Budget Boost: Three-Quarters Of Marketers Expecting Budget Increase In 2025

Last week, I wrote about where advertising spend will be going in 2025. Just as important as the directional trends is the allocation trends, and a new report shows budget increases for most companies’ digital advertising.

3 out of 4 marketers are expecting their budgets to increase, according to a survey in Smartly’s 2025 Digital Advertising Trends report, with 1 in 5 expecting that increase to exceed 20%.

“As marketing budgets continue to grow, marketers are shifting their focus towards channels that promise higher returns and better audience engagement,” the report says. “Diversifying investments and embracing predictive budget allocation tools are enabling teams to optimize spending and achieve more efficient results across channels. This strategic allocation of resources sets the stage for adopting innovative technologies that drive peak performance.”

The report says Meta, paid search, and YouTube were the top ad investment choices in 2024, with predictions that audio, out-of-home, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, retail media networks, and affiliate marketing will see the biggest increases in 2025. Of those marketers who are seeing budget increases next year, more than half (58%) will be spending more on YouTube.

“Creative automation is empowering brand and performance marketers to streamline the process of creating ad content at greater speed, velocity and efficiency,” the report says, pointing to the 70% of marketers who say creative remains their biggest challenge. “Among marketers utilizing AI, 80% agree it is living up to the hype, driving both efficiency and performance.”

(Source: Smartly)

Nine in 10 marketers are using automation for their campaigns, “with a majority (70%) successfully using AI tools,” the report says, “a notable increase from 2024.” Eight in 10 believe genAI will have a positive impact on their business.

“AI helps to scale campaigns efficiently, particularly in simplifying processes like campaign management,” the report says. “Leveraging AI to streamline tasks allows creative teams to focus on strategic aspects of campaigns while AI takes care of time-consuming tasks like resizing, testing, and optimizing creative assets.”

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