We don't do this work for the trophies. But when an industry as demanding as media planning stops to say this campaign was something special , we're not going to pretend it doesn't mean something. So, we're proud to share that Exverus by Brainlabs has been named a winner of the 2026 MediaPost Planning & Buying Award in the Pharma/Health/Wellness category  for our "Wellness Women Can Trust" campaign on behalf of client Theralogix . The award was presented at the annual MediaPost Planning & Buying Awards ceremony  on April 15, 2026, at The University Club in New York City. The Brief: Do More With Less Theralogix has been developing rigorously tested, affordable nutritional supplements — focused on fertility, uterine health, and menstrual regularity — since 2002. The brand deserves to be found. The challenge in Q2 2025 was that women searching for health information online were drowning in conflicting, often misleading advice. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges , women's health remains severely underresearched, and declining public trust in institutions since the COVID pandemic has made it harder than ever for science-backed brands to cut through the noise. Our mandate was aggressive: improve Social ROAS by a minimum of 50% quarter-over-quarter, launch Google Performance Max at a $3 ROAS, and grow overall brand sales at least 10% year-over-year. The twist? We had 18% less media budget than Q1 to do it. Congratulations to Media Director Georgia Schreiner ( 2023 AdAge Media Planner of the Year ), Senior Media Planner Jillian Telman, and every specialist across search, social, programmatic, analytics, and ad ops who made "Wellness Women Can Trust" a campaign worthy of that name. The Strategy: Full-Funnel, High-Precision This is exactly the kind of brief that makes our team lean in. Rather than chasing reach with a scatter-shot approach, we built a precision media plan anchored in audience intelligence — reaching the right women with the right message at the right moment in their health journey. According to EMARKETER , search behavior is being fundamentally redefined by generational shifts. Social platforms today aren't just discovery channels; they're search engines and points-of-sale simultaneously. We built a media plan that treated them that way, diversifying across social commerce, search, programmatic, and emerging channels to maintain a balance between brand building and performance without sacrificing either. Learn more about how to reach digital-savvy consumers everywhere they search and shorten the path to purchase. The Results: Unprecedented Performance In three months, the numbers didn't just hit targets. They redefined them: Meta ROAS more than doubled  quarter-over-quarter ($4.66 → $9.77) TikTok Search ROAS surged 293% Google PMAX generated $107K from 1,217 new customers  at a 4.3 ROAS, clearing the $3 objective Web traffic grew 20%  while cost-per-view dropped 3.55%, despite the smaller budget Overall purchases rose 18%, ROAS lifted 21%, and annual sales grew 19.5% YoY — nearly double the goal The bottom line:  In one quarter, with less money, Exverus delivered 19.5% year-over-year sales growth for Theralogix — nearly double the target — by building a diversified, full-funnel media plan that met women where they actually search, discover, and buy. What this means for our clients This win (our latest in a long line that includes 8 Adweek Media Plan of the Year awards, 3 Ad Age Small Agency of the Year honors, and 3 Cannes Lions finalist recognitions) reflects the talent of the entire team who brought this campaign to life. For our clients, it's a signal of something more important than hardware: it means the thinking, tools, and team we bring to every engagement are being measured against the best in the industry — and coming out on top. Most importantly, we helped real women find a supplement brand that actually delivers on its promises. That's the work that matters. Exverus Senior Manager of PR & Communications Michelle Andrade accepted the award onsite on behalf of the media planning & buying teams. Frequently Asked Questions What is media planning? Media planning  is the strategic process of determining where, when, how, and to whom a brand's advertising should appear across paid channels — from paid social and programmatic display to search, native, streaming, and beyond. Done well, it's not a logistics exercise. It's a creative act: one that requires deep audience insight, disciplined data analysis, and the ability to connect the right message to the right person at the right moment in their decision journey. Learn how growth-stage brands can outsmart the sleeping giants with smaller budgets but bigger ideas. What is the MediaPost Planning & Buying Award? The MediaPost Planning & Buying Awards  are an annual competition recognizing excellence in media strategy, planning, and buying across categories including social media, performance media, native marketing, and health/wellness. The awards are based on the belief that the process of planning and buying media is as creative and impactful as traditional advertising creative development. Exverus by Brainlabs won the Pharma/Health/Wellness  category at the 2026 Awards for the "Wellness Women Can Trust" campaign, created for nutritional supplement brand Theralogix. What results did the Theralogix campaign achieve? In Q2 2025, the campaign delivered: Meta ROAS that more than doubled quarter-over-quarter, a 293% surge in TikTok Search ROAS, 18% growth in purchases, a 21% ROAS lift, and 19.5% year-over-year sales growth — on 18% less media budget than the prior quarter. What is Exverus by Brainlabs? Exverus by Brainlabs is a Los Angeles-based, full-funnel media planning and buying agency. Founded in 2014, Exverus was acquired by global digital agency Brainlabs in 2025. The agency manages over $100M in annual media spend and has earned recognition as a three-time Ad Age Small Agency of the Year (Media), an eight-time Adweek Media Plan of the Year winner, and a three-time Cannes Lions finalist. Ready to talk about what precision media planning can do for your brand? Let's connect.

Exverus' Cofounder & Head of Operations was given Honorable Mention for outstanding culture-building in the 2026 IMPACT Awards. 4 Key Takeaways Workplace culture that actually works is built through sustained, deliberate systems — not one-off initiatives or performative programs. Exverus by Brainlabs maintains 80% women or POC in leadership, demonstrating that inclusion at the top is a strategic choice, not a byproduct. Responsible AI adoption means building understanding and integrating tools into real workflows — not just writing a policy and walking away. Values-driven leadership that extends beyond the office — like Jack's work with the Asian Hustle Network — is what separates culture as a talking point from culture as a practice. Good workplace culture is easy to describe. It's much harder to build — and even harder to sustain as a company grows, goes remote, and operates across a distributed team. That's exactly what makes this recognition meaningful. Jack Win , Co-founder and Head of Operations at Exverus by Brainlabs , has been named an honorable mention finalist for the 2026 Reworked IMPACT Award in the Workplace Culture Leader of the Year category. What is the ReWorked workplace culture award? Reworked is one of the leading communities for employee experience professionals, and this year's program — spanning seven categories across workplace culture, technology, employee journey innovation, and vendor excellence — recognized practitioners who didn't just design initiatives. They shipped them, measured them, and improved the experience on the other end. Jack was evaluated by a judging panel of workplace practitioners and industry specialists led by Reworked Editor-in-Chief Siobhan Fagan . The feedback they offered wasn't the kind of boilerplate praise you'd expect. It was specific, considered, and pointed at something real. Judges highlighted that Jack has built an environment where employees don't just perform — they stay. High retention and long-tenured staff aren't accidents; they're the outcome of deliberate systems : biannual retreats, a modernized 360-degree feedback process, positive incentive programs, and an open-door leadership style that makes people actually comfortable walking through it. One judge noted that Jack is a clearly "accessible" executive in a way that's become rare — someone people aren't apprehensive about approaching on a wide range of issues. That kind of psychological safety doesn't happen by default. It's designed. The panel also called out the intentionality behind Exverus's leadership composition (with 80% of leadership being women or people of color) as well as Jack's responsible approach to AI adoption. Rather than issuing rules and moving on, Jack has integrated AI education directly into workflow through tools like the internal Xavier chatbot and Brainlabs' AI media planning software Cortex. Judges found this particularly striking: most companies either over-restrict AI or ignore it entirely. Jack did neither. He built a culture where AI is understood, used responsibly, and genuinely accelerating what the team can deliver — including making enterprise-grade media planning capabilities accessible to growth-stage brands that otherwise couldn't afford them. Beyond the agency, Jack's involvement with the Asian Hustle Network — supporting AAPI creatives and entrepreneurs — was noted as an extension of the same values driving his internal culture work. This isn't a leader compartmentalizing "culture" as an HR function. It's someone for whom inclusion and community are the operating system, not a program. As one judge put it: "Nothing feels performative. It feels like steady choices over time that put people first and let the results follow." That's the Exverus way. Read the full 2026 Reworked IMPACT Award announcement here. For more media buying tips, agency news, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly   Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

Social media advertising continues to evolve as one of the most powerful tools for brand growth and customer acquisition. As we move into 2026, understanding where to allocate your social media advertising budget can mean the difference between breakthrough results and wasted spend. Key Components: Strategic platform selection  based on verified audience insights and engagement patterns Scientific creative testing  across social media channels to identify high-performing formats and messaging Regular performance analysis  to optimize social media advertising spend allocation Agile budget management  that shifts investment based on actual results rather than assumptions or trends Social media planning: A scientific approach A. Understand your audience Effective social media advertising strategy begins with understanding your audience's digital behavior. Optimizing your social media mix requires clearly mapping where your customers spend their online time and attention. For businesses without enterprise-level analytics platforms, we recommend two accessible approaches to inform social media advertising decisions: Customer research : Survey your existing customer base about their social media usage patterns, preferred platforms, and content consumption habits Platform analytics : Utilize native analytical tools within each social media platform. Meta's insights dashboard, for example, reveals engagement distribution between Instagram and Facebook audiences—providing clear direction for social media budget allocation. B. How to allocate your social media advertising budget At Exverus, we have refined a proven social media advertising rule-of-thumb through years of running campaigns for brands like Premier Protein, Theralogix supplements, and New Belgium Brewing: 60% Meta  (Facebook and Instagram) 30% TikTok 10% Reddit or emerging platforms This distribution maximizes social media advertising ROI while maintaining agility for testing new opportunities as the landscape shifts. Platform-specific strengths Meta: The ROI champion Social media advertisers industry-wide agree that Meta is the strongest performer for your paid social return on investment (ROI) . The platform's sophisticated targeting infrastructure, extensive user data, and conversion optimization tools make it the foundation of most successful social media advertising strategies. Instagram Reels beats TikTok on several key metrics, and Meta's ad capabilities are only getting stronger. Click to learn how. TikTok: A brand exploder TikTok has emerged as a social media advertising powerhouse for brand awareness campaigns. The platform offers unique ad placements that other social media advertising channels cannot match - including positioning alongside trending content, securing first-open placements, and appearing as the initial video users see upon launching the app. Although TikTok Shop was a powerful sales-driver in the holiday shopping season of 2025 for product-based brands, most brands see more success with TikTok as an awareness-builder, rather than a converter . Social media platforms are now brand discovery hubs, and search engines are now mid-funnel. Learn how to meet savvy consumers everywhere they search. Reddit: The community educator For brands with products requiring education or strong community engagement, Reddit represents an underutilized opportunity. The platform enables advertisers to integrate messaging within authentic user conversations and valuable community discussions. Reddit's keyword-based targeting is a significant advantage for social media marketing campaigns. This functionality mirrors Google Search capabilities and enables more cohesive cross-channel marketing strategies. TikTok has similarly introduced keyword targeting, further expanding strategic social media advertising options. Reddit has evolved from a niche forum into a marketing powerhouse, reshaping how consumers make decisions & how AI answers their questions. C. Measurement & Attribution Effective social media advertising requires rigorous measurement to understand what's working and where to optimize spend. Without proper tracking and analysis, even well-allocated budgets can fail to deliver maximum value. Essential Paid Social Metrics Different platforms and campaign objectives require different measurement approaches. For conversion-focused social media buying , track: Return on ad spend (ROAS) : The revenue generated for every dollar invested in social media advertising Cost per acquisition (CPA) : How much you're spending to acquire each customer through social media advertising Conversion rate : The percentage of users who take desired actions after engaging with your social media advertising ROAS and last-click metrics can be misleading because they capture a narrow slice of the journey, understating long-term brand impact. For brand awareness-building social media buying , especially on platforms like TikTok, monitor: Reach and impressions : How many unique users are seeing your social media advertising Engagement rate : Likes, comments, shares, and saves relative to impressions View-through rate : Completion rates for video-based social media advertising content Brand lift studies : Changes in brand awareness, consideration, and preference metrics Brand lift studies demonstrate the impact of your marketing on real brand growth over time. Attribution in Social Media Advertising Modern social media advertising measurement must account for complex customer journeys. Users rarely convert on first touch—they might discover your brand on TikTok, research on Reddit, and convert through an Amazon Display ad. Implement multi-touch attribution models that credit multiple social media advertising touchpoints along the conversion path. Digiday confirms that agencies large and small are using agile, new marketing mix modeling (MMM) tools to track how upper-funnel media leads to sales downstream. Platform-specific attribution windows (typically 1-day view, 7-day click for most social media advertising) provide baseline data, but cross-platform analytics tools offer more complete visibility into how your social media advertising channels work together. Predictive analytics and big-picture insights make marketing mix modeling tools invaluable to brand marketers of all industries in 2026 and beyond. Testing and Optimization Cycles Successful social media advertising programs establish regular measurement cadences: Weekly analysis : Identify trends, pause underperforming social media advertising creative, and scale winners Monthly reviews : Evaluate overall media strategy, test new platforms, and adjust budget allocation Quarterly planning : Reassess platform mix based on cumulative performance data This structured approach to social media advertising measurement ensures you're making data-informed decisions rather than relying on assumptions or outdated performance patterns. E. Case Studies & Examples Theralogix enters the Reddit chat In Q4 of 2024, our Reddit Ads brand campaign contributed to the supplement maker's +33% lift in web traffic and +634% lift in cross-network search! Click to read more below. Exverus' new Social Reach ad unit beats Meta's efficiency In 2025, Exverus partnered up with SeenThis to build a whole new ad unit called Social Reach , which splashes a brand's vertical video assets across Pubmatic's premium open web supply with zero additional production cost. Click to learn more below. Premier Protein was the first brand to test Social Reach and outperformed Meta Ads by 50% efficiency! 'The Chosen' integrates search & social to drive app downloads For TV's "The Chosen" mobile app campaign , we stitched Search and Social Media advertising initiatives together in a cohesive digital strategy that successfully drove nearly 1 million app downloads in 3 months at half the projected cost! Learn more below. To entice viewers, we teased behind-the-scenes footage, access to the stars, and app-exclusive trailers. In 2026 and beyond, the key to social media advertising success lies not in following industry trends, but in developing deep knowledge of where your specific audience engages and what creative approaches drive them to action. For further reference: Creator Marketing: FAQs for brands in 2026 Social media advertising: How it works & tips for success Link in Bio by Rachel Karten Based on insights from Inc. magazine's interview with Blake Anderson (founder, 10x) and Ryan Schuster, MBA (Director of Paid Search and Social, Exverus by Brainlabs). Original article: " How to Get the Most Out of Paid Social in 2026 " by Annabel Burba, Inc., December 23, 2025.

In 2026 and beyond, audience segments will reshuffle; media channels will converge; paths to purchase will shorten; and AI will optimize everything. Media planning requires a long-term view and full-funnel integration. The rules of media planning rewrite themselves every quarter: Consumer behaviors shift overnight; new platforms emerge while established channels merge and transform; AI-powered optimization tools promise to automate what once took teams of analysts weeks to accomplish. But here's what stays constant: the need for strategic, data-informed media planning that connects brands with audiences across the entire customer journey. At Exverus by Brainlabs, we've spent 12 years refining our approach to full-funnel media planning for growth-stage, culture-creating brands. Here's what demonstrably works. Table of Contents What is media planning? Elements of a full-funnel media plan Brand vs. performance media Omnichannel marketing Example of award-winning omnichannel media campaign Measurement & attribution FAQs about media planning & buying What is media planning? Media planning is the strategic process of determining where, when, and how to deliver marketing messages to target audiences. It's about making informed decisions on channel selection, budget allocation, timing, and creative deployment to achieve specific business objectives. Think of it as the blueprint for your marketing investment. A strong media plan answers critical questions, like: Which channels will reach your ideal customers most efficiently? How should budget be distributed across awareness, consideration, and conversion tactics? What frequency and timing will maximize impact without wasting spend? How can we build creative, unique activations that stand out from our competition? Media placement choices aren't guesses; they're based on surgically precise audience data points gathered from multiple sources. Elements of a full-funnel media plan Budget, Timing, and Scope of Work Category background / business challenge . What problem are we solving for? Objectives. What specific campaign key performance indicators (KPIs) are we working toward, and how will they solve our business challenge? Insights. Define the target audience(s). Gather competitive insights. What media does the target audience consume? What research can inform our strategy? Strategy . What will be the key elements of our plan? How will we space out activations throughout the given timeframe? How will paid media collaborate with earned media, owned content, and other agencies? Execution. Make the idea come to life! Monitor performance and adjust in real time. Measurement. What are the results? Did we meet our KPIs? Did our KPIs accurately align with business goals? What did we learn for the next campaign? Timing Considerations Media planning is a marathon, not a sprint When times are tight, many marketers feel the pressure to close the sale and place a disproportionate emphasis on short-term performance metrics -- that's understandable! But be careful not to lose sight of your long-term brand equity . While the immediate ROI metrics can look attractive and seem to reinforce this approach, we caution marketers not to get short-sighted and overlook the importance of long-term brand-building. This mistake is called short-termism . Short-termism is the marketing fallacy of focusing too heavily on acquiring new customers and activating sales, at the expense of building long-term customer retention and loyalty. The most successful media strategies balance immediate performance goals with long-term brand building. Track leading indicators that signal future performance, not just lagging metrics that report yesterday's results. Invest in understanding how different tactics work together over time, not just in isolation. See an example case study of a brand that "went dark" after seeing some initial gains below: 'Always-on' vs. Spend spikes Being consistent with your brand media spend over time is imperative. But being evergreen isn’t simply doing the same thing all year — it’s about adapting to consumer behavior and business cycles so the brand remains relevant off-season.  A “set-it-and-forget-it” media campaign that simply repeats the same content or messaging all year can get stale. Audiences’ needs, contexts, and attentional bandwidth change throughout the year; what worked during a product-launch window or seasonal peak may not resonate mid-year. Constant presence without variation can erode brand identity, rather than reinforce it. Brands and their media teams should lean on data-driven signals and adjust the strategy in real time  by shifting budgets, pivoting messaging, or launching new offerings.  Balance tentpole moments (for brand-building impact) with strategic always-on presence in high-intent channels (retail media, search) and advanced measurement (brand lift studies, multi-touch attribution, incrementality testing) to see the strongest results.  Example: This plan depicts paid media running throughout the campaign timeline but mixing up the formats and spend levels around tentpole moments. Brand vs. Performance Media Combine brand and performance under one scientific brain The old divide between brand and performance marketing is quickly dissolving, but the tension between immediate results and long-term value creation remains. Smart media planning finds the right balance for your specific business context. Performance marketing delivers measurable, trackable results. Direct response tactics drive immediate conversions, generate leads, and produce clear ROI metrics. These campaigns justify their existence through attribution models and conversion tracking. Brand marketing builds mental availability and emotional connections that compound over time. It creates the conditions for efficient performance marketing by reducing friction in the purchase decision. Strong brands enjoy higher conversion rates, lower customer acquisition costs, and greater pricing power. But these benefits often appear months or years after the initial investment. The optimal brand-performance mix depends on several factors: your market position product category customer lifetime value (CLV) purchase frequency, and competitive intensity. New brands typically need heavier brand investment to build awareness and consideration. Established players might shift more budget toward performance tactics that convert existing demand. Here's the uncomfortable truth: most brands underinvest in brand building. They over-index on performance tactics because the results are visible and immediate, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that slowly erodes long-term growth potential. The metrics look good quarter over quarter, but customer acquisition costs creep up and market share stagnates. Click to learn real case studies of brands that built equity effectively vs. those that didn't. The solution isn't abandoning performance marketing. It's integrating brand and performance tactics into a unified, full-funnel approach where upper-funnel brand activities amplify lower-funnel conversion efficiency. Test different budget allocations. Measure impact across multiple time horizons. Find the mix that balances short-term results with sustainable long-term growth. Omnichannel marketing: New paths to purchase The linear marketing funnel is dead. Modern consumers don't follow predictable paths from awareness to consideration to purchase. They zigzag across channels, devices, and touchpoints in patterns that seem chaotic but reveal underlying logic when you know where to look. Someone might discover your brand through a podcast ad, research options on their phone during lunch, compare features on a desktop at work, and finally purchase on a tablet at home three weeks later. Or they might see social ads for months, ignore them completely, then convert immediately after receiving a promotional email. The variations are endless. Omnichannel media planning acknowledges this complexity. Instead of forcing customers into predetermined funnels, it creates multiple paths to purchase across interconnected touchpoints. Different channels play different roles for different customers at different moments. Click to learn several new models for mapping consumer behavior that evolve beyond the linear funnel. Omnichannel media planning requires several capabilities: Consistent messaging across channels. Adapt creative to each platform's format and context while maintaining brand coherence. Cross-channel measurement.  Track customer journeys across touchpoints rather than evaluating each channel in isolation. Flexible budget allocation.  Shift resources toward channels and tactics proving most effective for specific customer segments. Media channel convergence accelerates these needs Social media is becoming social commerce . Streaming TV ads are now shoppable CTV . Search engines are now chatbots. Social and Retail Media Networks (RMNs) are now search engines. The boundaries between awareness, consideration, and conversion channels blur as platforms compete to own entire customer journeys. For 2026, expect paths to purchase to shorten as channels become more integrated and AI-powered personalization becomes more sophisticated. Example of award-winning omnichannel media campaign Exverus by Brainlabs' "Premier Nutrition: Winning Prime Day" campaign was awarded a WARC Effectiveness Award for Best Path to Purchase in 2024. The campaign demonstrated ingenious tactics for successfully bridging social media with e-commerce, making Premier Protein shakes one of the top-selling items on Amazon during its October 2023 Prime Big Deals Day event. Learn more below: Instead of loading up on Amazon Ads, we met consumers on social media platforms and smoothly drove them to Amazon purchase pages. Measurement & Attribution They say, "What gets measured gets managed," but measuring full-funnel media effectiveness remains one of marketing's hardest problems: attribution models break down in omnichannel environments; privacy regulations limit tracking capabilities; platform-provided metrics serve platform interests more than advertiser needs. Effective measurement requires a multi-layered approach that combines different methodologies to build a complete picture of media performance. No single metric or model tells the whole story. Start with business fundamentals.  Revenue, customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), market share of voice (SOV). These north-star metrics connect media activity to actual business outcomes. They should anchor all other measurement efforts. Impressions and CPMs are just vanity metrics. Learn to track your paid media investment's real impact on overall business growth. Layer in channel-specific performance metrics.  Click-through rates, view-through rates, engagement metrics, conversion rates. These tactical indicators help optimize individual campaigns and placements. But resist the temptation to over-optimize channel metrics at the expense of business outcomes. Add incrementality testing  to understand true causal impact. Geo-tests, holdout groups, and controlled experiments reveal which tactics actually drive incremental results versus simply capturing existing demand. This is where you separate correlation from causation. Implement marketing mix modeling  to understand how different tactics work together and inform strategic budget allocation. These statistical models analyze historical performance across all channels to quantify each tactic's contribution and interaction effects. Learn how AI powers MMM for comprehensive looks at campaign results, plus when to use MMM vs. MTA (multi-touch attribution). Complement quantitative measurement with qualitative insights.  Brand tracking studies, customer surveys, and market research provide context that numbers alone can't capture. They explain the why behind the what. Brand lift studies are a scientific approach to measuring your upper-funnel media's impact on real business growth downstream. The measurement environment will continue evolving throughout 2026. Privacy-focused attribution models, AI-powered analytics, and cross-platform measurement solutions promise to improve data quality and insight generation. But the fundamentals won't change. Great measurement requires clear business objectives, rigorous methodology, and honest assessment of both successes and failures. FAQs about media planning and buying How much should I budget for media planning? Media budgets vary widely based on: company size industry growth stage competitive intensity As a general framework, B2C companies typically invest 5-15% of revenue in marketing, with media representing the largest portion. B2B companies often spend 2-10% of revenue. High-growth startups may invest 20-40% or more to capture market share. Work backward from your customer acquisition cost targets and lifetime value to determine sustainable spending levels. Which media channels should I advertise on in 2026? Media channel selection depends entirely on where your target audiences spend time and how they make purchase decisions. That said, several channels show particular strength heading into 2026: Digital Advertising Channels Retail media networks for driving sales, even for non-CPG brands Connected TV (CTV) and Digital Audio for reaching broad audiences Influencer / Creator partnerships for trust-building Search and Social for capturing high-intent demand The way to differentiate from what all your competitors are already doing (especially if you don't have the budget to outspend them) is to think outside the box and build creative campaigns that stick in people's minds better than a digital ad . Experiential Marketing Campaigns Gen Z shoppers have been skipping digital ads since they were born. They grew up in a world where social media and technology are ubiquitous, making it harder for traditional advertisements to capture their attention. Experiential marketing is about creating immersive experiences that engage consumers on a deeper level. Unlike traditional advertising, which focuses on pushing products, experiential marketing seeks to pull consumers in with memorable moments. Contests & Sweepstakes Get your target audience engaged and excited, rather than passively consuming ads they likely won't recall later. Contests and sweepstakes with enticing incentives get people involved and emotionally invested in your brand more deeply than with your competition . Here's an example of an Adweek award-winning contest campaign we ran for former client Stella & Chewy's: Click to read more about how this massively effective campaign worked! How do I prove media ROI to C-suite executives? Connect media activities directly to business outcomes using clear attribution and incrementality testing. Report in business language (revenue, customer acquisition, market share) rather than marketing jargon (impressions, reach, engagement). Show both short-term performance and long-term brand building impact. Use control groups and holdout testing to demonstrate causation, not just correlation. Be honest about measurement limitations and uncertainty rather than overstating confidence in attribution. Learn to set SMART goals for your media campaigns and gather industry-specific and platform-specific benchmarks to measure against. Is it cheaper to hire a media agency or buy media in-house? The right model depends on your resources, expertise, and strategic priorities: In-house teams offer greater control, brand intimacy, and agility. Agencies provide specialized expertise, cross-client insights, and scalable capacity. Many successful brands use a hybrid approach: in-house strategists and planners who set direction and manage performance, with agency partners providing specialized capabilities in areas like creative production, platform expertise, and advanced analytics. Learn more here . How often should we revise our media plan? Media strategies should be revisited quarterly at minimum, with major strategic reviews annually aligned to business planning cycles. Tactical optimizations happen continuously, with real-time adjustments daily or weekly and always-on refinements monthly. The key is distinguishing between strategic pivots (which require careful consideration and cross-functional alignment) and tactical adjustments (which can happen quickly based on performance data). Don't confuse motion with progress by constantly changing strategy without giving tactics time to work. Learn why media plans need time to accumulate growth, like an investment account, rather than day trade. What role does AI play in media planning? AI excels at tactical optimization, pattern recognition, and processing large datasets. It can: predict performance personalize creative, and identify audience segments at scales impossible for human teams. But AI doesn't replace strategic thinking. Humans still need to set objectives, define brand positioning, understand market dynamics, and make judgment calls that require business context. As a Brainlabs agency, we operate under a philosophy of Real Intelligence - the optimal blend of artificial and human intelligence that enables brands to connect directly with consumers. Using Brainlabs' proprietary Cortex AI system, we bring the most cutting-edge technologies to growth-stage brands worldwide. Ready to build a full-funnel media strategy that delivers results? At Exverus by Brainlabs, we combine strategic planning, data-driven optimization, and cross-channel expertise to help brands navigate the complexity of modern media. Let's talk!

A scientific approach to measuring paid media's impact on actual business growth Key Facts: Attention-based optimizations deliver 20% higher unique reach  than viewability optimizations and are 31% more cost-efficient, according to The Attention Council. Traditional metrics like impressions and CPM suffer from key limitations  — they measure potential exposure rather than actual engagement and can be inflated by bot traffic. Brand lift studies provide more meaningful upper-funnel measurements  by tracking actual changes in brand awareness, consideration, purchase intent, and preference. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is often overlooked  but critical for understanding long-term profitability rather than focusing solely on short-term conversions and ROAS. It's 2025 -- we've all moved beyond the tired brand vs. performance debate, correct? And we understand the importance of brand as an indicator of sustained business growth . But the challenge remains: how do we effectively measure brand outcomes for upper-funnel paid media campaigns? The Challenge of Measuring Brand Common brand metrics include: awareness favorability perceived quality, and advocacy These metrics are inherently challenging to measure because they require either: Direct consumer feedback  through surveys, panels, or focus groups; or Indirect behavioral indicators  such as branded search volume or social listening tools There's no perfect solution! At Exverus, we prefer taking a scientific approach through brand lift studies. Understanding Brand Lift Studies A brand lift study measures an advertising campaign's impact on brand awareness and favorability. Brand lift studies use a test-and-control methodology , comparing a test group (people exposed to the ads) against a control group (people not exposed to the ads but otherwise similar). This approach offers significant advantages: It controls for external factors that might impact brand perception, such as negative press or viral content Unlike brand search trends or social listening, it specifically accounts for media exposure, allowing us to isolate the impact of marketing campaigns Brand Lift Studies: FAQs for CMOs How much does a brand lift study cost? Brand lift studies vary in cost: they may be added-value on some ad platforms and with some media partners with minimum media spend, or from about $30K for simple digital only studies to over $150K for complex multi-channel studies. Google Ads ,   Amazon Ads , and   Meta  offer free brand lift studies to advertisers who spend above a certain threshold and achieve a certain impression threshold to ensure enough data for a statistically significant result. The main disadvantage of these studies is the inability to account for exposure to ads from your campaign that are running on other channels that can potentially contaminate results. Research partners like Nielsen, DISQO, or Kantar can measure incremental brand lift across many media channels holistically ( CTV ,   digital audio ,   out-of-home ,   radio , you name it!) This can give your team a more complete idea of how exposures to your ad connect with real-life consumer sentiment. It’s usually less costly to run studies for online channels where ads can be tagged and more expensive to measure offline channels such as TV or out-of-home. Long campaign flights, interim reports, online dashboards, and larger samples needed to break out results in more detail are all factors that can add to the cost of a study. What's the minimum budget needed to run a brand lift study? Again, it depends upon the platform and the question(s) you're trying to answer. Below are the requirements for added values studies on a couple of popular ad platforms: LinkedIn Ads provides free Brand Lift Testing for campaigns spending at least: $60K to answer one brand metric $90K to answer two brand metrics Meanwhile, YouTube brand lift studies need only: $3,500 in the first seven days of the campaign for one metric $5,000 in the first seven days of the campaign for two metrics How large does my brand lift study sample size need to be for reliable results? This question is complicated because the answer can vary so widely and depend upon many considerations. We've seen sample sizes as low as 30, whereas Google recommends 2,000-5,000 responses per question in both the control and test groups for each lift metric. If you need multiple breakouts, such as by audiences or creatives, you'll need a large overall sample size to have enough data for each. Source: Google DV360 Help How do I know who saw my ad? Tracking ad exposure typically involves placing pixels on creative assets to digitally monitor viewership. However, this approach isn't feasible across all channels: Many social media platforms restrict this tracking capability Traditional channels like TV, radio, and out-of-home don't support digital tracking The common alternative is an opportunity to see (OTS) methodology , where survey respondents' reported media consumption is matched against media placement timing. In our experience, OTS works well for certain channels like TV or radio but yields inconsistent results for others like social media. The methodology assumes test and control groups are identical except for ad exposure. We attempt to ensure this through sample matching  based on demographics, geography, or online behaviors—but no two samples are 100% alike! The goal is similarity, not perfection. And beware of cross-channel contamination : Modern consumers fluidly move between mobile, video, and TV multiple times daily, making channel-level impact testing challenging. When we're trying to compare ad-exposed versus non-exposed individuals, channel-level  brand impact testing can be contaminated with other ad exposures. How do I connect brand lift metrics to business outcomes? Mid-funnel metrics like web traffic, customer acquisition rates, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). The more you invest in your brand, the lower your CAC should be. Marketing mix modeling (or media mix modeling) aggregates many sources of data to provide a comprehensive, full-funnel understanding of how different marketing channels contribute to overall business growth. AI-powered predictive analytics tools model different scenarios to help us choose the right course. Loyalty indicators like customer retention, online reviews, referrals, and consistent price premium. Your brand is strong if consumers think of you long after they've made a first purchase. The Importance of Data Integration Scientific measurement can be complex and messy sometimes . That's why we recommend integrating multiple data sources to corroborate brand lift results. For example, if your study shows no significant lift from advertising, but your searches and sales show substantial increases, you have good reason to believe your campaign was effective despite the study results. The Exverus Approach When making complex decisions about advertising strategy or evaluating campaign performance, we believe in considering multiple information sources and leveraging expert analysis. Our director of data analytics, Charles Lai, leads a team of seasoned statistics experts who can glean the strongest possible insights for your brand. Learn more about brand lift measurement from Charles below: For more media buying tips, agency news, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly   Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

Predictive analytics and big-picture insights make marketing mix modeling tools invaluable to brand marketers of all industries in 2026 and beyond. Can you predict the outcome of your brand marketing campaigns? Without the proper measurement tools, your media plan could feel like a (very expensive) shot in the dark. A 2022 McKinsey Global Survey found that only 17% of companies believe they can effectively measure marketing's impact on business outcomes. And with so many different retailers and media networks to reach customers, measuring the impact of your spending across platforms can be a nightmare! Fortunately, a suite of marketing mix modeling tools has recently emerged to help solve those problems more quickly and accurately. What is marketing mix modeling? Marketing mix modeling, also known as media mix modeling (MMM), is a sophisticated analytical method that provides a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of how different marketing channels contribute to overall brand growth. Unlike user-level attribution, MMM uses aggregated data to evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing channels while maintaining privacy compliance. Marketing Mix Modeling offers a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of how different marketing channels contribute to overall brand growth. For brands navigating an increasingly complex digital ecosystem, MMM is no longer a luxury—it's a strategic imperative. Talia Arnold, Cofounder of Exverus, explained onstage at MediaPost why MMM & incrementality testing are now table stakes in every media budget. How does AI power MMM? In 2025, several announcements brought new MMM solutions to the forefront, all led by AI. AI is revolutionizing MMM in several key ways, making it more accurate, efficient, and insightful. Here's how: 1. Handling Complex Data AI excels at processing massive datasets, including diverse data types like online behavior, social media sentiment, CRM data, and even weather patterns. This allows MMM to incorporate a wider range of factors influencing marketing performance. Traditional MMM often struggles with complex, non-linear relationships between marketing inputs and outcomes. AI, particularly machine learning, can model these intricate relationships more effectively, leading to more accurate results. 2. Improved Accuracy and Insights AI employs sophisticated algorithms like neural networks and Bayesian methods to identify patterns and relationships that traditional statistical methods might miss. This leads to more precise estimations of marketing channel effectiveness. AI can analyze data at a more granular level, providing insights into specific customer segments, campaigns, and even individual touchpoints. This allows marketers to understand which tactics are working best for whom and optimize accordingly. A study by Forrester Research indicates that AI-driven marketing tools can improve marketing efficiency by up to 40%, with predictive analytics significantly increasing conversion potential. 3. Enhanced Efficiency and Speed AI automates many aspects of MMM, from data cleaning and preprocessing to model building and interpretation. This significantly reduces the time and resources required for MMM analysis. AI enables real-time or near real-time MMM, allowing marketers to adjust campaigns on the fly based on the latest data and insights. This agility is crucial in today's dynamic marketing environment. 4. Predictive Capabilities AI can be used to forecast the impact of future marketing campaigns, enabling marketers to make data-driven decisions about budget allocation and channel selection. AI facilitates scenario planning by simulating the potential outcomes of different marketing strategies. This helps marketers identify the most promising approaches and mitigate risks. 5. Overcoming Limitations of Traditional MMM AI can more accurately model the long-term impact of marketing activities, such as brand building, by capturing adstock and carryover effects and can help address the complex challenge of attributing marketing outcomes to specific touchpoints across the customer journey. What is the difference between MMM and MTA? Marketing mix modeling (MMM) analyzes how various marketing elements collectively impact sales or other KPIs, while multi-touch attribution (MTA) identifies the specific contribution of each touchpoint in the customer journey. MMM relies on historical, aggregated data (like campaign budgets or overall sales figures) while MTA needs more granular, real-time data on individual user interactions. Learn more about how and when to use each analysis method below: What are the best marketing mix modeling tools? As with most things, it depends - on your needs, budget, and level of technical skill. Recent innovations in MMM tools are making it easier for advertisers to approach and understand statistical regression models. Keen Decision Systems Take, for example, the collaboration between retail data aggregator Crisp and MMM platform Keen Decision Systems. This partnership represents a significant leap forward, enabling CPG marketers to combine daily, store-level data from multiple retailers with advanced modeling techniques. The result? The ability to plan, measure, and adjust budget allocations in real-time with unprecedented precision. Resonate Insights Another standout tool our own analysts love is Resonate, an AI-powered data platform that goes beyond traditional analytics. By combining consumer data with machine learning, Resonate provides robust audience insights that go far deeper than surface-level demographics. Google's Meridian Meridian is an open-source MMM tool that measures full-funnel performance, integrating incrementality experiments, controlling for organic demand with the inclusion of search query volume data, and making video measurement more actionable by modeling reach and frequency. InsightMix reduces the time it takes our teams to develop MMM models from weeks to hours, and allows us to iterate through hundreds of model variants to maximize accuracy and relevance to real-world business impact. Meta's Robyn Finally, Robyn is an experimental, machine learning-powered, open-sourced MMM package from Meta Marketing Science. These sophisticated tools do more than just collect data—they illustrate the intricate interconnectivity between media channels. By leveraging advanced algorithms and comprehensive data sets, marketers can now confidently justify every marketing dollar spent, transforming what was once a guessing game into a strategic, measurable process. And couldn't we all use a little more peace of mind these days? To ask our media experts how MMM or MTA can help manage your brand's ad budget more efficiently, shoot us a note using the form below! For more ad buying news and tips, join our free, weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter.

Efficiency isn’t bad — but efficiency without effectiveness is just cheap media.

Instagram Reels beats TikTok on several key metrics, and Meta's ad capabilities are only getting stronger. Photo by Victor Freitas While the industry fixates on TikTok's uncertain future, the real story is playing out in the data: Instagram Reels is quietly dominating the short-form video space. Our recent Q4 campaign analysis for a top CPG client revealed Reels crushing TikTok on cost-efficiency, engagement rates, and video completion —the trifecta that actually moves the needle for brands. Add Meta's AI-powered Advantage+ suite into the mix, delivering 22% performance lifts on average, and you've got a platform that's not just surviving—it's thriving. With Meta capturing 60% of US social ad spend and Instagram driving $37 billion of that revenue, the question isn't whether to advertise on Meta in 2026. It's how quickly you can shift budget to Reels before your competitors do. Key Facts: Meta accounts for 60% of all US social media ad spend, totaling $66 billion in 2024 (up 17% year-over-year). Instagram Reels delivers better cost-efficiency than TikTok, with 27% lower CPM and 30% lower CPC in Q4 2024 client campaigns. Reels users are twice as likely to complete videos compared to TikTok and show 29% higher engagement rates. Meta's AI-powered Advantage+ tools are driving significant performance gains, with businesses using Advantage+ Sales Campaigns seeing an average 22% increase in ad performance. Is advertising on Meta still effective? Meta's (which encompasses Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp) advertising journey has evolved dramatically since Facebook's first sponsored stories in 2004. The platform pioneered highly targeted social advertising by leveraging its rich user data, expanding to Instagram in 2013 and later incorporating advanced features like Dynamic Ads and Custom Audiences. Despite Apple's iOS privacy changes in 2021 impacting targeting capabilities, Meta's ad platform remains compelling for marketers, reaching over 3.19 billion monthly active users across its family of apps. According to 2024 data, 71% of online users are more likely to base purchase decisions on reviews on social media. There are three ways of optimizing for brand on Meta, so our analysis included the Reach, Ad Recall, and Thruplays objectives, testing their impact on audience type and brand metric shifts.  How much does Meta make from ads? Although TikTok has doubled its US ad revenue since 2022 (now totaling $11B), Meta still accounts for 60% of all US media spend, (increasing 17% year-over-year to total $66B in 2024). Worldwide, Meta's ad revenue totals a whopping $160B in 2024 and is projected to reach $183.8B in 2025! And despite fast growth from emerging social platforms like Snapchat  and Reddit , Instagram is still the primary driver of Meta's growth, accounting for $37B of US revenue this year. Will Meta use grow or decline in 2026? With TikTok 's  future uncertain, Instagram Reels is poised to capture its audience and advertising dollars, offering a similar short-form video format within an established platform. Reels' integration with Instagram's massive user base and robust advertising tools makes it a compelling alternative for brands seeking to maintain their reach and engagement. But Instagram faces headwinds in hooking Gen Z and Gen Alpha users who show strong attachment to TikTok and YouTube. It's unclear yet which channel would reign supreme in the case of a TikTok ban. 2025 Sprout Social Index Edition XX Is it better to advertise on Meta or TikTok? As with all media planning decisions, it depends on your brand and your audience. What matters most is not which platform, but providing culturally relevant, on-brand content and excellent customer service on social media. While TikTok is still available as an advertising channel, brands should continue to consider it if their audience indexes highly for TikTok. (See our own agency contingency plan here ). However, looking at one of our own top CPG client’s Reels-only campaigns in Q4, Meta Reels significantly outperformed TikTok in terms of key metrics, like:   Cost-efficiency Reels delivered impressions at a lower CPM ($2.80 vs. $3.27) and clicks at a lower CPC ($1.03 vs. $1.48) than TikTok. This indicates Reels is getting more bang for each buck!   Higher Engagement Rate Reels also had a substantially higher engagement rate (9.32% vs. 7.25%) than TikTok. This means viewers were more likely to interact with Reels content, whether through likes, comments, shares, or saves.    Video Completion Rate While TikTok boasts more total video completes, the much lower Video Completion Rate (VCR) on TikTok (0.75% vs 1.5% on Reels) suggests that Reels viewers who do start a video are much more likely to watch it to completion. The higher VCR on Reels is a strong indicator of more engaged viewership. 2025 Sprout Social Index Edition XX What were the major changes in Meta Ads in 2025? Meta recently added to its suite of AI-powered advertising capabilities, like: Advantage+ , which automates ad targeting and placement Advantage+Creative , a generative AI  tool that creates several variations of a creative asset to rotate throughout a campaign and prevent ad fatigue Advantage+Sales  (previously known as Advantage+Shopping) a social commerce  tool tying ad views to actual conversions; and now, Advantage+Leads , which uses AI to help brands find high-quality leads Nicola Mendelsohn , head of Meta’s Global Business Group, says the company is driving massive user engagement through AI recommendations, noting that businesses using Advantage+Sales Campaigns have seen an average 22% increase in ad performance . On average, ad campaigns using these genAI features have seen 11% higher clickthrough rates and a 7.6% higher conversion rate compared with those that don’t use the tools. While Meta strengthens its technical abilities, we’re devising creative ways to make social more searchable , shoppable  and “omni-funnel” for brands every day.   For more information about Paid Social Advertising , check out Exverus' Director of Paid Search & Social Ryan Schuster's expertise in Inc. Magazine : Which social platforms actually convert sales? Hint: It's not TikTok. For more ad buying news and tips, join our free, weekly Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude will soon collapse the customer journey into a single conversation, and brands need a whole new media strategy to own them. On a hot, Arizona day in March 2026, Exverus VP of Performance Marketing Hillary Kupferberg took the stage to tell a roomful of marketers and media buyers: You're behind. She was talking about the dawn of AI shopping, or agentic commerce, a process in which consumers turn to AI chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for product recommendations, and an AI shopping agent fills their basket. It's the future (no, the present reality ) of e-commerce, and brand marketers need to adapt their marketing strategies quickly. When the whole product discovery-to-purchase pathway is collapsed into a single chatbot conversation, traditional advertising tactics like Paid Search driving clicks to a website become irrelevant. Let Hillary explain: Zero-click Search Marketing We're entering a world where better marketing produces worse-looking Search metrics. One of our CPG brands saw a 30% decline clicks to site but were actually winning and gaining share in AI overviews. Brands relying on website clicks today to measure their success are actually falling behind, and your marketing is looking worse. So, we need to measure differently. We all know the old terms of share of voice , but what we're quickly finding is that in order to win today, you actually need to be looking at share of model. Is your brand or your product being cited and mentioned in these LLMS? The reason this matters is, if we evaluate all these new forms of technology under our own old models, we're going to lose. Now we're marketing to AI and consumers. So we really are thinking about this differently today, rewriting success. And when we look at all the new new traffic sources, where are leads coming from? Is it ChatGPT? Is it Copilot? Is it Gemini? These things matter. Reddit is a huge one that's really powerful. For one of our brands, we were able to identify that [Reddit] is the third most visible domain on Google, and that's pulling into all of the AI Overviews. Agentic commerce On Amazon Prime Day, we saw a 3,000% increase of GenAI traffic to Amazon. That's huge! And we really entered a tipping point that is quickly transforming the commerce world. The point of sale is now inside the conversation. Discovery is happening within all of these conversations. And if you think about the first prompt you ever gave AI, "I need a new pair of sneakers" is very different than how I talk to AI now and likely you do, as well. Really in-depth prompts about exactly what type of hiking shoe I need, that it needs to fit in my carry-on, I want them to be waterproof, only in blue. These are the types of information that customers are giving; they're having deep conversations with AI to find the right products. They're not visiting your website, but ultimately what we're seeing with retailers and commerce partners actively partnering with OpenAI is the future of retail and e-commerce. Conversational AI is a new purchase channel. As of very recently, we can start to buy ads there. But even without paid media, this is a really important tool for your brands to be thinking about because AI is predicting, recommending, and ultimately completing the transactions all within that chat. The retailers, as they continue to partner with OpenAI, will have really strong purchase data that isn't happening on your brand site. And we see that people are really leaned in. 63% of users are doing this for research and discovery, and 53% take it a step further and compare products and prices. So everything from your search to your retail PDPs need to be specifically consistent and translate to the AI so the AI models can mention and cite your brands and your products when relevant. Actionable Takeaways I encourage you all to take pictures of this slide because these are tangible things you can bring back to your organization to introduce new ways of measuring success in this agentic commerce world. And just remember that if your organization is still measuring clicks, you're a little bit behind. But the good news is we're here to help. FAQs about AI shopping Q: I loved your insight about Reddit and how brands could get some leverage there. Jay Walker Smith [of MediaPost] wrote a piece recently that the number one source of expert information on the LLMs is Reddit. Number two is Wikipedia. Is that dumbing down the expertise , and is there going to be kind of backlash for brands who are using LLMs for, how should I say, less than perfect information? A: Definitely. It's it really is the wild west. I can't predict what will happen, but I think it's a "both/and situation" between what's happening on Reddit and Wikipedia (more of that user-generated [content]), plus what the brand is putting out. So you have to do both to in order to succeed. And so it does take a lot to be commerce-ready and visible and consistent across many different touch points where the formats are different. How people want to consume the information is different, but brands that are paying attention to both I think will be ahead. Q. The relationship between AI and search is undeniable in terms of the level of disruption there. I'm curious what you're seeing in the ripples with programmatic and display as well, because if that whole behavior and model shifts where people aren't searching online, and we're not retargeting them, and going through that traditional funnel, what are the recommendations, or where do you see programmatic moving with AI now? A. I think programmatic will take a lot of signals from what we're seeing and learning honestly with search as new releases are happening, in terms of product, and what the actual ad formats available will be, and it'll change over time. Again, I don't think it's replacing what we've seen. A lot of fears around volume of search decreasing didn't actually come to play; volume of search is actually up, but how people are consuming and ultimately getting the information is just resulting in less clicks. So, what we're expecting in the programmatic space is even more innovation in terms of ad formats and similar results in terms of expectations around click-based performance. Q. I'm excited now that you said we will soon be making a purchase within an AI platform, and I'm just curious, can you share anything about like a personal purchase that you found very smooth through an AI platform? A. Definitely. Walmart is doing it really well. [Adoption] is low right now. We're at about 8% of people are actually transacting within ChatGPT. I think there's still concerns around adoption and trust . So, giving ChatGPT your credit card is the default, but actually you're giving Walmart your credit card. Purchases that I've made are pretty boring, but mostly in the grocery category. For further reference Watch Hillary's presentation video: MediaPost Live on YouTube. "The New Path from Discovery to Digital Shelf." March 2026. For more on personalization in AI shopping: EMARKETER. " How AI has remade product pages, discovery, and personalization." March 2026. For different retailers' offerings: ADWEEK. "Walmart and Target Are Battling to Show Up in AI Shopping Tools. Here's How Their Strategies Compare." March 2026. About the Author Hillary Kupferberg is the VP of Performance Marketing at Exverus by Brainlabs where she holistically oversees the agency's robust retail media and e-commerce team, programmatic advertising, paid search, and paid social teams. Over a decade-plus in advertising, Hillary's expertise has expanded to meet each new technological innovation, bridging gaps between channels for the strongest possible returns. Previously, Hillary served as Director of Digital Strategy for top luxury brands, winning industry awards and speaking at conferences like IAB.

The world's biggest media channel has fundamentally evolved, and your media buying framework must, too. Key Takeaways YouTube is now competing for TV budgets — and winning on attention. Adelaide's Q4 2025 data puts YouTube's Attention Unit score (64.3) above both CTV (63.4) and linear TV (53.9). If your media plan still treats YouTube as a digital add-on, you're misallocating against where attention actually lives. Google's audience data layer is YouTube's biggest underused advantage.  Search intent, in-market signals, purchase behavior — layered onto video. No other platform offers this. Most challenger brands barely touch it. Format is strategy, not logistics. Shorts, skippable in-stream, bumpers, and Demand Gen are different tools for different funnel jobs. Defaulting to one format isn't efficiency — it's waste with a cleaner invoice. Last-click attribution is lying to you about YouTube.  YouTube builds mental availability that shows up later as branded search and lower CAC. If you're not using brand lift studies and MMM, you're systematically undervaluing your investment and you'll feel it in six months. Plenty of resources online discuss the benefits and different creative formats for YouTube advertising, but here, we want to focus on the strategy of building it into a full-funnel media campaign. Growth-stage brands particularly need to keep the bigger picture in mind and design for long-term, sustained growth, rather than wasting money on short-lived spikes. YouTube beats TV for attention Most brands treat YouTube, now the world’s largest media company per The Hollywood Reporter , as either one of two things: 1. a more affordable TV spot, or 2. a performance channel that delivers immediate ROAS It's neither of those, and brands stuck in that binary are leaving the most valuable thing YouTube offers on the table: superior attention metrics (AU) .  According to Adelaide data , YouTube’s AU beat out CTV and Linear TV in Q4 of 2025, placing it in direct competition for TV advertising budgets in 2026.  Device-wise,  YouTube is now a living-room TV staple , which means the creative and media buying implications are completely different here from on a mobile phone.  Meanwhile, Shorts crossed 70 billion daily views in 2025 — a wholly separate viewing context with different pacing, attention, and creative requirements than long-form. Brands still repurposing 16:9 cuts are running the wrong asset in the wrong environment. Plus, the Google audience data layer (search intent, in-market signals, purchase behavior) makes YouTube targeting different from any other video platform, and most brands barely use it.  What this means for brands: If your YouTube advertising framework hasn’t fundamentally changed in the last 2 years, then you’re planning for a platform that no longer exists.  Growth-stage brands can't afford wasted video advertising spend. Stretch every dollar with smarter placements, formats, and channel mix. 3 ways brands get YouTube video marketing wrong Mistake 1: Treating it as a TV substitute   Don't just repurpose 30-second broadcast spots without adapting for the skip button, the screen context, or the audience signal available. The first 5 seconds on a skippable, in-stream ad do more work than the rest of the spot combined — most TV creative isn't built that way. Mistake 2: Buying it purely as a performance channel YouTube can drive conversions — Demand Gen campaigns are real. But optimizing YouTube entirely to last-click ROAS systematically undervalues its brand-building  contribution, which shows up in search lift, consideration shifts, and lower CAC downstream.  Mistake 3: Running one format for the whole funnel Skippable in-stream is for awareness, bumpers are for reinforcement, Shorts are for discovery, and Demand Gen is for conversion. These aren't interchangeable, and brands that run a single format "because it's easier" are doing the equivalent of using a hammer for every tool in the kit.  Measuring YouTube campaign's actual business impact Here's the measurement trap most brands fall into : they hold YouTube to the same real-time accountability standard as paid search, then wonder why it doesn't look as efficient. YouTube's native metrics — view-through rate (VTR), cost-per-view (CPV), completion rate (VCR)— are useful signals for in-flight optimization. They tell you whether your creative is holding attention, whether you're bidding competitively, and whether a format is working within a campaign. What in-platform metrics cannot  tell you is whether YouTube is contributing to your brand's growth.  That's a different question, and it requires different instruments. For upper- and mid-funnel YouTube investment, brand lift studies are the right starting point.   Third-party tools from Kantar, DISQO, or Nielsen add methodological rigor and cross-channel comparability if you need to benchmark YouTube against other video investments. The key discipline: set up measurement before the campaign launches, not after, and resist the temptation to read results mid-flight before statistical significance is reached. For understanding YouTube's contribution relative to your full channel mix, you need MMM.  This is where YouTube is most chronically undervalued for challenger brands — and the reason is structural. Last-click and multi-touch attribution models are largely blind to YouTube's upper-funnel contribution  because they're built to trace individual user journeys through trackable clicks. YouTube awareness exposure rarely generates a click — it generates a mental availability shift that shows up weeks later as a branded search, a higher conversion rate, a lower cost-per-acquisition. Attribution models miss all of that. MMM, which works from aggregated business data rather than individual click paths, captures it. Predictive analytics and big-picture insights make marketing mix modeling tools invaluable to brand marketers of all industries in 2026 and beyond. Don't evaluate YouTube in isolation from your Search campaigns.   The two are more connected than most measurement setups acknowledge. YouTube exposure — particularly mid-funnel video view campaigns targeting in-market audiences — consistently lifts branded search volume among exposed users. That branded search lift is one of YouTube's most measurable downstream signals , and it's one you can track directly in Google Ads by cross-referencing campaign exposure windows with search impression share and branded query volume. Examples of successful YouTube advertising campaigns Video sells Voodoo Ranger 'Voodoo Ranger: Megabrand' won a MediaPost OMMA for Best Alcoholic Beverage Campaign! In 2024, New Belgium Brewing’s Voodoo Ranger product line was the #1 IPA in the US. But the craft beer category was sinking, and we needed to strengthen the brand just to hold the top spot, let alone grow in tough conditions. Video played a huge role, from Premium CTV to Paid Social and YouTube.  We used a mix of formats to balance efficiency and effectiveness, including  Vertical video spots on YouTube Shorts for efficient Reach Non-skippable :15 spots for Reach YouTube Select audiences to drive awareness among comedy / gaming / pop culture enthusiasts  and more The full-funnel media campaign secured 42% more incremental impressions than we’d planned while maintaining cost efficiencies. YouTube was a showstopper, driving significant lift in Ad Awareness (+9.6pp), Favorability (+8.7pp), and Familiarity (+8.3pp)! Specifically, the YouTube Select Comedy lineup drove an astounding +16.67% absolute Ad Recall lift, and the Entertainment/Pop Culture lineup drove a +162% relative search lift on “Voodoo Ranger” search terms.  Most importantly, we grew VDR Juice Force IPA sales by 8% YoY, bucking the category’s downward trend and doubling our growth goal! "The Chosen" breaks a brand record “The Chosen,” an indie streaming drama, faced an uphill battle. While big-studio productions enjoy massive marketing budgets, this homegrown brand needed to continue funding production against inflation on a shoestring budget. So, we decided to reverse the typical distribution model and premiere Season 5 in theaters, hoping to overcome Hollywood’s headwinds.  Video accounted for 52% of the media mix. Starting two weeks before premiere: YouTube, Prime Video, and Netflix delivered interactive trailers whose QR codes linked directly to ticketing pages in 20 global markets.  An efficient $7.58 CPM allowed the message to be shared across over 1.19 billion impressions. A 9 cent Cost Per Person Reached (CPPR) was efficient enough to reach 68 million unique US audiences. The whole campaign contributed to a $50MM global box office revenue and 6.1MM tickets sold, smashing our goals! Sources: The Hollywood Reporter. "YouTube lays claim to another crown: The world's largest media company." March 2026. EMARKETER. "YouTube rivals CTV for premium attention, edges out linear TV." March 2026. Google Ads. "Creative excellence guide for demand gen campaigns." 2023. For more media buying tips, agency news, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly   Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

The ubiquitous video platform is now America's #1 home for podcasts. Learn how your brand can benefit from its reach, engagement, and loyalty. YouTube is now the #1 platform for podcasts in the US, beating Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You've probably noticed that many of your favorite podcasts now come in video form -- why is that? Video builds a deeper personal/emotional connection with viewers Advertisers are already well accustomed to video-format ads in multiple channels, so it's easier for them to integrate with YouTube podcasts than audio channels YouTube is a powerful discovery engine Video clips are easier to tease on social media for audience growth YouTube is the fastest-growing platform for podcasts, which increasingly include a video element. In fact, a 2024 report  from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill crowned YouTube the most popular podcast audience platform in the US , far surpassing Spotify and Apple! Semafor reports, " monthly podcast listenership on the platform surpassed 400MM hours, and it recently had 1B users who viewed podcast content on YouTube in a month." Then, in March 2025, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced via public letter that YouTube was preparing "more tools to support podcasters, improve monetization for creators, and make it easier to discover podcasts." Specifically, Semafor reports that YouTube is working on dynamically inserting host-read video ads so that viewers can watch an old video but see ads that apply currently (just like with programmatic audio ads ). That’s a golden opportunity for brands to slide in and showcase their look, sound, feel, and deals. So, what’s the most efficient way to advertise there? Frequently asked questions about YouTube podcast advertising: Can you advertise on specific YouTube channels? With   Google Ads , you can indicate which audiences, keywords, and yes, even specific channels or videos you’d like to target in your display campaigns. You can also exclude specific channels or videos that might not be safe for your brand. How much does it cost to advertise on podcasts?   According to Acast , “the average CPM (cost per 1000 listens) of podcast ads is between $15 to $30 for pre-recorded ads up to 60 seconds. Host-read sponsorships can cost between $25 to $40 CPM. Ultimately, podcast advertising rates vary based on the type of ad, audience size, targeting criteria, and other factors.” What are the different types of podcast ads? Baked-in ads. These pre-recorded audio clips are “baked” into the audio file, so everyone hears the same ad.  Dynamic ad insertion (DAI): This strategy uses advertising platforms’ audience data sets to tailor and target your ad more specifically, which can lead to better conversions.  Host-read ads: Unlike pre-recorded audio ads, host-read ads (also known as live-reads) are messages delivered straight from the mouth of a person your audience trusts. They’re like getting a recommendation from a friend or family member! They’re the least disruptive, most naturally integrated form of podcast advertising.  Branded audio content: Some brands work with podcasts (or the media publishers who own them) to produce fully branded audio experiences that both provide information or entertainment to the listener and get the brand’s message across.  A good recent example was Virgin Atlantic’s three-part branded series with Pivot , a business and tech podcast hosted by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, owned by the Vox Media Podcast Network. The hosts discussed the future of travel and electric vehicles, interviewed transportation experts, and subtly slipped in Virgin Atlantic’s offerings. These kinds of integrations can be a big lift, but they’re highly engaging and effective when done well.  Is podcast advertising worth it?  If you’re looking for brand trust and loyalty, look no further. People tune into their favorite podcasts every week because they trust and admire the host; they enjoy and learn from the content; and they’re likely to remember and consider their product recommendations.  Ad Results Media  has the receipts: “​​Podcast advertising is highly effective for building brand awareness and promoting overall brand lift...driving an average of 28% improvement in baseline awareness across industries and 24% improved brand recall.” Click here to learn about programmatically buying audio ads So, now let’s talk about best practices. How can you make the most of your advertising budget while reaping all the benefits this hot-button channel has to offer?  4 Tips for buying YouTube podcast ads: Don't just talk; listen Those who discover a podcast on YouTube say they like the platform for the comments, community, entertainment, and recommendations . These features offer additional ways to engage with potential consumers and build community around your brand.  Consider the device Spotify and Apple Podcasts listeners predominantly listen on their phones, while 38% of YouTube podcast ads are viewed on laptops or TVs. Adjust your creative assets and messaging accordingly.  Invest in host-read ads While they can be more expensive than pre-recorded ads, host-read ads offer a level of intimate trust, engagement, and recall that can significantly increase brand awareness, perception, and purchase intent.  According to Audacy’s 2024 Podcast Playbook : 46% of listeners say host-read ads are “not intrusive at all”, and 80% stay tuned for the entire ad rather than skipping it.  Run the data YouTube offers podcasters and advertisers robust data analytics  to measure and optimize campaign performance. Metrics include CPM, RPM (revenue per mille), ad impressions, and estimated monetized playbacks, or the number of times a video was watched with ads.  As always, audio and video channels should be considered in the context of diversified, full-funnel media planning . Never put all your eggs in one basket! But if you want to reach consumers in a relaxed, trustworthy, and informative environment, their favorite video podcast is a great place to start. And the right full-service media agency can help get you there. For more media buying tips, agency news, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly  Paid Media Insights  newsletter.

A brand marketer's guide to one of the fastest-growing areas of digital media buying If you work in any area of digital marketing or advertising, you've certainly heard a lot of buzz around programmatic advertising (or programmatic marketing). But what does it really mean, and how's it any different from digital advertising? This quick but comprehensive guide to programmatic media buying will help you build stronger relationships with your media agency and make smarter paid media investments. What is programmatic advertising? What are programmatic advertising platforms? What are the benefits? What are the risks? Which media channels can be bought programmatically? Is Google Ads considered programmatic? What is the difference between digital advertising and programmatic? What is the role of first-party data in programmatic advertising? How is AI used in programmatic advertising? What is programmatic advertising? Programmatic advertising   (or programmatic marketing) is a method of buying and selling digital media (ad inventory) in real time. Programmatic advertising is powered by AI and machine learning to power the auctions themselves, serve targeted ad experiences to consumers, and optimize towards KPIs for efficient marketing efforts. What are programmatic advertising platforms? The programmatic auction has two platform sides: demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) .  DSPs allow ad buyers, inclusive of media agencies (like Exverus), to bid on display, online video, connected TV (CTV) , digital out-of-home media, audio , and rich media across multiple partners in milliseconds. Examples of DSPs include DV360, The Trade Desk, Yahoo, Nexxen, etc. Meanwhile, SSPs allow media owners and publishers to manage their advertising inventory efficiently. Examples of SSPs include Magnite, Google AdX / Ad Manager, PubMatic, and OpenX, among others. Thanks to Eskimi.com for this handy visual What are the benefits of programmatic advertising? Precision Targeting:  Programmatic allows you to target specific audiences based on various criteria such as demographics, interests, and behavior. This precision targeting allows advertisers to reach the right people, at the right time, with the highest likelihood to complete the desired outcome (purchase, video view, download, subscription, etc.) Real-time Optimization:  With programmatic, you can adjust your ad campaigns in real time based on a suite of performance data. This flexibility and ability to learn delivers better results, such as higher click-through rates or conversions. Efficiency and Cost-effectiveness:  Programmatic advertising automates the ad buying process and provides transparency and efficiency. Additionally, the ability to target specific audiences and outcomes reduces wasted ad spend, making advertising campaigns more cost-effective. Access to Premium Inventory:  Programmatic platforms often have access to a wide range of ad inventory (and always expanding), including premium placements on popular websites and apps. This access allows advertisers to reach target audiences across a variety of channels with added visibility, control, and opportunity to optimize towards the most successful tactics and placements. Data-driven Insights:  Programmatic advertising provides detailed data and analytics on campaign performance. This information can help advertisers understand their consumers better and make informed decisions for future campaigns. Cross-device Targeting:  Programmatic advertising reaches people across multiple devices, including desktops, mobile devices, and connected TVs. Brand Safety & Suitability Controls:  Programmatic platforms offer tools to ensure ads are displayed in brand-safe environments pre- and post- bid. These parameters can help protect a brand’s reputation by avoiding ad placement on inappropriate sites or within unsuitable content. High quality media placements yield stronger results.  What are the risks associated with programmatic advertising? Complexity and Fragmentation:  The programmatic advertising ecosystem is complex and fragmented, with multiple platforms and technologies involved. This can make it challenging for advertisers to navigate and optimize their campaigns effectively without a strategic investment and activation strategy in place. Ad Fraud:  One of the biggest concerns with programmatic advertising is ad fraud, where bots or made-for-advertising (MFA) websites generate fake ad impressions. This can lead to wasted ad spend and reduced campaign effectiveness, but there are many ways to protect brands from this risk. Lack of Transparency:  Without proper oversight and transparency, programmatic advertising may seem like an opaque ad buying process, but actually allows for increased transparency and control vs. traditional advertising buying practices. The best way to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of programmatic buying is to work with a seasoned media agency that specializes in media planning and data analysis across the ever-changing traditional and digital media landscape. Which media channels can be bought programmatically? Programmatic platforms can be used to buy media across a variety of channels, such as:  Display Advertising : This includes standard display banner ads, rich media ads, and native ads that are displayed on websites and apps. Video Advertising : This includes pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll video ads on YouTube  and other video streaming services. Optimal video ads are between :06-:30s for digital advertising. Mobile Advertising : Includes all mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets, across apps and mobile websites. Social Media Advertising : Social media platforms offer similar buying platform options for ads, allowing advertisers to target specific audiences on platforms such as Meta (Facebook/Instagram), TikTok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. There are also ways to connect social and programmatic activations for continuity in digital advertising campaigns. CTV : Connected TV devices, such as smart TVs and streaming devices, allowing advertisers to reach audiences watching streaming content . Over-the-top (OTT) video content is often included in this category. Audio Advertising : Audio ads   that are played on streaming services, podcasts, and other audio platforms. Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) : Some DOOH  providers offer programmatic buying options, allowing advertisers to purchase ads displayed on digital billboards, screens, and signage -- for example, Vistar and Place Exchange. Paid Search : While not traditionally considered part of programmatic advertising, some platforms offer programmatic buying options for search ads, allowing advertisers to bid on keywords in real time and can connect to other media types for optimization and continuity. Retail / e-Commerce : Includes on and offsite retail media networks, e-commerce digital shelves, and purchase data and trends that can be used for enhanced audience targeting and measurement for online and offline sales. Is Google Ads considered programmatic? Yes! Google’s Display & Video 360 (DV360) platform allows advertisers to programmatically target specific audiences, buy ad inventory across a wide range of channels, and optimize campaigns in real time.  What is the difference between digital advertising and programmatic advertising? Digital advertising  is a broad term that encompasses any form of advertising delivered through digital channels, such as websites, social media, mobile apps, and search engines. It includes both traditional direct buying and programmatic buying.  Programmatic advertising  is a specific method of buying and selling digital ads that uses automation and data to optimize targeting and campaign performance.  CTV is now a performance channel. Learn how best to integrate shoppable ad units into a full-funnel media plan. What is the role of first-party data in programmatic advertising? Programmatic buying is all about precisely targeting the right audience segments with the right advertisements, so understanding your audience deeply is essential.  First-party data is information collected directly from a brand’s customers. This is the most valuable data because it is unique, relevant, accurate, and in most cases only available to that brand. First-party data is sourced from website behaviors, purchase history, surveys, contact forms, etc. and can also be referred to as CRM data. Comparatively, third-party data is publicly available and comes from other external (sometimes unknown) sources. First-party data enables strong audience builds to implement strategies and tactics within advertising campaigns (re-engagement/retargeting, suppression, modeling/lookalike etc.) (As a side note, zero-party data is information that a current or potential customer has willingly and actively offered, though this is sometimes used interchangeably with first-party data.) In addition to audience targeting, advertisers can also use first-party data for personalized messaging , retargeting, measurement and attribution, and increasing revenue. How is AI used in programmatic advertising? Long before AI became a cultural phenomenon, it was the engine driving programmatic advertising platforms through advanced machine learning. AI-powered algorithms analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends in user behavior – that data is used to create highly targeted audience segments based on demographics, interests, and online behavior, as mentioned above.  As AI technology evolves and advances, so too, will its media buying capabilities -- but it’s not there yet. Media platforms tout their AI-powered ad buying tools, but a proper team is still needed to stitch them together into an effective, omnichannel plan. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here .