President Donald Trump’s tariffs are already warping the outlook for ad spending, casting a long, uncertain shadow over the year ahead. The full impact remains to be seen — especially since he delayed most tariffs for another 90 days — but early projections point to a market that’s already bracing for impact.

Magna’s latest forecast paints the picture: the digital heavyweights — Google, Meta, Amazon and others — collectively brought in $271 billion in U.S. ad revenue last year. These so-called “digital pure players”, spanning search retail media, social, video and audio are now projected to grow by 9.1% in 2025. That’s a subtle but telling dip from the previously expected 9.9%.

Social media, often the bellwether for digital ad health, is especially losing pace. The sector brought in $83 billion last year and is not forecast to grow by 10.7% down from 11.5% — an early sign of advertisers finishing in an uncertain climate. 

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Despite the carrot and stick tactics deployed by Elon Musk’s X to cajole advertisers back on to its platform, big brands still aren’t buying in.

In the math used by marketers and media buyers to decide whether a social platform is worth their investment, X remains on the wrong side of the abacus.

According to eMarketer, X revenues (including subscription and ad income) will rise to $2.3 billion this year; higher than last year’s $1.9 billion, but still far less than its pre-acquisition income. 

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Advertising has to be at the heart of publishers’ businesses in the digital age, but publishers have also been working hard to diversify their revenue streams and, hopefully, become less dependent on ads. Those efforts might be starting to bear fruit — fewer publishers are saying the vast majority of their revenue comes from advertising this year, compared with last year.

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Wall Street may be breathing a sigh of relief over the 90-day tariff pause but marketers aren’t joining the celebration. They’ve seen this movie before — temporary reprieves followed by fresh volatility. It’s precisely why they’ve been demanding more flexibility in their media deals, especially in the fast-shifting terrain of retail media.

That’s the real pressure point. Even with some tariffs paused, others remain very much alive. A 10% blanket hike on imports from roughly 75 countries plus a 125% tariff on Chinese goods still leaves marketers facing a potential 25% surge in cost, with no clear end in sight. The math hasn’t really changed. Higher costs mean fewer goods sold. And with fewer goods to possibly move, CPG marketers are asking the obvious question: Will they need to advertise as much at all?

No one has a firm answer yet. If anything, the sudden backtracking on the more aggressive tariffs only underscores the futility of trying to make marketing decisions in real time when the policy backdrop can change by the hour. The prevailing logic now looks like this: Wait as long as possible, and be ready to move the moment it counts.

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Earlier this week, Digiday reported that parties were trying to engineer a divestment of Yahoo’s demand-side platform, but who would buy such an asset, especially in this market?

Now that the hard yards of reporting have been done, it’s time to reflect on the subsequent output of ad tech’s chattering classes to assess the likely outcomes of such a process. 

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The complaint that advertising isn’t focused on originality is a common one. Every few years, conversations about when the creative was wild and innovative resurges. What’s different now is that creatives have even more threats to their livelihoods — the rise of AI, the rush to follow trends on social, squeezed budgets and now tariffs.

In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we hear from a senior creative at a creative agency on originality.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

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Creators — and the brands they work with — are navigating a complex landscape. Social media platforms are flooded with content and creators, while constant tweaks to their algorithms can dramatically impact reach and engagement.

These challenges make it increasingly difficult for creators to monetize their content, particularly those who rely on sharing affiliate links. This also creates a ripple effect for brands, as they deal with unpredictable reach and ROI regarding their creator marketing efforts.

“With the sheer volume of content that’s on social media right now, it’s critical for creators to stand out. And the most successful creators are standing out through strong authenticity,” said Ashley Allen, vp of product management at Collective Voice. “Creators building long-term engagement and fostering those relationships with their followers create that deepening connection that will, in turn, produce results for brands.

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BeReal is betting that everyone else’s uncertainty is its moment.

Despite starting out as an anti-ad platform, the social app is kicking off its U.S. ads business today, at what might seem like the worst possible time to ask marketers for money — when budgets are tight and patience is tighter. But according to BeReal’s U.S. ad chief, the surrounding chaos isn’t a hurdle, it’s an opening.

“From what I’ve heard from my contacts on the agency and brand side in the U.S., there’s a need for an alternative to the polished, less authentic content that users are consuming and they are seeing a rebalance of ecosystems,” said Ben Moore, who is joining BeReal as managing director of the U.S. on Monday, from Walmart Connect. “Agencies are definitely reevaluating where they show up and that’s where we come in.”

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Generative AI tools keep finding their way deeper into the world of agencies in varying ways — but their main value seems to still be in saving time and money for creative output and execution. 

The latest example, Digiday has learned, comes from Brandtech Group’s Pencil unit, which is charged with offering AI-driven creative marketing solutions for a number of clients. Pencil is collaborating with Google to integrate the latter’s AI-based video generation model, Veo 2, into its offering. 

The integration accesses Google’s AI models, such as Gemini for text generation, Imagen 3 for image creation and Google Cloud’s ABCD framework for asset analysis into a single interface. The aim is to enable marketers to generate and deploy high-quality, AI-driven content with efficiency and scale.

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Publishers are watching the potential fallout of President Trump’s tariffs with guarded pragmatism, uneasy about the potential ad revenue fallout but not making any knee-jerk changes to forecasting.

That might be because, after years of navigating shifting ad markets, platform changes, and economic headwinds including multiple recessions and the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve simply grown used to rolling with the punches.

It could also just be the calm before the storm. 

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For this week’s Media Briefing, we’ve put together a list of some of the different AI revenue models that publishers are signing — including ad revenue share deals and content usage fees — and the pros and cons of each.

• Pros and cons of AI revenue models for publishers
• BBC upset about source attribution in news services, The Washington Post weighs micropayments and more.

Pros and cons of AI revenue models

About this time last year, content licensing deals between publishers and AI tech companies like OpenAI and Microsoft were kicking off. Since then, newer entrants like ProRata.AI and Tollbits have started to catch publishers’ attention and signed new deals, in the hopes that they will bring in revenue from ads, subscriptions and content usage fees.

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Yahoo has held preliminary talks with investment banks and potential buyers of its demand-side platform, according to sources familiar with the developments. 

Yahoo officially turned 30 last month, and in its trailblazing pomp of the 1990s and early 2000s, it was known as “the gateway to the internet.” However, in recent years, its various owners and leadership teams have had different ideas on monetizing its assets. 

Under its current ownership, Apollo Global Management – the private equity giant that took over Yahoo in 2021 – this could include a future without ad tech assets, with suitors inquiring about its DSP in recent weeks. 

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Erin McCallion, Chief Marketing Officer, Perion

In this fiercely competitive retail market, capturing consumer attention and converting it into sales requires more than traditional advertising. Brands must innovate relentlessly to stay relevant. 

Hyper-local, multi-touch and performance-driven advertising strategies are the heart of much of this innovation. These strategies harness first-party data, dynamic and personalized creative, contextual relevance and AI algorithms to improve performance at every step of the campaign. These tools aren’t just reshaping advertising — they’re redefining personalized consumer engagement and driving measurable results for major global brands.

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Brittany Blackford, director of growth partnerships, buy-side, Experian

For travel and hospitality brands, the challenge isn’t only about reaching potential guests, it’s also about proving that marketing efforts lead to actual bookings.

Windstar Cruises, a luxury small-ship cruise line known for its intimate and unique itineraries, faced this exact challenge. The brand’s marketing efforts generated engagement — impressions, clicks and quote requests — but lacked a clear connection between digital advertising spend and confirmed reservations.

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Creator funds are back en vogue thanks to platforms like Substack and the Billion Dollar Boy agency launching fresh versions this year. And what better way to pique creators’ interests than by offering them cash rewards? Or so they thought.

TikTok introduced creator funds to the scene back in 2020, which led to its platform peers trying to outdo each other by offering bigger pots of cash. But over the years, social media apps including YouTube and Snapchat have wound down their funds in favor of the more sustainable revenue-share deals – an offering which required a hefty upfront investment, (far more than a creator fund), but is considered to provide creators with more consistent earnings.

Still, while creator funds appear shiny and new again, Digiday busts the most persistent myths about them, and sheds light on the truth behind those payouts.

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A year after leaving Substack in early 2024, newsletter writers are making more money peddling their words on other platforms.

Across the board, writers such as Marisa Kabas, Luke O’Neil, Jonathan M. Katz and Ryan Broderick — all of whom exited Substack in early 2024 following the publication of an open letter in December 2023 decrying the presence of politically extreme voices on the platform — told Digiday that they are receiving a higher share of subscription revenue after making the switch from Substack to rival newsletter services such as Ghost and Beehiiv.

Broderick, for example, estimated that revenue for his newsletter Garbage Day had increased by roughly 20 to 25 percent year over year since he left Substack in January 2024, though he didn’t provide exact figures. 

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Interpublic Group (IPG) may be navigating an uncertain future, but it’s still hiring top tech talent in a bid to remain competitive.

The U.S.-based holding company has appointed tech entrepreneur Yaniv Sarig as its global head of AI commerce, with a brief to rapidly integrate agentic AI into its commerce and performance media offering.

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It’s the latest top AI position created by an agency group in recent months. Last week, IPG’s crosstown rival Stagwell appointed IBM and Microsoft veteran John Kahan as its chief AI officer (CAIO), while Monks (formerly Media.Monks) recently made founding exec Wesley ter Haar, already the challenger group’s tech pointman, its own CAIO.

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This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how the mounting economic uncertainty has started to color considerations heading into this year’s TV and streaming upfront negotiations.

• The F-word
• Is the currency changeover over?
• Tariffs and Hollywood, tariffs and TikTok, TikTok and Amazon and more

The F-word

I get that the advertising market is cyclical. But could it not have taken a little longer until the economic uncertainty narrative came back around to cloud the annual upfront negotiations? Alas, here we are.

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Professional basketball team the Atlanta Hawks have launched the NBA’s first formalized, team-level creator collective.

The Atlanta Hawks Creator Collective is a group of 25 content creators that the NBA team has granted special access to home games and events such as training facility tours. The team soft-launched the program last year, with Atlanta-based creators including Dayna Bolden and Roxanne Kaiser attending — and posting about — Hawks events throughout the 2024-2025 basketball season.

The collective spans across both platforms and genres, and includes non-sports creators such as Kaiser and Julio Angel Muñoz. Members of the collective are paid a fee to create content about the games they attend, in addition to a mixture of other paid and unpaid opportunities. The past year represented a beta test of sorts for the program. Pleased with its performance, Hawks executives plan to officially announce the collective tomorrow, at Atlanta’s State of Creators of Color summit.

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The Monday after President Trump’s tariffs rattled global markets and raised the specter of a recession, global agency group Dept did what few in advertising are built to do: it pivoted to policy. The shop stood up a 10-person team of strategists — not to pitch an idea but to translate Trump’s policies on tariffs into something a marketer could act on.

And not a moment too soon. Unlike past macroeconomic crises, this one put marketers at the center. The ripple effects hit every part of their remit: media budgets, pricing models, procurement timelines. The usual buffers between policy and marketing disappeared overnight. 

So Dept adapted. Less about campaigns, more about contingency. A team of Trump policy interpreters helping clients contort their way through the chaos. They’re working along two tracks: with marketers based in the U.S. and with those outside it looking to sell into the country — each facing a different set of questions and a shared sense of uncertainty.

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