The Digital Ad Playbook is Broken – Here’s What Comes Next

WPP slashing its 2025 projections should surprise no one. The advertising industry is hurting – because the digital playbook is breaking.

Yes, brands are spending less, and a retraction is underway. While it’s easy to blame tariffs, inflation, and macroeconomic uncertainty, this merely scratches the surface of what’s going on. Behind the scenes, here’s what I see happening – from the literal to the more nuanced changes to the landscape – and why it matters for every brand trying to grow today.

The Biggest Challenges Facing Advertisers in 2025

💸 Ad costs are out of control

This comes as no surprise, but digital advertising costs have become astronomical. Google’s CPCs are north of $5. Facebook CPMs? Up nearly 20% YoY. Is it competition? Inflation? AI bloat? Greed? All of the above? Whatever is causing it, it’s unsustainable.

📲 The Short-Form Spiral

Social behavior has transformed. Short-form video dominates — but users seem hypnotized, mindlessly scrolling instead of primed to click. When you’re on your twentieth 7-second video, are you in the mindset to snap back to reality and make a buying decision? If you’re like me, you’re not. And for brands, these assets are challenging and expensive to create. What brands save in traditional production costs are offset by resource and contracting costs: it takes time and talent to make a good video that people will want to watch.

🤳 Big “Buy This” Energy

Everyone seems to be selling something, crowding feeds with pushy “you need this now” content. We’re simply drained from being told to buy things every day on every channel. Social used to be a place to connect, unwind, and be entertained. I remember when ads would take up 10-20% of the platform, and the rest was just real content: pictures from friends and family and brands you cared about. Now, fewer and fewer posts are from someone you actually follow, and it’s even rarer to see a post that isn’t selling something. Not just ads, but influencers and creators sharing their favorite products, “DM me for the protocol” on weight loss, investing – you name it. Users are growing tired.

🌟 Celebrity Brands are the New Category Killers

Celeb-owned brands are everywhere — and they’re stealing market share. Actresses selling baby food, actors selling condiments, singers selling makeup…there’s an endless, growing list of celeb brands in every category. Celebrities used to be the spokesperson. Now they are the brand, well-funded and with pre-baked clout. They are dethroning big brands and making it nearly impossible for small brands to compete.

🤖 Platforms Structurally Favor Scale

Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ prioritize automated bidding and audience targeting. This works best for brands with large budgets and mature first-party data systems. Smaller players are priced out of AI-driven auctions because they can’t just target broadly, max out budgets, give it time, and hope for the best. And now, “creative volume” is all the buzz: Put 20-50 ads in an ad set for best results, “they” say. These algorithms are hungry for money and assets, and a lot of brands simply can’t keep up.

How Advertisers Can Succeed in 2025

The situation is dire. But is it hopeless? Not when you’ve got a game plan. Here’s how we’re helping our clients actually grow in this environment:

✅ Stop over-relying on Meta and Google.

To put it simply: they are not your media strategy. They are two tactics that cannot (and should not) do the whole job.

✅ Diversify your media mix.

When they zig, you zag. Identify granular niche audiences, and then move budget into underutilized platforms where they are highly active. Think outside of the paid social box, and drive brand discovery through programmatic display, native, and CTV with platforms like Zeta and The Trade Desk.

✅ Pressure-test your funnel.

Audit every tactic. Kill what’s underperforming. Invest in what’s working, even if attribution is murky by learning to understand and interpret directionality. The changes you make today may not be felt tomorrow; savvy data analysis and cross-channel insights need to be your guiding light. Directional insight > pixel perfection.

✅ Unify brand + performance

No more either/or. Great brands don’t just sell — they educate, entertain, and create demand before asking for a sale. Invest in a brand and content strategy that educates, inspires, and plays the long game. Lower-intent objectives, like reading content or subscribing for text or email, can be cheaper and more impactful over time.

✅ Go long on lifecycle.

Stop optimizing for just the first purchase. When you’re getting a customer, commit to getting them for life. Segment, automate, and retain. For e-com brands, that can mean directing users from specific tactics into specific CRM segments and measuring their value over time. Optimize based on that, not your in-platform ROAS. For B2B brands, keep open lines of communication with your boots-on-the-ground sales teams to see what’s happening down-funnel and optimize for quality, not quantity. Each brand needs its own approach, but focusing on the whole customer lifecycle and not just their first purchase will pay dividends over time.

Our bottom line? We’re not giving up, and neither should you.

Our industry is defined by change: it’s in our DNA. The old playbook is broken, but a better one is being written. Does your brand have one? We’re here to help you write it.

The Future of Paid Social in the Age of AI

The latest Meta news from The Verge is weighing heavy on our minds today. Zuckerberg sat down with Stratechery and laid out his new vision for the advertising future, and it’s troubling. Coming from someone who is usually a supporter of all things social, that’s saying something.

It seems that Meta’s goal isn’t just to continue to find ways to enhance ads with AI—it’s to completely automate the entire advertising ecosystem. He says businesses will be able simply “connect to your bank account” and “read the results we spit out.” No creative input. No targeting demographics. No independent measurement.

Ever since Meta incorporated their Advantage Shopping campaigns, and Google implemented Performance Max, we have worked tirelessly (and successfully, I might add) to leverage machine learning with a decidedly human approach, customizing and testing every available element. I tell brands we work with the same thing: if every brand surrenders their marketing to the same machine learning, who truly benefits? We use this graphic in our decks for a lighthearted visualization: When you leave too much to the algorithm, only Zuckerberg wins.

But this takes it much further. When Meta creates a completely closed ad ecosystem, how will distinctive brand voices emerge? How will brands ensure their own protection and brand safety? When creative expression becomes fully automated, what happens to the human element that drives authentic connections? The connections that make social media what it is?

It feels like Meta is going from a company who used to want our trust, to then accepting that they can’t have it and being okay with that because people will use their platforms anyway, to now a devil-may-care, winner-take-all mentality. Scorched earth. Meta above all.

I have seen firsthand when Meta’s algorithm goes wrong. Misallocated spend. Inaccurate targeting. Creative delivery mistakes. Upended performance for no reason. And eventually, we are just supposed to go hands off and trust that it will all work out?

Meta is currently involved in a court case to potentially break up Facebook and Instagram because of increasing regulatory scrutiny. They are already deemed a monopoly in social media. Now this feels like they want to become a monopoly of the entire advertising industry.

I’m an eternal optimist, so I will remain optimistic about our industry’s future. While platforms may push for total automation, they cannot replicate the cultural understanding, creative intuition, and strategic thinking that experienced marketers bring to the table. That’s something no algorithm can replace, no matter how sophisticated. Because in a world racing toward automation, the human touch may be our most powerful differentiator.

Mastering the Art of Advertising in an Election Year

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

In a presidential election year with a challenging economic environment and tensions growing across the planet, U.S. consumers are understandably uneasy. Advertisers are facing a challenging scenario that requires agility, foresight and possibly a touch of ESP. Understanding the dynamics of digital advertising—and how real-world events impact them—is critical to success now more than ever.

Election Year Drama

The atmosphere of an election year is always charged with heightened emotions and amplified media consumption. Consumers actively engage in content around topics they care about, research candidates and issues, and watch coverage of political events and debates. This surge in engagement opens up both opportunities and challenges. For brands and advertisers, it translates to intensified competition and increased advertising costs. It also heightens the need for caution regarding placements and adjacencies.

Political campaigns dominate traditional and digital media, vying for voter attention. Consequently, nonpolitical advertisers often find themselves competing for a share of voice and facing inflated ad rates due to heightened demand. On top of that, brands have to be vigilant about where ads appear, as advertising on certain outlets may be construed as a political endorsement. Similarly, a placement adjacent to a political ad or hot-button topic could have a positive effect or a harmful one, depending on the viewer.

Spending On Digital Political Ads Is Expected To Surge

When candidates began capitalizing on digital media in the early 2000s, the landscape was still nascent, so there was little impact on inventory or pricing. It wasn’t until the 2016 presidential election that digital ads became a staple. That year, internet advertising also saw a spending surge, leading to increased competition and higher costs. Political ad spending continued to grow, reaching $8.5 billion in the 2020 election cycle.

This election, political ad spending is expected to grow by more than 30% from 2020 to $12.32 billion, with digital media accounting for almost a third of it. The digital investment is expected to spike 156% over 2020 levels, hitting $3.46 billion. Of that, $1.56 billion will likely go to connected TV, an increase of over 500% since 2020. Google is expected to see $553.2 million; $605 million will likely go to social media networks.

This increase in spending across the digital advertising landscape will have a monumental impact on brands, which will have to navigate fluctuations in competition, cost and inventory.

Will Media Fatigue Have An Impact?

Even as media consumption remains high, there is another hurdle for advertisers: fatigue and polarization. Exhaustion from an overload of politics or feeling misinformed may lead some audiences to disengage to avoid political news. Some users may pivot to platforms with lighter, fluffier content instead. This diversion can present challenges to finding your customers where they are, but you’ll also have opportunities to test new tactics, like contextual advertising, curated site lists or connected TV.

During the last presidential election, more people than ever reported being exhausted with the user experience on social media due to political content, though it did not decrease social media engagement overall. However, this election may play out differently. Meta appears to have recognized how politics can dominate its platforms and is intentionally shifting its platforms away from political discourse. It’s also requiring advertisers to disclose that their campaigns promote political or social issues, and is ceasing to recommend political content in feeds on Instagram and Threads. Per Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, “Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it.” It will be interesting to see how all this affects advertisers.

What Should Advertisers Do?

It may be tempting to sit it out or slow it down, but resist. Pulling back advertising spend during challenging times can hinder growth. As evidenced by research from McKinsey, marketing during uncertain times can drive resilience. Maintaining a thoughtful presence across advertising channels will yield dividends during challenging times as it can help you create more distance between yourself and your competitors, which pays off in the long run. Watch campaigns closely, be patient and move quickly when you need to.

During an election year, it can be tough to test and learn effectively, but you can’t count on the things that have always worked to remain effective, so you must adapt.

A successful playbook includes some key activities:

Critically analyze every element of every ad, keeping in mind context and adjacencies. The tone and messaging of your ads will be closely scrutinized this year; accept that you’ll need to be more vigilant in putting the right campaigns out there and actively monitoring the response.
Take the time to review your media partners, whitelists and blocklists. Set dedicated time on your calendar to do this on an ongoing basis.
In the spirit of failing fast, when testing a new tactic or campaign, keep budgets modest at first and be prepared to pull non-performers quickly.
Be more agile. You will need to optimize campaigns more frequently and with a more critical eye during this time. Prepare your resources and establish new processes to foster a more agile campaign management approach.

Brands can thrive, even amid the uncertainty of an election cycle, by studying the past, staying tuned in to customer behavior and finding every opportunity to outdo their competitors. The savviest advertisers are the ones who take advantage of every relevant trend and opportunity, safeguard their brands more effectively, and optimize most efficiently to get results. Accept uncertainty, but face it with the right playbook, and you can position your brand for success during turbulent times—and thrive when calmer days eventually arrive.

How to Get a Brand in Decline Back on Track

This article was originally posted on Forbes.com.

What do Apple, Lego and Starbucks have in common? Sure, they are powerhouse brands, but another common thread is that they have all faced periods of decline and recovered.

The fact is that it’s not uncommon for brands (even successful and beloved ones) to face decline. While it could be caused by a myriad of factors, brands that quickly figure out what went wrong—and implement the right strategies in response—can follow the hero’s journey of our examples and not slip into obscurity with the Blackberrys and MySpaces of the world.

Common Reasons For Decline

First, let’s look at some of the typical reasons brands may struggle:

Competitors Gaining Momentum

One of the most common culprits behind brand decline is increased competition. As new players enter the market or existing competitors ramp up their efforts, maintaining a dominant position becomes more difficult—and more expensive. This can happen when a well-funded competitor enters the fray who is willing and able to run at a loss while bidding up advertising and grabbing market share.

Changing Consumer Trends

Consumer behavior is constantly changing and evolving, driven by societal trends and technological advancements. Brands that fail to adapt and align their products and messaging with what the market wants today will pay for it as customer engagement and loyalty decline. Look at how Netflix evolved while Blockbuster didn’t. Trends come and go; brands that adapt have staying power.

Inefficiencies In Your Advertising

Digital advertising offers so many opportunities to reach and engage audiences at scale, but there are also many opportunities to get it wrong. Targeting the wrong audiences, serving the wrong messages, or investing in the wrong channels can result in ads that either don’t resonate or aren’t seen by the people who may have become customers.

Macroeconomic Conditions

Economic challenges (like down markets or inflation) and global or national events can disrupt consumer spending and market dynamics, affecting your bottom line. A news cycle that sparks fear can impact inventory on advertising platforms, driving up costs while consumers become distracted and disconnected from a purchase mindset. When it lingers, it can cause a momentum shift for brands, no matter how strong their performance was before.

A Shift In Post-Pandemic Buyer Behavior

One of the biggest challenges facing brands is simply being in the post-Covid era. While brands like Delta and Carnival took a hit during the pandemic, some e-commerce and direct-to-consumer brands actually saw growth. Those that adapted quickly to digital made lemonade out of lemons. But as life returned to “normal,” many e-commerce brands have faced a decline in trying to keep up with the return to brick-and-mortar and increased competition.

Reviving A Declining Brand

Whatever the reason, decline doesn’t have to be irreversible. With some careful analysis and smart strategies, declining brands can be revived to their former glory, and even stronger than before. Here are some actions to consider:

Figure Out What Went Wrong

The first step is to identify which areas are underperforming. Analytics tools can help assess marketing channel performance and help uncover areas that need work. Set benchmarks based on your industry and look at your target audiences, messaging and creative to assess which levers need to be adjusted.

Be An Early Adopter—And An Early Adapter

Brands that are first to market get a first-mover advantage. You can still get the effects of early adoption by taking advantage of new tools and technologies when they arise. That means if Instagram or Google rolls out a new feature, be quick to test it. If you recognize new consumer trends or shifts in buyer behavior, see if you can capitalize and be the early bird who catches the worm.

Level-Set On Your Brand Messaging And USPs

Review your brand messaging. Are your messages still resonating with your target audience and the current market landscape? One simple exercise I like to do is read the brand assets (think ads, emails, product page copy) and ask myself, “Who cares?” If you can clearly answer with a segment of people who would, then you’re on the right track.

Analyze How You Stack Up To Competitors

Peek behind the curtain at the strategies and tactics of your competitors and others in your industry or similar industries using resources like the Meta Ad Library, Similarweb, SpyFu, SEMrush and Really Good Emails. Determine how you leverage your brand’s unique strengths in the context of that landscape. Your audience is seeing their content; does yours stand out? What does the audience desire that isn’t being addressed? Find your opportunities and start planning.

Expand Your Cross-Channel Efforts

It’s worthwhile to explore the idea of diversifying your marketing efforts. If you’re relying heavily on email and see declining performance, consider SMS. If you’re only focusing on Meta and Google, consider building out your organic efforts or engaging in programmatic display, native, connected TV, or podcast ads to reach new and untapped segments.

Don’t Be The Only One Selling Your Brand

The indisputable power of ratings and reviews proves that consumers want to hear about your brand from someone other than you. Harness the power of creators and influencers to broadcast your brand from angles that feel authentic to them. Forge partnerships with brands that align with your values and can authentically promote your products (think: suppliers or complementary products). Consider PR to get media coverage that places your brand squarely in front of your intended audience. Having others vouch for you gives you instant credibility that can move the needle.

Work On Closing The Gap

Gauging progress can be challenging as you close the gap and move toward growth. It’s tempting to try everything at once, but resist. Implement small changes and measure the impact against your KPIs. Track your overall marketing effectiveness ratio (MER) and analyze trends over time to confirm you’re moving the needle. Stay vigilant, measure your progress, and continue to innovate. Learn from brands that have faced similar struggles, and forge your own path ahead.