BY Kathy Crosett
With media space continuing to expand, your accounts may find it harder to make the right customer connections. Marketers are questioning whether they need to explore different formats. They’re also questioning whether it’s time to invest more in their creative process.
Social Media and the Issue of Customer Connections
One key area of marketer concern has been social media advertising. Some marketers believe paid social isn’t scaling. Taboola analysts have measured the incremental conversions that come from additional performance ad spending in social.
Around 75% of marketers have noticed “diminishing returns.” Nearly 33% of marketers have noticed this decline happening before 50% of the ad budget has been spent.
Marketers have a variety of opinions on why this is happening.
- Less effective targeting (related to privacy restrictions) 36%
- Rising ad costs 47%
- Saturation in target audience 66%
- User fatigue 59%
Interest in social media channels remains intense. But marketers are willing to experiment with new formats in an attempt to get a jump on the competition. Some newer formats, such as digital audio, are attracting significant attention and ad dollars.
Sales Funnel Touchpoints
Making great consumer connections also requires developing more touchpoints through the sales funnel. 75% of marketers will be spending more this year with an intention focus on the funnel.
As they do so, they will be moving away from programmatic display. Certainly, there is a concern about control over ad placement in programmatic display. And that may be why more marketers will be looking into walled gardens. If you’re selling in that media space, this is a great development for you.
Funnel Management
Over half of marketers in the Taboola survey reported an interest in focusing on a specific channel in 2025. This focus will shift as they move prospects through the sales funnel.
Awareness
In the awareness stage, top of the funnel, media formats like out-of-home and social channels, think TikTok, are favored.
Consideration
When consumers enter the consideration stage, marketers make a bigger effort to connect. At this point, marketers count on their influencers and content creators to sway the purchase decision.
Purchase and Customer Connections
And finally, your accounts turn to paid search and email marketing to close the deal. These bottom-of-the-funnel activities are heavily personalized.
Conversational Commerce
Many marketers may think of this aspect of marketing as customer service. If your accounts have reduced their use of chatbots due to consumer sentiment, suggest that they reconsider. The market situation is changing.
As chatbots have improved, more consumers are willing to engage with them. Younger consumers, in particular, don’t mind receiving texts from brands. When these texts are personalized and include an offer based on their previous purchases, brands have an opportunity to increase sales. This interaction is proving more effective than paid social media for brands.
Another way to enhance customer connections is consider the interaction between creativity and media format and the eventual impact on purchase intent.
The Value of Creativity
Madison and Wall analysts, in their recent analysis, report that “targeted creative content was found to significantly enhance effectiveness particularly on TV for recall, both aided and unaided, and short videos on mobile for both forms of recall and purchase intent.” The analysts urge marketers to employ gen AI-based tools to streamline their processes and integrate the creative and media aspects of their campaigns for optimal outcomes.
Smartly has also researched how your accounts can ramp up advertising effectiveness and customer connections. Their analysts focused on digital marketing trends in their 2025 Digital Advertising Trends Survey.
More businesses are realizing that the creative and media branches of their marketing investment must be aligned. In some cases, this means merging the social and media planning teams. Business leaders hope the increased efficiencies will reduce the cost of creating ads.
They’re also using more technology to streamline workflow. Around 80% of marketers are using AI to help them in this effort. To improve creativity in their ads, over 80% of marketers are investing in more high-quality visual assets.
Summary
As we approach the middle of the year, touch base with your accounts. In the increasingly competitive business environment, their marketing approach may need an adjustment. Run a Digital Audit on them, available with a subscription to AdMall. Then use the findings to help your accounts improve their customer connections.
