy. Investing in partnerships with publishers who provide specific content and have a deep understanding of their consumers will be incredibly valuable to automotive dealers and brands.
Also, walled gardens have a big advantage because of all the first-party data they have access to. As we lose more and more signals, I think it’s very plausible that those walled gardens will use that advantage to oversell their value to advertisers. That’s not to say that advertisers shouldn’t take advantage of walled gardens—they’re a smart choice for enabling that targeting. Even more, the omnichannel nature of programmatic can help extend those investments, because advertisers can use data from those walled gardens to target other channels where targeting on its own is going to be a lot harder to do. At the same time, it’s important not to overinvest in walled gardens: For most marketing teams, your own first-party data should be the priority.
Leveraging a customer data platform (CDP) to organize and leverage that first-party data can also help advertisers on the attribution side, because CDPs allow advertisers to track a user across various touchpoints, and to see how each tactic contributes to the eventual conversion. Advertisers should also reprioritize brand lift studies and cookieless conversion attribution tools to assist on the attribution side.
JZ: Let’s start with dealerships as the first example. Dealerships are sitting on treasure troves of first-party data, and there’s a massive opportunity to harness that data for their own marketing. To do so, dealerships need to make sure they have data hygiene protocols in place to make sure their first-party data is valid and deduped. At the same time, as data modeling becomes more accessible, there’s a real potential for dealerships to coordinate targeting and digital media tactics with brands, and vice versa. Many dealer groups are adopting CDPs to increase their ability to organize their first-party data into relevant segments and use it for audience modeling as well. I’ve seen a lot more appetite to get those sophisticated capabilities in-house, and I think that’s a smart choice for dealers of any size.
Next, let’s explore the brand side of things. Overall, brands need to rethink their data strategies, both in terms of collecting and maximizing their own first-party data, and in terms of coordinating with dealers to make the most of the wealth of data they can offer. Getting proactive about gathering that data from dealerships and setting up systems that ensure that data is being shared in privacy-compliant ways is my biggest recommendation for advertisers working with brands.
As the digital advertising industry shifts to a privacy-first paradigm, automotive marketers are at a pivotal crossroads—pun very much intended. Brands and dealers can either cling to the old status quo, or they can overcome signal loss by prioritizing consumers’ demands and embracing data privacy, as well as the new benchmarks for success that come with it. Those who play the long game—identifying new ways to measure success and investing in audience research, first-party data, contextual targeting, privacy-compliant programmatic, and cookieless attribution tools—will have a competitive edge going into the privacy-first future.
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Mounting signal loss isn’t the only trend set to shape digital advertising in 2025: The shifting landscape of online search, the maturation of CTV advertising, evolving sentiments around AI, and the rise of commerce media will also change how brands engage with consumers, allocate budgets, and measure success. Check out Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report to learn more.
As we step into 2025, the marketing landscape continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, presenting both challenges and opportunities for brands. From the shifting sands of technology and regulation to the ever-growing need for transparency and data-driven decision-making, staying ahead in this dynamic environment requires proactive adaptation, and the most successful brands will be those whose strategies are grounded in flexibility, foresight, and collaboration.
Here, we explore three trends that are set to shape digital marketing in 2025, examining their implications while providing actionable predictions to help brands thrive in an unpredictable future.
In 2025, marketers will be operating on markedly uneven ground.
Google’s “opt-in” cookie pivot in Chrome will expedite already-increasing signal loss…but the tech company’s recent decision to allow advertisers’ use of IP addresses for targeting (aka fingerprinting) shows a “one step forward, one step back” approach to user privacy that leaves marketers—and consumers—guessing. Meanwhile, the broader regulatory map differs from platform to platform, browser to browser, and country to country (not to mention from state to state), leading to further fragmentation across marketing activities. And with AI-powered search growing in prominence, how can marketers adjust—and capitalize?
TikTok in the US is still a thing…for now, its fate now in the hands of nine robed Americans. What will happen to those ad dollars if the app is banned? And will those users migrate to Snapchat, Reels, or YouTube? Speaking of social, is X really dead? Is the Bluesky buzz for real? Where does Threads fit into all of this? And how are advertisers supposed to balance their social spend across all those channels (and effectively measure the results)?
CTV is officially a beast, with streaming viewership soaring past linear to become Americans’ favorite way to watch video. With increasing viewership and new advertising opportunities on CTV, should brands finally shift the bulk of their video budgets over to streaming? And how can they measure that performance in the context of a larger campaign?
Then there’s retail media, which is out to prove that everything is, in fact, an ad network. But which of those networks are worth the money, and how can brands harness their own data to better leverage the network's?
It all adds up to fragmented, unpredictable marketing sphere, and in this kind of environment, agility will win the day. Brands and their agency partners need the ability to quickly and seamlessly direct (and redirect) ad dollars and assets from one channel or platform to another, seizing on what’s working and better identifying what isn’t.
PREDICTION: With growing fragmentation and an uncertain future, marketers will look for ways to turn the noise into harmony. Expect a run on technology that unifies point solutions and gives marketers a clear view of their media performance, allowing them to better identify winning trends, develop successful strategies, and foster more efficient and effective collaboration with their partners.
With apologies to Desiderius Erasmus, for marketers, “In the world of the cookieless, the brand with the first-party data is king.”
First-party data allows brands to better target, retarget, measure, and attribute results across just about every channel. It empowers advertisers to craft campaigns that are more relevant to high-value audiences, identify and reach new audience segments, and derive stronger insights from their reporting. And, of course, it opens up new opportunities to better leverage resources like data clean rooms to engage in privacy-friendly marketing that drives higher ROI, curbs wasted spend, and boosts conversions.
But it also gives brands something that has become increasingly hard to find in today’s fractured and fickle marketing world: control. Owning your data means owning your relationship with customers and prospective customers, providing insights into target audiences, buying patterns, sales tactics, conversion attribution, and an array of other benefits. However, to fully harness that data requires technology like customer relationship management systems (CRMs) and customer data platforms (CDPs), as well as advertising automation platforms that unify campaign planning, performance and reporting to get a holistic picture of all campaign data across all channels.
PREDICTION: Brands will no longer cede control of their campaign data to their agencies. Instead, they’ll seek out partners that provide a more collaborative and brand-focused approach to data ownership, while adopting technology that brings more of the benefits of that data in-house.
For many marketers, transparency has been a digital advertising white whale, one they’ve been hunting for the better part of a decade and that, despite best efforts, has only seemed to grow worse in recent years. Programmatic’s promise of precision across both targeting and measurement came with ambiguity around ad fraud, brand safety, and performance. Hidden fees, opaque fee structures, inconsistent pricing, and a lack of supply path optimization (SPO) have converged to create a general sense of suspicion and mistrust, which in turn can breed resentment of agency partners, walled gardens, monopolistic tech giants, and the system itself.
Compounding this is the steady emergence (and grudging acceptance) of a new class of AI-powered tools such as Google’s PMax and Meta’s Advantage+, which purport to offer increased ROAS as long as you agree to give up control over exactly where your ad dollars are going and, of course, stop asking all those pesky questions about transparency.
But the situation has reached a tipping point, and with the increasing importance of data and steady fragmentation of the advertising ecosystem, marketers are growing tired of the endless black boxes.
PREDICTION: When it comes to transparency, brands will start to ask of more from their partners—and, unlike previous efforts, they’ll make some progress in doing so. New platforms make it easier to track every aspect of the campaign process, and with agencies eager to showcase their differentiated power of their technology (and to win trust from their clients), brands will gain new levels of clarity and insight across their digital campaigns in 2025.
Enter the New Year with confidence: Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report provides actionable insights on the trends set to shape 2025, examining the latest innovations in commerce media, CTV, AI and search. Explore key ways advertisers can bridge the disconnect between expectations and reality, while maximizing the potential of new innovations to drive impact with their campaigns in the year ahead.
In the ever-evolving world of digital advertising, programmatic has proven to be a reliable mainstay—and a dynamic space for innovation.
Despite overall ad spending forecasts suggesting slower growth ahead, programmatic advertising remains a bright spot, with global spend reaching $595 billion in 2024 and projected to approach $779 billion in 2028. In the US, it has accounted for more than 90% of digital display ad dollars since 2023 and is forecast to see double-digit growth through 2026.
Expanding opportunities in retail media, contextual targeting, AI, social search, and beyond are creating new programmatic possibilities, offering the potential for more precise targeting, greater efficiency, and deeper connections with consumers. Yet, challenges persist. Signal loss continues to be a pressing concern, despite Google reversing its plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome and instead allowing users to “make an informed choice” when browsing. And low quality AI-generated and made-for-advertising (MFA) content has further complicated advertisers’ efforts to ensure effective and meaningful ad placements in suitable environments.
As the industry navigates both the challenges and opportunities at hand, staying informed on the latest programmatic trends will be critical for maximizing the potential of these advancements. The ability to integrate new innovations into existing strategies, while also balancing this innovation with practicality, will define success in 2025.
What a difference a year makes. Headed into 2024, advertisers were bracing themselves for an imminent spike in signal loss, with Google planning to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome by year’s end. Coupled with the previous loss of Firefox and Safari data and increasing privacy-minded regulations, most teams were preparing for the shift by exploring alternative targeting and measurement solutions.
Then, of course, Google walked back its formal cookie deprecation plans, pivoting instead to a user “opt-in” approach that’s set to take place sometime in 2025. And while it’s no longer the “D-Day” many in the marketing world had feared, signal loss will only continue to increase in the months and years ahead.
To continue to adapt to a (mostly) cookieless world in 2025, advertisers must focus on strengthening their first-party data strategies, ensuring data is collected and organized in a clean and accurate way. This is an especially pressing need, given that marketers cited data quality and accuracy as the leading challenge to meaningfully leveraging data in the years ahead. Maintaining large, clean pools of first-party data will allow teams to personalize and target ads based on individual users, use look-a-like modeling to tap into new audiences, effectively retarget ads, and leverage data clean rooms to enrich and extend their data, thus optimizing their programmatic campaigns and driving performance in a privacy-first environment.
Beyond prioritizing first-party data strategies, teams can implement other privacy-friendly targeting and attribution tactics within their programmatic campaigns, including contextual targeting and geotargeting, alternative identifiers like RampID and UID 2.0, additional use of premium and curated inventory, and media mix modeling for measurement. Given that less than 20% of consumers say they always accept when given the opportunity to opt into cookies, adapting to signal loss now—rather than clinging to cookies until the bitter end—will position advertisers for success in the year ahead.
Contextual targeting is experiencing a renaissance and renewed interest, propelled by both signal loss and new AI-driven opportunities.
As signals from third-party cookies continue to decline, using context to connect with consumers in relevant ways will grow increasingly important. Research shows that 72% of consumers feel the content surrounding an ad can influence their perception of it, and 60% report they are likely to remember a contextually relevant ad. As the programmatic space evolves, leveraging the power of contextual is becoming increasingly essential for effective audience engagement.
Additionally, advancements in AI are taking contextual targeting to new heights. Large language models (LLMs) enable advertisers to parse vast amounts of data and make placements with even greater precision than they could have in the past. For instance, in the digital audio space, these models can now be used analyze large datasets (such as podcast transcripts) to deliver highly relevant ads. This ability to drill down to such a precise level of content opens up new opportunities for more personalized, impactful ads.
To make the most of contextual advertising in 2025, advertisers need to focus on deeply understanding their audiences to ensure they are advertising in the most precise and relevant contexts. Though contextual targeting doesn’t rely upon personal data, first-party data can be used to enhance it: Some platforms allow teams to leverage this data to identify patterns in how and where audiences consume content and to then use those insights to inform contextual targeting parameters. Additionally, teams can embrace AI-powered advancements to improve their contextual strategies, utilizing newer tools that allow for more granular and dynamic ad placements.
While forecasts call for robust growth in the programmatic space, much of that growth is being powered by direct and private paths to publishers, rather than spending on the open exchange. In the year ahead, more than 91% of total US programmatic display ad spending will go towards private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic direct. And though spending on the open exchange will only increase by approximately 3% in 2025, PMP spending is expected to grow by nearly 13%.
This shift reflects a growing focus on inventory quality and curation, with advertisers turning to PMPs and direct buys to ensure greater transparency and precision over their media buys. These more controlled environments offer access to premium placements and the ability to bolster their own data with publishers’ proprietary data, thus enabling more precise targeting in a privacy-conscious era. They also help mitigate the risks of wasting ad spend on low-quality sites, which has become a growing concern. With MFA impression volume increasing by 19% YoY in 2024, there is a pressing need to ensure ad spend is going to high-quality inventory. By prioritizing PMPs and direct buys, advertisers can safeguard their budgets, reach key audiences, enhance campaign effectiveness, and deliver meaningful engagement in 2025 and beyond.
In 2025, programmatic non-video ad spending is projected to reach $65.21 billion in the US. Programmatic video ad spending, on the other hand, will surpass $110 billion, accounting for nearly 75% of new programmatic ad dollars from 2024 through 2026. Though this surge in video spending is not necessarily a new trend, recent AI-driven tools and enhancements present new opportunities in the space.
Advancements in dynamic content creation and enhanced contextual targeting capabilities, in particular, hold significant potential. Though contextual targeting has long been a key tactic within video advertising (think: running home improvement store ads within HGTV programming), LLMs are making it even more impactful. Since these models can process huge amounts of information and data rapidly, they can be used to analyze and categorize video content more precisely—down to the individual scenes in TV shows. Generative AI is also powering dynamic content creation in the video space, allowing teams to personalize ads to individual viewers without having to create variations manually. For example, a travel commercial could be dynamically adjusted to feature destinations that are family-friendly or adults-only based on a viewer’s preferences and viewing habits, or a car commercial could be altered to match the tone of the content a viewer is watching—lighter for a comedy, or more serious for a drama. By embracing these AI-driven tools, teams can ensure their video ads are personalized, impactful, and effective.
The search landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the rise of social search and AI-powered chatbots. In fact, by 2026, traditional search engine volume is predicted to drop by 25% as tools like AI chatbots and other virtual assistants become more mainstream. This shift will undoubtedly impact programmatic search and available inventory, and marketers will need to adapt to new, evolving platforms to maximize their search spend.
Social search is rapidly growing, especially among Gen Z and millennials. These younger audiences are increasingly turning to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to explore products, services, brands, and ideas, rather than traditional search engines. This shift marks a significant change from older generations, who still overwhelmingly rely on search engines as their primary discovery tool.
As such, advertisers will need to rethink how they allocate their programmatic budgets and, specifically, how they balance traditional search with social platforms’ native search functionalities. This shift will require advertisers to refine their targeting strategies, tapping into new opportunities for engagement and discovery while ensuring they’re meeting those consumers where they are spending time and seeking out new information.
Meanwhile, AI-powered chatbots and search engines are reshaping how people find information. Google’s AI overviews now often place AI-generated answers first when users search the web, and OpenAI recently rolled out a search feature that is embedded within its existing GPT framework. With 61% of Gen Z and 53% of millennials saying they are using AI tools in place of search engines, marketers face new challenges in reaching audiences.
As AI tools become a more widespread (and, perhaps, preferred) search method, it’s likely that monetization opportunities will decrease for traditional search inventory. For programmatic search, this could mean a shift in how and where ads are placed, as new search experiences like conversational search evolve. While these shifts have yet to provide meaningful opportunities for programmatic buys within AI search tools, advertisers will need to stay agile and explore alternative inventory within AI-driven environments as they become available. This could include experimenting with branded content, sponsored responses, and other AI-powered advertising solutions that align with the conversational nature of these platforms.
In 2024, programmatic retail media display ad spending grew by 41.7%, and it’s projected to leap another 29.3% in 2025. By 2026, RMN spending is forecast to exceed $30 billion, representing nearly 16% of all programmatic display. This surge is driven in large part by the wealth of consumer data that retailers hold, as well as new partnerships that make this data more actionable for advertisers. Major retailers are increasingly partnering with adtech platforms, enabling advertisers to leverage robust customer data to create highly personalized and effective programmatic campaigns.
Take, for instance, the partnership between LiveRamp and supermarket chain Albertsons. By leveraging LiveRamp’s robust identity framework, Albertsons can connect and analyze their first-party data to paint a fuller picture of the consumer journey across multiple touchpoints. This data is then connected to other advertising platforms through secure data clean room integrations, allowing for seamless activation and meaningful measurement. This approach allows advertisers to deliver highly targeted, personalized campaigns using rich retailer data—all while maintaining privacy standards.
This type of collaboration signals a growing trend of retailers and adtech companies working together to unlock new, privacy-conscious opportunities in the programmatic space. However, retail media isn’t without its challenges. Before diving into retail media, advertisers must first ensure their own data is clean and organized, and then carefully vet potential partnerships to ensure the media networks with which they’re partnering also have clean, reliable data and that they adhere to privacy-compliant practices. And, given that many of these media networks are walled gardens, advertisers must also navigate the complexities of data integration and ensure they can still measure campaign performance across these closed and deeply fragmented ecosystems. As these media networks expand, advertisers will need to adopt a flexible, data-driven strategy to utilize them while ensuring appropriate transparency and privacy compliance.
Artificial intelligence has always been foundational to programmatic advertising: Machine learning powers real-time bidding (RTB), enabling split-second decisions on ad placements based on available data, and other types of AI are critical to optimizing bids, targeting ads, and measuring performance. However, in 2025, it’s generative AI that’s dominating the conversation.
If 2024 was defined by advertisers’ experimentation with generative AI’s capabilities in programmatic, then 2025 will likely be defined by advertisers meaningfully investing in and implementing the technology. Though 92% of advertising agencies say they currently use the technology in some capacity, only 44% of marketers and advertisers say their employers currently pay for such tools. This disconnect between usage and investment signals an opportunity for marketing teams to close the gap and fully harness generative AI’s potential.
Whether by enhancing contextual targeting, automating manual tasks, generating ad variations for better personalization, analyzing large datasets, or assisting with media buying strategies, generative AI enables teams to unlock new levels of creativity and efficiency in programmatic. And, by freeing up marketers to focus on high-level strategy and problem solving, it can help reduce burnout (a challenge that has long plagued the industry). Of course, simply investing in these tools won’t guarantee success, especially given the risks that come along with gen AI. A strategic approach—prioritizing tools that align with organizational goals and ensuring a clear plan for implementation, training, and managing risk—will be essential for realizing their full potential in 2025 and beyond.
From tackling challenges like signal loss and low-quality inventory to embracing opportunities in video, retail media, and contextual targeting, advertisers are poised for an exciting yet complex year ahead. By embracing key programmatic trends and maintaining adaptability, marketers can optimize their programmatic ad spend and create meaningful, personalized connections with audiences—ultimately driving high engagement and results.
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Searching for deeper insights into the trends set to shape advertising in 2025? Our report, Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report, breaks down the key innovations and opportunities to watch in the year ahead.
Ah, AI.
Few innovations have sustained as much buzz in the advertising industry of late. With 82.4% of agency leaders believing that AI will be the most influential trend to shape digital advertising in the next 10 years, and more than 90% of marketers and advertisers saying they use generative AI as part of their digital marketing efforts, the technology has already reshaped advertisers’ approach to their work.
Yet, alongside its immense potential, AI brings significant challenges. From brand safety concerns, to evolving regulatory frameworks, to risks related to algorithmic bias and discrimination, marketing teams must approach AI-driven solutions with intention and care.
To help advertisers navigate this complexity and prepare for 2025, we’ve rounded up all the resources we published on artificial intelligence this year. From a report unpacking AI’s impact on marketing, to podcast episodes breaking down the AI revolution, to blog posts exploring AI’s regulation and how organizations are investing in the tech, these pieces will help advertisers stay up to date on recent developments in AI and make the most of this ever-evolving tech in the year ahead.
Since ChatGPT’s public release in 2022, conversations around generative AI have flooded the digital advertising ecosystem. But how do advertisers really feel about the technology? Is it actually driving the levels of efficiency and innovation marketing teams are hoping for? And what of the risks? For this report, we surveyed marketing and advertising professionals across top agencies, brands, and publishers to get a pulse on their AI usage, sentiments, and perceptions around its potential to shape the industry moving forward.
More than 87% of marketers believe AI will radically transform digital advertising in the next three to five years. Yet there’s tension between marketers’ desire to adopt the technology and their uncertainty around how to do so effectively. Case in point: Only 44% of marketers and advertisers say their employers pay for generative AI tools. Here, discover how marketing leaders can evaluate the benefits of paid AI solutions, understand AI’s risks, and make informed investment decisions.
AI and automation hold significant potential for advertisers. These technologies can maximize efficiency, improve workflows, reduce redundant and low-value tasks, and allow teams more time to innovate and be creative. In this episode of the AdTech Unfiltered podcast, Eric Mayhew, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Product Officer of Fluency, breaks down the benefits of automation and AI.
Amidst economic and financial challenges, many media agencies are looking to AI to drive revenue and increase profitability. In this article, we unpack how AI can help make campaign planning and optimization more efficient, as well as how it can contribute to overall workflow automation that saves time and reduces manual workloads for marketing teams.
With its ability to clone voices, write poetry, compose music, synthesize huge amounts of data, and more, generative AI offers seemingly endless opportunities. However, along with these benefits come concerns surrounding its appropriate usage and regulation. For instance, can AI-generated content be copyrighted? Should all materials created using generative AI be watermarked? And how are governing bodies approaching its regulation, particularly given the issues that have already been identified with algorithmic discrimination? In this article, we explore everything we know so far about generative AI regulation—as well as what it means for advertisers.
Though AI has long been a cornerstone of the digital advertising world, powering programmatic capabilities and allowing for machine learning-driven optimizations, generative AI tools offer new and exciting opportunities for industry professionals. Embracing such tools can help drive efficiency, grow revenue, and ensure teams remain at the cutting edge of innovation. At the same time, they come with significant risks that leaders must understand up front. Here, learn about these risks, particularly those related to brand safety, consumer perceptions of AI, and legal/regulatory considerations.
Though AI has caused quite a stir recently, it’s been foundational to digital advertising for decades. In this episode of AdTech Unfiltered, Alex Castrounis, founder and CEO of Why of AI, breaks down the recent AI revolution and shares how organizations can incorporate AI in a way that aligns with their organizational goals.
Generative AI is transforming many components of digital advertising, including the search landscape. Many users—particularly Gen Z and millennials—are turning to AI-powered chatbots over traditional search engines; search engines are incorporating AI-driven components that are changing how organic results are presented; and some AI chatbots are even rolling out internet search features within their existing interfaces, further shifting consumers away from traditional search engines. Here, dive deeper into generative AI’s potential impact on the search landscape and how advertising leaders should prepare.
As generative AI revolutionizes the search landscape, it is also transforming the world of social media advertising. From the explosion of AI-powered advertising tools in the social space, to heightened concerns around brand safety as AI-generated content grows more prevalent on social platforms, to AI-driven targeting for social advertising, learn all about both the opportunities and challenges emerging in the social space thanks to this disruptive technology.
Though many agencies, brands, publishers, and others across the digital advertising ecosystem are experimenting with AI, few have adopted it at the scale necessary to truly revolutionize their businesses. In this piece, we explore key takeaways and insights from Advertising Week New York on how leaders can leverage AI and automation to truly transform their organizations.
Much like at AWNY, AI was quite the hot topic at this year’s Possible in Miami Beach. Attendees were buzzing with discussions about their experiences leveraging AI, the technology’s benefits, and strategies to mitigate potential risks. From opportunities to drive efficiency, optimize data, drive better campaign outcomes, and provide enhanced personalization in advertising, check out some of the top insights from this year’s event.
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Interested in digging into the trends that will shape 2025? In Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report, we explore the trends and opportunities that will drive impact in the year ahead across commerce media, CTV, search, and—you guessed it!—AI.
2024 brought a variety of twists, turns, and evolutions for everyone in the advertising industry—but for agency leaders, it was a particularly bumpy ride. Agencies confronted mounting signal loss, the rise of AI (and clients’ expectations around its usage), ongoing media fragmentation, and a variety of transformative regulatory developments all against the backdrop of significant economic and financial pressures. Indeed, as one agency CEO put it, “The business of agencies right now is staying in business.”
Of course, as agency leaders know, many of these challenges can be reframed as opportunities. By understanding the conditions and forces driving these changes—where they come from, why they matter, and how to adapt—leaders can guide their organizations toward an evolved agency model, one that delivers differentiation and resilience in a competitive landscape.
To that end, we’ve put together a list of seven resources that provided agency leaders with the guidance and insights they needed to thrive in a year of constant change, highlighting lessons from 2024’s defining shifts to set the stage for a successful 2025.
For this report, Basis surveyed agency professionals across the US to identify how they feel about their work, their agencies, and the industry as a whole. The findings paint a clear picture of the biggest challenges facing agencies today, including AI, client relationships, investment priorities, emerging trends, and more. With insights segmented by leaders and non-leaders, this comprehensive resource offers a clear-eyed view and actionable takeaways from today’s agency landscape.
Five industry veterans who have collectively witnessed decades of change in the agency landscape share their insights on what industry leaders need to know about this moment, and how they can guide their organizations towards positive change. This conversation focuses on four key trends: The shifting landscape of online search, the maturation of connected TV advertising, evolving sentiments around AI, and the rise of commerce media.
Creating an evolved agency requires embracing a modern martech and adtech stack. To effectively adapt to shifts like the rise of AI, increasing signal loss, and new digital advertising regulations, agency leaders must take stock of what aspects of their tech stacks are working, what aspects aren’t, and what new technologies are needed. This article explores how leaders can approach this transition, diving into the importance of interoperability, robust training and resources, and automation in service of increasing efficiency, driving revenue, and reducing team burnout.
Of course, even the perfect tech stack can only take you so far, and the best agencies rely on a phenomenal team of advertisers to implement that tech in innovative and creative ways. In an industry with particularly high rates of employee churn—especially when it comes to junior-level employees—talent retention remains a key focus for agency leaders. And with a whopping 70% of agency professionals feeling that their jobs are more difficult now than they were two years ago, agencies should focus on reducing points of friction and finding ways to meet their teams’ evolving needs and expectations. Here, we explore the three key strategies for achieving these goals.
Close to half of agency professionals say their agency’s relationships with their clients are more strained today than they were just two years ago. In this article, Basis EVP of Client Development Michael Olson, Group VP of Client Strategy & Insights Kelly Boyle, and Client Strategy & Effectiveness Lead Lauren Johnson share strategies for fostering more trusting, fruitful, and longstanding client partnerships.
Commerce media is on the rise, social media continues to fragment, and the convergent TV landscape is transforming, bringing new layers of complexity to an already complex media environment. At the same time, clients are seeking expert guidance around which platforms to invest in, how to maximize their first-party data across disparate platforms, and more. In this episode of the AdTech Unfiltered podcast, host Noor Naseer and guest John Lods, CEO of agency Arm Candy, explore how agencies can navigate this complexity to accurately and efficiently assess emerging technologies and provide data-driven strategies that drive success for their clients.
2024 was defined by a significant amount of hype surrounding AI—particularly generative AI—and its applications for advertisers. Still, only about a quarter of businesses across industries are finding and scaling value from their AI tools. This piece explores proven applications of AI, with a focus on planning, optimization, and workflow automation, as agencies strive to unlock greater value from AI in 2025.
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Want to gain a competitive edge for your agency in 2025? Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report details four major trends that are set to shape the industry in 2025 while providing insights around how advertising leaders can navigate them successfully.
In this episode of AdTech Unfiltered, Beau Davis, seasoned mobile sales leader and co-founder of Futureproofd, shares insights into the challenges sellers face in today’s advertising ecosystem.
Davis explores strategies for overcoming these obstacles, from longer sales cycles and less face time with clients to growing skepticism from buyers. Together with host Noor Naseer, he discusses what sellers need to know before securing meetings and how to better connect with ad agencies, particularly holding companies.
2024 has been another transformative year for advertisers.
For much of the year, marketing teams braced for Google’s long-anticipated deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome…only for the search giant to change its plans for the third time. (At least the preparation wasn’t in vain, as the pivot doesn’t actually change much for marketing teams.)
Meanwhile, generative AI took the industry by storm, and advertisers began to explore how to leverage the technology to drive real impact while avoiding its notable risks.
The TV landscape continued its evolution, with streaming dominating consumers’ (and advertisers’) engagement with the Paris Olympics.
On the regulatory front, industry scrutiny reached new heights: from the TikTok ban bill; to new regulations around consumer privacy, social media, and AI; to the continuation of antitrust cases against Google and Amazon (one of which ended with a ruling labeling Google a monopolist and prompting the US Justice Department to request a forced sale of Chrome).
And we haven’t even gotten into the marketing brilliance behind Charli XCX’s Brat campaign or Nutter Butter’s bizarre yet effective social media strategy! Truly, 2024 was one for the books.
To wrap up the year and set the stage for 2025, we’ve rounded up our most-read articles from 2024. Dive in below to revisit the stories that shaped this past year—and will continue to impact the industry in the year ahead.
From new state-level consumer privacy regulations, to the introduction of a bill that would establish a comprehensive federal consumer privacy framework, to the rise in false advertising lawsuits and regulation, to discussions over how to regulate AI, the regulatory environment evolved considerably in 2024. This comprehensive article explores these developments, as well as how they impact advertising and marketing professionals.
While the oldest members of Generation Alpha are currently only 14 years old, the demographic will outnumber baby boomers by 2025 and garner a whopping $5.46 trillion in spending power by 2029. With these digital natives set to take the market by storm in just a few years, the time for marketing teams to begin understanding them is now. Here, learn how Gen Alpha is poised to transform the ways advertisers connect with their audiences, and see what marketers can do to set themselves up for success.
In April 2024, President Biden signed a bill into law that gives TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, one year to either sell the app to a US company or face a nationwide ban. Despite the lingering risks, TikTok’s transformative impact on the advertising industry endures: Ad spend on the platform has grown 41.2% year-over-year, and it’s projected to grow by another 25.9% in 2025. This piece unpacks the app’s impact on consumers and advertisers from a variety of angles, providing a comprehensive resource for marketers looking to understand both how to make the most of the platform and to navigate the uncertainty surrounding its future.
Gartner has predicted that, by 2026, traditional search engine volume will drop by a quarter due to of the rise of AI-powered chatbots and other virtual agents. While AI is set to transform the search engine marketing landscape, uncertainty remains around just what that will look like and how advertisers can prepare. Here, paid search expert Robert Kurtz, Group VP of Search Media Solutions at Basis, explores what the future may hold and how marketing teams can set themselves up for success.
As generative AI’s use and influence continue to grow, regulators are scrambling to establish frameworks for safeguarding the public from its associated risks. This article examines the current regulatory landscape in the US and abroad and provides guidance for advertisers looking to leverage AI in ethical and compliant ways.
Advertising agencies have been through the ringer in recent years, struggling with economic and financial pressures. These challenges have been compounded by major industry paradigm shifts, like the intensification of signal loss and the rise of AI. To make sense of these evolutions and provide guidance for agency leaders looking to position their organizations to excel in the years to come, we brought together five industry veterans to share their insights and advice.
From automating content creation to optimizing ad targeting, AI is influencing how advertisers approach the fragmented social media landscape. This piece explores how to harness the technology to deliver more personalized and effective campaigns, as well as how to safeguard against the risks associated with some of these AI-driven tools.
As advertisers continue to grapple with signal loss and brace for Chrome’s forthcoming cookie-related changes, they must set up new systems and strategies for approaching campaign measurement and attribution. This article delves into how marketers must reimagine their approach to measurement and evaluates alternative strategies and tools that are better suited to a privacy-first digital environment.
Concerns about social media’s impact on online privacy and mental health have intensified in recent years, particularly when it comes to children and teens. In response, regulators have proposed a variety of new efforts aimed at mitigating these harms. This piece explores the potential implications for advertisers, as well as recommendations for how to approach paid social while staying both compliant and informed.
TV viewing has transformed dramatically over the past decade, evolving from a straightforward experience into a deeply fragmented one. Viewers now navigate a maze of devices, platforms, and content, adding significant complexity to advertisers' work. Here, we explore the rise of convergent TV, illuminating how advertisers can effectively navigate this disjointed and quickly evolving space.
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Looking for insights into the major trends that will impact the advertising landscape in 2025, and how advertisers can use those trends to their advantage? Reality Check: The 2025 Advertising Trends Report covers everything advertisers need to know about the latest in commerce media, CTV, AI, and search.