2025 Year-End Insights

The workforce in the Digital Advertising and Marketing industry is currently navigating a period defined by resilient long-term demand coupled with intense, disruptive technological change. Employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests a faster-than-average projected growth for the overall category of Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers, with a projected increase of six percent from 2024 to 2034, which is expected to create thousands of openings annually. This positive outlook is primarily driven by the continuous need for organizations to maintain and expand their market share through sophisticated, data-driven campaigns. However, this growth is not uniform; the demand for marketing managers is growing at a seven percent clip, while the need for traditional advertising and promotions managers is expected to decline by two percent, directly illustrating the industry's decisive shift away from legacy media and toward strategic digital roles that require highly specialized skill sets in analytics and online engagement (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers").

Economically, the industry is underpinned by a sustained, rapid transition of advertising budgets to digital platforms. Data tracked through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) series, such as the Producer Price Index for Advertising Agencies and Total Revenue for Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services, shows a trajectory of increasing revenue within the sector, reflecting its foundational importance to the modern economy. The continued investment in online advertising, social media platforms, and advanced digital integration, driven by an industry-wide push for hyper-personalized and omni-channel experiences, confirms that digital services remain a high-value commodity for businesses (U.S. Census Bureau via FRED, "Total Revenue for Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services"; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED, "Producer Price Index by Industry: Advertising Agencies"). This robust economic movement places immense pressure on workers to acquire new levels of technical proficiency, which includes mastering customer data platforms and implementing effective privacy-compliant data strategies.

Sentiment gathered from social media platforms over the last 45 days reveals a workforce experiencing high levels of both professional excitement and anxiety. A dominant theme is the necessity and fear surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has replaced many ad operations, account management, data scientist, sales engineering, and product roles. While many digital marketers are actively embracing AI as a tool for automating tedious tasks like content generation and data analysis, thereby increasing efficiency, there is a pervasive fear among some that AI will ultimately devalue roles centered on basic creation, leading to burnout from the pressure to constantly upgrade skills and differentiate human strategy from machine output. The desire for new employment is often driven by a quest for better company culture and, critically, flexibility, with many professionals choosing to remain in their current roles unless a prospective employer can offer compelling work-life balance and a strategic, future-proof role, suggesting that companies with rigid return-to-office policies may face difficulties in recruiting and retaining top digital talent.

In a push to manage what is left of job security, the gig-economy, and making ends meet, digital advertising and marketing experts are encouraged to sign up for consultancy agencies to list their profiles and expertise for hourly paid consulting calls and surveys.

Unmasking MFA Websites: Protecting Your Brand in the Wild and Woolly World of Digital Advertising

By Marc Cristiano - President, The Council on Interdisciplinary Advancement

Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites are essentially digital real estate built almost entirely to serve ads, nothing more, nothing less. These are properties created for the sole purpose of maximizing impressions and clicks, often with low-quality content, clickbait, and aggressive ad tactics. They don’t offer real value to users, nor do they deliver meaningful engagement. But they do generate billions of ad impressions, making them a significant part of the programmatic ecosystem.

If they generate revenue at virtually no cost for publishers and provide platforms for brands to reach wider audiences, then what is the problem? For brands that care about quality, safety, and return on ad spend (ROAS), MFA sites are a hidden danger. They’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, sitting right in the middle of the supply chain.

Even if your primary KPI is branding and reach, then why should you care? Well, if you’re not vigilant, your ad dollars may be supporting content and environments you wouldn’t want your brand associated with. MFA sites often feature inappropriate content or bait-and-switch tactics that can damage your brand reputation, violating the concept of brand safety. Ads on these sites perform poorly, with low engagement, high bounce, and poor ROI, ultimately resulting in wasted spend. Thus, you’re not just wasting money; you’re diluting your message with impressions that don’t convert, rendering overall campaign ineffectiveness. To add to all of the pitfalls mentioned, if your brand and organization have sustainability commitments, specifically Scope 3 emissions, MFA sites consume a disproportionate amount of digital energy, conflicting with many brands’ sustainability commitments.

The industry is beginning to wake up to this; more filters, smarter technology, but it’s still a constant battle to keep your spend clean.

I’m not pointing fingers. In my career, past and present, I always like to serve as an active partner in making sure brand media dollars go where they count. My experiences have helped me form these tips:

Work with the best tech and SSP's in the business to identify MFA characteristics in real time. These are typically the more prolific and widely-integrated SSPs as opposed to some of the lesser-known, smaller ones.

Implement strict filters that block out MFA properties before your ads even load. Any buying platforms should have functionality that allows for this. If you’re not sure, always ask.

Work with partners and internal teams to monitor inventory regularly. MFA sites pop up all the time. Active monitoring can help identify MFA sites before ads begin to show up on them.

It’s about more than filtering. Focus on building trusted supply streams by cultivating relationships with transparent inventory sources that meet your standards.

Knowledge is power. Educate your team so you all understand MFA risks and can avoid them proactively. If you know what to look for, you have a much better chance of avoiding pitfalls.

The bottom line? MFA websites aren’t going away overnight, but with the right approach, you don’t have to support a single one of them. Trust and transparency come from active management; filtering, monitoring, and working with partners who prioritize quality. That’s how you turn challenge into opportunity.

I’ve been in this game for a long time. I understand the ins and outs. I’ve always been committed to helping brands make smarter buys, protecting their reputation and budget.

In digital advertising, transparency isn’t optional, it’s your best defense. Still unsure if your media buying strategies and practices are on point? We're always here to help.

Q4 2025 Insights

The Q3 2025 Quarterly Services Survey (QSS) for Advertising and Marketing suggests large corporations are maintaining ad spend, reflecting a cautious but non-panicked economic outlook (supporting the GDPNow's moderate growth forecast). However, an analysis of Small Business Optimism Index (NFIB) data shows a concurrent pullback in local and small business ad spend. This indicates a bifurcation in the market, with large players consolidating ad budgets onto proven platforms while smaller firms are cutting back due to high borrowing costs and economic uncertainty.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for Media Services continues to show upward pressure, meaning the cost of reaching a consumer is rising. When combined with the high-interest-rate environment, the hurdle for a positive Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) has become significantly higher. This economic pressure is forcing a Q4 pivot toward performance marketing (direct response) over brand building, with budgets highly concentrated on channels that can prove immediate sales.

Sentiment on social media forums reflects anxiety about the rapid adoption of AI in content generation, such as Performance Max for Google, Advantage+ on Meta, Koa/Kokai for TradeDesk, and Creative Studio for Amazon Advertising. Marketers are discussing the ethical and quality decline associated with AI-written copy and generic creative assets. The consensus is that, while AI tools increase volume and efficiency, they lower the creative barrier to entry, making once-impactful, high-engagement content far more valuable and scarce. Either way, agencies, publishers, and ad tech companies are still exploring cost-cutting in favor of AI compared with traditional human workforces.

Consumer sentiment is highly tuned to authenticity debates on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Users frequently call out "forced" or over-produced influencer campaigns. This qualitative trend signals that Q4 success will rely less on large-scale celebrity endorsements and more on genuine, niche community engagement, demanding that ad agencies be hyper-aware of digital subcultures rather than relying on broad demographic targeting. AI tools, such as Veo3, may even replace influencers.

Individuals in ad operations, ad account management, sales, and similar roles should consider the gig economy, especially signing up for consulting companies. While the work is seasonable and often inconsistent, competitive hourly rates can compensate for lack of work or lower wages at a W-2 role/1099 NEC role.

August 2025 Insights

A recurring theme is a pervasive sense of burnout and a struggle for work/life balance. While the industry is evolving with new technologies like AI integration for ads optimization, campaign management, CRM maintenance, account management, and even sales, employees feel this is increasing pressure for productivity. Discussions highlight the "always-on" culture, emotional and physical exhaustion, and the challenge of separating work from personal life, especially with the prevalence of remote work.

Managers are overtly training LLMs to observe and record employee key strokes and routines to replace them and impress higher-ups with cost-saving and operation cost reduction. Employees struggle to make ends meet and prove their value against automated apps, programs, and scripts that can do grunt work more efficiently, accurately, and less costly.

The sentiment suggests a desire for more support from employers, including better systems to prevent burnout and a more transparent dialogue about employee well-being and expend-ability. Managers struggle with their identity within digital advertising and marketing, knowing that AI can very easily negate their experience and contributions after their teams are gone.

The most significant trend in the last month has been the surprising rebound in employment. After a period of stagnation and job losses, the sector added 2,800 jobs in July 2025, which is the strongest growth in over a year. This positive shift is happening even as the broader U.S. labor market is cooling, suggesting a unique resilience within the industry. This employment growth is attributed to renewed investment in "brand and performance marketing."

However, this number will likely decline and result in job loss within the next 2 years. Many in advertising and marketing, especially among those under the age of 30, have begin exploring consulting roles and even beginning their own niche agencies, full-service ad operations shops, online marketing agencies, and consultancies. Flash employment may be the trend of the future for digital advertising and marketing.