5 charts: Agency changes, privacy laws, and AI define media planning in 2025

US total media ad spend will hit $424.94 billion in 2025, for a growth of 7.5% YoY, per our forecast. While the industry will see some expected deceleration from 2024’s growth of 11.5% fueled by the election and the Olympics, ad spend on the whole is healthy. But that doesn’t mean media planning is easy.

Ad buyers will see a year of agency changes, privacy problems, AI innovations, and media network competition in 2025. Here are five charts to help media planners prepare for the year ahead.

1. Major agencies are losing spending share

While 2025’s projected ad spend shows the industry is healthy, there may be some challenges for major agencies, which have seen a decreasing share of US ad spend over the past several years, per Advertiser Perceptions. More spend is now being managed by brands, smaller agencies, and agencies owned by consultancies and tech firms, as self-service ad buying options become increasingly common on media networks.

In-house management can be a money-saver for brands, but it also requires a robust tech stack, which can be expensive and hard to manage. Media buyers will need to make sure their brands’ tech stacks are running efficiently in 2025. Meanwhile, big agencies will need to find ways to become invaluable for brands through advanced media planning tools, AI innovations, and big partnerships like the recently announced merger between Omnicom and IPG.

2. Privacy is paramount in 2025

Third-party cookies may have gotten a lifeline in 2024, but media planners will still find themselves strained by data privacy laws in 2025. Eight states, including California and Texas, will see privacy laws take effect in 2025, per the International Association of Privacy Professionals. A federal privacy law is unlikely to pass any time soon, which will make compliance even more difficult for advertisers needing to adhere to states’ varied standards.

Media planners will need to ensure they have first-party data collection strategies or partnerships in place as third-party data becomes even more difficult to come by.

3. AI adoption will move from evaluation to use

Some 19% of US digital ad buyers were using AI for media planning and buying in August 2024, with another 38% evaluating AI use, per our survey. It’s likely those piloting AI in 2024 and the 17% of ad buyers planning to use AI in the near future will become more regular users in 2025.

4. Ad buyers are using AI for personalization

Two in three (66%) of US digital ad-buyers were either using AI or planning to use AI for ad personalization, per our November survey. Some 57% of ad buyers are using AI products from platforms for media buys, including Google Performance Max, Meta Advantage+, Microsoft Performance Max, Amazon’s Performance+, Pinterest’s Performance+, LinkedIn’s Accelerate, and TikTok’s Smart+.

These AI tools are now part of platforms themselves, which means advertisers don’t necessarily need to adopt new technology to figure out how to use them. Media buyers should evaluate these tools to determine which ones are the best part of their planning and make sure they’re using them to maximize ad buys on the platforms where they advertise.

5. Retail media buyers will need to make smart choices about their smaller network investments

Just 15.8% of US retail media spend will go to networks that aren’t Amazon or Walmart, per our November 2024 forecast. That means retail media ad buyers will need to be selective about where investments go. While many networks are comparable (such as similar grocery retailers), they each offer unique audiences, measurement capacities, and ad formats.

Media planners should make sure retail media networks with which they partner are providing return on ad spend, and be open to switching to new players if their current ones aren’t optimal.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.