The state of ad serving for brands and agencies: Revenue growth, channel strategies and the rise of AI
This State of the Industry report, sponsored by Clinch, explores how brands and agencies are refining their approaches to ad serving and unlocking new opportunities.
While the ad server has always played a critical role in the digital marketing ecosystem, these tools have continued to evolve across delivery, tracking and reporting. In 2024 and 2025, technology is advancing in lockstep with increasing investments in dynamic creative optimization and personalization at scale — allowing brands and agencies to deliver more relevant ad experiences and maximize ROI.
In this new State of the Industry report, Digiday and Clinch polled 85 brand and agency respondents to learn more about the pivotal role of ad serving as they refine their strategies and drive business outcomes. For example, 63% of our respondents expected ad serving to generate at least 41% of their revenue in 2024. This is up from 2023 when 16% of our respondents reported that ad serving accounted for at least 41% of their revenue.
In the following sections, this report explores how teams leverage data to power their ad-serving processes and optimize their methods. To maximize their ad-serving revenue, brands and agencies are emphasizing cohesive cross-channel efforts that require more integrated approaches and advanced ad-serving solutions.
“Ad serving is no longer a standalone function — it has become the cornerstone of an interconnected ecosystem of platforms and strategies for brands and agencies,” said Oz Etzioni, co-founder and CEO of Clinch. “Navigating this complex landscape requires mastering omnichannel strategies in a fragmented media environment, ensuring compliance with evolving privacy regulations and unifying diverse data sources into actionable insights.
“With the rise of generative AI and AI-driven capabilities like dynamic creative optimization, the future of ad serving lies in delivering seamless personalization at scale across all channels,” he said. “Success depends on leveraging these innovations to create strategic, consumer-centric campaigns that enhance engagement, drive measurable outcomes and adapt to the rapid pace of change in the ad tech ecosystem.”
01
Ad-serving revenue rose in 2024
As the digital landscape evolves, ad serving has become more sophisticated and increasingly critical for brand and agency success.
In 2024, 63% of our respondents expected ad serving to generate 41% or more of their revenue, including 51% who expect it to generate between 41%–61%. By comparison, in 2023, only 16% of our respondents found that ad serving accounted for 41% or more of their revenue.
Furthermore, revenue may further increase as ad spending continues to rebound. U.S. digital advertising spending is expected to have surpassed $300 billion in 2024.
“As individual markets increasingly expect personalized messages, advertisers who don’t want to manage the media breakouts are finding immense value in creative ad servers because of their control, speed and efficiency,” said Roger Vasquez, vp of technology solutions at Clinch. “With dynamic creative optimization, those messages can be generated and decisioned from one platform.”
02
Ad-server tech is a critical budget line — so is DCO
Brands and agencies are investing in ad-serving technology and resources to support their revenue-driving efforts. For example, about two-thirds of respondents (67%) allocate at least 21% of their budget to ad-server technology, staff, support, partnerships and the like.
DCO is another significant investment area for brands and agencies, with 65% of respondents allocating at least 21% of their budget to DCO technology and resources. This includes 27% of brands and agencies that spend 41%–60% of their budget on DCO.
03
Changing ad-server roles and capabilities
Ad servers are increasingly sophisticated, with the most common features and capabilities including cross-device ad serving (76%), third-party integrations (71%) and creative performance optimization (67%).
Other common features are ad server log file data (61%) and ad fraud prevention measures (54%).
In addition to a primary ad server, advertisers are also using DCO platforms (56%), ad performance analytics platforms (56%), creative management platforms (56%) and data management platforms (55%) for DCO.
Among the least common supporting platforms are testing/optimization platforms (26%) and personalization engines (20%), which may be narrower in scope.
“The proliferation of devices has been touted for years, and with DCO ad serving, advertisers can deliver cohesive messaging across devices and channels,” Vasquez said. “The technology is finally there to make online ad experiences better, so it’s incumbent on advertisers to take advantage of it.”
Both brands and agencies are partnering with tech platforms that offer DCO and ad-serving capabilities. For instance, real estate company RE/MAX, a client of independent agency Tombras, uses Clinch’s Flight Control, an AI-powered SaaS platform for omnichannel advertising, to create personalized creative work.
“It’s one of our tenets of marketing, where we can actually start to customize personalization with our ads,” Stuart Ketelsen, RE/MAX’s vice president of creative and media, North America, previously told Digiday. “We weren’t doing it at all — we talked about it — but now we’re able to really dynamically serve different assets to a person based on where we think they’re engaging with us, what’s going to give us the highest engagement.”
04
Display, search and social lead ad-serving placements
Regarding the platforms and channels to which ads are served, brands and agencies prioritize stalwarts like search, display and social.
Nearly 9 in 10 respondents (88%) serve ads on Google Ads, closely followed by social platforms, including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube (each at 86%). Programmatic advertising (74%) rounds out the top three.
However, other channels and platforms have also established a foothold in advertisers’ ad-serving strategies, including Amazon Advertising (66%), digital out-of-home (64%) and CTV/OTT (51%). Twenty percent of our respondents also serve ads on linear TV.
05
Advertisers are diversifying social spend across platforms
While 86% of our respondents are serving ads on social platforms, they’re not focused on a singular platform. At least 10% of our respondents spend 61% or more of their social ad budget on Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube.
However, in a survey finding that suggests the parity and diversity of the social media landscape, social ad spending is more evenly distributed between 1% and 40% of budgets. For instance, 74% of respondents spend 1%–40% of their social ad spend on YouTube, followed by Instagram (70%) and Facebook (68%).
That being the case, some respondents aren’t spending on major platforms.
For example, nearly three in 10 respondents (28%) are not spending on X. Others are skipping Snapchat (25%), Pinterest (25%) and TikTok (19%).
Notably, TikTok is in an ongoing legal battle against the U.S. government over a “divest or ban” bill. Digiday has reported that as important a role as TikTok has played for some marketers, many still aren’t convinced it’s the place to spend a lot of their ad dollars. However, according to a survey of brand and retailer professionals conducted in the first quarter of 2024 by Digiday+ Research, brands’ and retailers’ marketing spend on TikTok is actually growing. This also reflects our findings, with 60% of our brand and agency respondents allocating at least 21% of their social ad budget to the platform.
Meanwhile, after hemorrhaging large advertisers since 2023, X is emphasizing video and testing programmatic advertising to attract marketers. Similarly, Snap has recently been lauding incentives and discounts on top of its beefed-up ad offering to get buy-in from advertisers. It remains to be seen if these efforts will be successful, as most of our respondents are spending 20% or less on X (72%) and Snap (83%).
According to Digiday reporting, other established platforms, namely Reddit and LinkedIn, are also looking to gain traction with advertisers.
In this environment, brands and agencies distribute social ad investments based on their specific strategies and objectives across audience, measurement and budget.
“Platforms like Meta and TikTok are really successful at cost-effectively driving performance and conversion actions beyond the platform, while other platforms like Reddit or Pinterest provide unique opportunities for audience engagement and brand awareness,” said Marissa Corvallis, vp, director of performance strategy at Canvas Worldwide. “The choice for advertisers depends on whether the goal is ad engagement or measurable conversions.
“Creative production efficiencies are also greatly improving, including leveraging feeds, dynamic ads or repurposing creative from other campaigns across all social channels,” she said. “To future-proof against broader social platform upheaval, brands must remain adaptable — balancing short-term goals with strategies for long-term resilience.”
06
Ad-serving team structures
For most of our respondents (66%), ad operations teams are primarily responsible for ad serving at their organizations. However, ad ops teams aren’t operating in a vacuum.
More than half of the brands and agencies surveyed have strategic planning and optimization teams (62%) and data analytics teams (55%) heavily involved in the ad-serving process. To a lesser extent, creative (35%) and marketing (32%) teams are also responsible for ad serving.
Sixty percent of our respondents have teams of 11 or more employees responsible for ad serving, while 20% have teams of one to five employees managing ad serving responsibilities.
“The lines between teams handling ad-serving responsibilities are blurring due to the need for cross-functional collaboration, unified tools and evolving business demands,” said Jessica Hondolero, vp of creative solutions at Clinch. “Integrated platforms, automation and programmatic advertising require advertisers, media and creative agencies to work together on targeting, optimization and performance tracking.
“As a result, teams share accountability, adopt cross-disciplinary skills and operate more agilely to meet the complexities of modern advertising.”
07
First-party data tops the list for ad-serving performance
Data is foundational to deploying ads to relevant and accurate audience targets and supporting dynamic elements.
Three-quarters of our respondents (75%) said that first-party or CRM data is the most impactful in their ad-serving performance. This is followed by contextual data (59%), third-party, non-CRM audiences (59%) and user ad engagement data (59%).
Brands and agencies are hoovering up as much data as possible to create a big enough database to compensate for the diminishing value of third-party cookies. That includes an emphasis on first-party data.
For instance, Josh Cellars wine is “actively trying to explode our first-party data collection,” Dan Kleinman, chief brand officer of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits, which owns Josh Cellars wine brand, told Digiday. The wine brand is leveraging its mailing list, collecting first-party data via brand initiatives and generation campaigns on Meta. There are plans to marry that first-party data with third-party data for better targeting, per Kleinman.
Meanwhile, regarding ad server log file data — i.e., creative engagement data, which is based on engagement per creative element rather than per user — our respondents most often use this data type to establish more efficient creative production (64%).
Other top-cited applications of ad server log file data include enriching or building audiences (58%), optimizing performance (56%) and improving media buying strategies (49%). Only 15% of respondents aren’t using ad server log file data.
“With creative engagement data and log-level data, advertisers can discover which messages resonate by seeing the ROAS,” Vasquez said. “All along, the goal has been to measure ROAS and ROAS lift. DCO ad serving and creative data logs offer an opportunity to drill down that ROAS calculator to the specific message variations.”
08
Measuring ad-serving success
While ad-serving processes evolve, brands and agencies continue to rely on engagement and performance metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of their ad campaigns.
Our respondents cited click-through rate (60%) and conversion rate (60%) as the most significant metrics when measuring their ad-serving outcomes. Brands and agencies are also looking closely at cost-per-acquisition (49%), cost-per-click (49%) and engagement metrics, including likes, shares and comments (48%) and ROAS (44%). Visibility and reach metrics, including impressions and reach (25%) and viewability rate (16%), are less significant when evaluating performance.
However, one caveat is that gauging campaign success also depends on the channel where an ad is served. For example, among the brands and agencies surveyed by Digiday+ Research in 2024, impressions and engagement/watch time were the top two success metrics advertisers consider on the streaming services where they place the majority of ads
“Looking ahead, metrics used to gauge ad-serving outcomes will be split into efficiency and efficacy,” said Clinch’s Etzioni. “This is likely an outcome of the rise of tech, especially generative AI, that automated much of the ad-serving process.”
09
AI is unlocking deeper ad-serving insights
Artificial intelligence is already significantly impacting ad-serving teams, particularly generative AI.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of our respondents are currently leveraging or looking to generative AI for analytics and reporting, followed by campaign optimization (71%) and creative strategy planning (67%). AI is also being used internally for real-time support (51%), including knowledge access and, to a lesser extent, quality assurance across creative, trafficking and other areas (38%).
According to 2023 Digiday+ research, 38% of respondents say their company uses AI for social media listening. Marketers turn to this application of AI to predict what content will engage customers effectively and, more importantly, to highlight emerging consumer trends.
AI models can also be trained using sales, ad and customer review data, among other sources. Generative AI has opened up many possibilities for marketers due to its ability to sift through and analyze a vast amount of data in a short period of time.
10
Challenges and opportunities
While Google announced in July 2024 that it won’t be deprecating third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, advertisers seem likely to focus on generating quality, usable first-party data that’s compliant, because privacy issues are rendering cookies more and more useless. According to Digiday reporting, many agencies plan to continue working with other alternatives in the identifier space.
This commitment to identity alternatives reflects our survey findings, with two-thirds of our brand and agency respondents (67%) citing identity resolution as a challenge they’re currently facing in their ad-serving experience. This is closely followed by cross-device tracking (64%) and budget/resource constraints (60%); the latter may be exacerbated by the ongoing shift away from third-party cookies.
Regarding other challenges, and perhaps indicative of the importance of click-through and conversion rates, more than half of our respondents cited ad placement and context (53%) and ad quality and creative (51%) as obstacles.
As reported by Digiday, ad budgets are spread thin across channels these days, all while marketers face challenges with generative AI, measurement, inventory and more. That’s left marketers, particularly those in the programmatic space, with the short end of the stick.
To address some of these challenges and optimize their ad-serving processes, brands and agencies are prioritizing audience segmentation (74%) to ensure they are reaching relevant consumers.
Other tactics our respondents are using to optimize their ad serving include conversion rate optimization (60%), budget allocation adjustments (55%) and DCO (54%).
“Agility and flexibility are key for effective ad serving, especially as brands and agencies look to strike the right balance across privacy laws, potential data and signal loss and maximizing budgets,” said Charel MacIntosh, head of business development and strategic partnerships at Clinch. “When it comes to privacy compliance, brands need an ad server to be agnostic to support the identity currencies and crosswalks they use today, as well as the various vendors they may work with tomorrow.
“Custom optimizations and audience onboarding capabilities are also integral when selecting an ad server that will meet campaign objectives and maximize ROI.”
11
Building a campaign strategy toolkit
Ad serving is critical to building campaign strategy for brands and agencies. However, ad-server platforms are just one element of their toolkits.
More than 7 in 10 respondents (72%) report using Excel to build their campaign strategy, followed by dedicated tools for building decision trees (67%) and the same platform they use for ad-serving (66%). Other tools include PowerPoint (55%) and Figma (28%).
Brands and agencies are also interested in future-proofing their ad-serving platforms and driving results more effectively.
For example, nearly three-quarters of our respondents (73%) said predictive modeling and forecasting would equip them to perform their jobs better. Other features in high demand include real-time updates and alerts (68%), generative AI (67%), integration with data sources (66%) and customizable dashboards (58%). Visualization features such as visual campaign strategy planning (31%) and interactive timeline views (13%) are less in demand but still valuable for teams.
“Brands and agencies should look for ad-serving tools that harmonize the visual and intuitive flowchart UI with the lean efficiency of spreadsheets,” Vasquez said.
In 2025, brands and agencies are bracing for industry changes that will impact their ad-serving strategies.
More than half (57%) expect more constrained budgets next year, compared to 13% who predict less constrained budgets. Nearly four in 10 respondents (38%) expect to grow their ad-serving team, while 31% want to restructure their teams.
Technology innovation is also expected to play a role in the evolution of ad serving in the coming year.
“Hopefully, this year the generative AI features that everyone has touted will be fully functional and lead to the next phase of refinement and development,” Vasquez said. “The tools that help make the end-to-end faster but keep humans in control seem most exciting.”
The changing landscape of digital advertising demands agility, with advertisers embracing cross-channel strategies, robust data integration and DCO to stay competitive. To achieve both precision and scale, marketers require tools that balance efficiency and creativity — unlocking a transformative future for ad serving.
