Advertisers are finding themselves in uncharted territory. Social media returns are dwindling. Budgets are fleeing from linear TV. And AI is completely transforming the search experience, along with nearly every other ad process.
As a result, advertisers are looking for new ways to diversify their spend beyond these walled gardens. But here’s the kicker: They don’t just want to drive awareness and consideration.
They’re pivoting to prioritizing performance and this is highlighted further in a volatile economic environment.
The question now is, which channels can advertisers use to generate those measurable, scalable performance results? And how can they effectively make that mindset shift to meet this new world of advertising?
At this year’s Taboola Investor Day, I sat down with a panel of advertising experts from across industries — including pharmaceuticals, home improvement, finance, and publishing — to gather their insights and find out. Our partner participants included:
- Julie Hansen, CRO & US CEO, Babbel
- Tim Stevens, COO, QuinStreet
- Justin Chase, EVP of Media, Eversana
- Jeff Ratner, President of Media, Analytics & Data, Quigley-Simpson
They unpacked everything from their biggest strategy changes and most important KPIs to the future of performance advertising as we know it. As Chase put it so well: “Performance is a shift in mindset, a different way of thinking operationally and strategically.”
Here’s a closer look at what they had to say.
Diversifying Beyond Search and Social
The ad landscape today doesn’t look like it did 10 or even five years ago. In a recent study, Taboola and Qualtrics found that nearly 75% of advertisers are noticing diminishing returns on social media.
“We’ve always allocated a lot of spend to search and social because they worked, but now they’re not working so well [anymore],” said Julie Hansen, CRO & US CEO of Babbel. “The target audience has gotten smaller, less effective, and more expensive. That’s a huge challenge.”
Download The Pulse of Performance Advertising: Diminishing Returns
Download HereOver at Quigley-Simpson, President Jeff Ratner is experiencing the same thing. “CPC and CPM keep rising and it affects our ROAS or CAC,” he said. “Those platforms have become oversaturated biddable marketplaces and some clients get dwarfed in their spending.”
Meanwhile AI’s impact on search results also has advertisers rethinking their strategies and seeking new channels.
“While search volume is up, AI is changing how search works,” Ratner added. “So, how do we diversify our spend and find performance opportunities where we can create efficiency and build scale?”
Prioritizing Performance-Based KPIs
It makes sense that advertisers are seeking out performance-based ad solutions, since their success is largely measured by performance KPIs, and there is a tighter link between those KPIs and the ultimate business results
“Our clients measure us on the basis of their CAC (customer acquisition cost),” said Tim Stevens, COO of QuinStreet. “As long as we’re hitting that, our budget is unlimited. We’ll spend as much as they can take and as long as it performs.”
Chase sees a similar focus on performance in the pharmaceutical industry. “We’re able to put our money where our mouth is and do what I call ‘de-risk media,’” he said. “When I come to a pharmaceutical CEO and talk to him about how we can increase audience quality and get to a place where our ROAS looks far better than it did a year or three years ago, the lean in there is pretty significant.”
“The Timing is Perfect” for Performance
Taboola is leading the charge to provide those performance opportunities across the open web and meet this urgent advertiser need. That’s why we launched Realize, an industry-first platform that delivers concrete outcomes at scale beyond search and social.
“[Realize] changes everything,” Chase said. “If we can map through the intent-based targeting that Taboola now offers without spending as much as we have on patient propensity models, this changes everything for us. From a pharma standpoint, this is an enormous advancement that I’m really excited about.”
He’s not alone. After utilizing Realize, Babbel beat their ROAS target by 35% after just six months of testing. In fact, Quigley-Simpson also measured a 35% increase in ROAS after testing Realize with a client since the beginning of the year.
“We evaluate partners on their access to brand-safe, transparent, accountable inventory,” Ratner said. “Taboola and Realize have that.”
Meanwhile at QuinStreet, Stevens is most excited about the ability to scale these measurable outcomes. “What stands in the way between us growing is performance access to consumers who are in our market,” he said. “That’s what Realize represents to us.”
It’s no surprise that, when asked about the future of advertising, panelists pointed to two main concepts: AI and performance. And they’re not mutually exclusive. The combination of premium supply, unique data and AI tools, provide advertisers new opportunities to optimize their ad budgets, especially as they shift beyond the walled gardens of traditional or over-saturated channels.
As Chase said, “Thinking strategically about how you’re going to move towards performance is a phenomenal strategy. The timing is perfect to take advantage of this shift.”
