Next year will be a banner year for disruption. Financial institutions that embrace industry turmoil will emerge stronger, leaner, and nimbler than before.

By 2025, US adults will spend more time on TikTok than on Facebook, according to our June forecast. This marks a major milestone for TikTok, which is on track to become the largest social platform in total daily minutes by the same year.

In a hurting ad market, where consumers are hesitant to spend unnecessarily, marketers need to make sure their ad spend goes as far as possible. All members of the marketing team need to be capable of thinking like performance marketers, with the ability to analyze metrics in order to select the best channels and ad frequencies. Here are five charts to help your team do just that.

Whether you’re an established brand like Wendy’s or a young D2C building an audience, understanding the right mix between organic and paid social is key, especially as the line between the two blurs. “I think paid is planned paid, and organic has opportunistic pay that could go along with it,” said Jimmy Bennett, vice president and global head of brand engagements and partnerships at Wendy’s.

The digital advertising landscape is shifting and it’s every person for themselves in a fight to the top. Let’s get to know the players and place our bets on who will win the battle royale for ad dollars.

“Google is clearly trying to modernize what has been this golden goose, which is their search business, while also trying to modernize the format that they’re able to deliver to users on YouTube with Shorts,” said our analyst Max Willens, following Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings. “We might be at the beginning of an environment where it's tough to build momentum around either of them.”

Apple is demanding 30% of promoted post transactions: The App Store now says promoted posts should be treated as in-app purchases in a not-so-subtle attack against Meta.

Email marketing has been threatened recently by changes from Apple and Google, and email marketers are working to stay on top of industry shifts. Here are four burning questions about email marketing’s recent shifts.

Meta brings generative AI to Instagram users: Popular instances of consumers using AI for amusement make the app the perfect testing ground.

AI is already changing ad creation. While the tech can create email and social campaigns, there are a number of risks associated with misinformation and brand safety. With generative AI, we can expect to see strong brands grow even stronger—if they can navigate copycats, quality assurance, and apprehensive consumers. Here are six predictions from experts at the “BrXnd: Marketing X AI” conference in New York City.

Can a new service help Shopify attract more enterprise retailers? Commerce Components by Shopify allows large retailers to integrate Shopify’s tools and services into their online platforms.

Meta succeeds against US regulators but takes a major blow in the EU: Meta insists that news isn’t part of its business model, but its pivot to Reels hits a major roadblock.

The wealthiest person vs. the most valuable company: Elon Musk is attacking Apple for ceasing advertising and threatening to pull Twitter from its App Store, setting up a monumental clash he can’t possibly win.

How much information is Google collecting on users? It seems even company employees don’t know, according to court documents unveiled via a class-action privacy suit.

So far this year, there’s been Google versus Microsoft and TikTok versus … well, everyone. But another battle is emerging as Amazon and Apple go head to head for ad dollars, streaming viewers, and the health vertical.

This week, Meta announced its Variance Reduction System, which it says will equitably distribute ads via census data and machine learning. The new tech was created in partnership with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), representing the first instance of direct court oversight for Meta’s ad targeting and delivery, according to a DOJ statement.

Privacy standards are changing under advertisers’ feet: Lawsuits from private citizens and the federal government show that a digital advertising reckoning is under way.

Microsoft is picking up ad spend by improving search, social, and video features, as well as improving ad targeting and measurement. The company is also inserting itself into the rapidly growing retail media market. In the last few weeks, Microsoft has announced a slew of updates that will help it expand its business.

The next phase of direct-to-consumer (D2C) retail won’t be defined by a singular distribution strategy, but rather by the goal of making a real connection with customers. To get to the next level, D2Cs must use their physical presence, partnerships, marketing dollars, and customer data.

The digital ad industry is under regulatory scrutiny: Reforms laid out by the Biden administration focus on the use of personal data for advertising purposes.

July spending figures confirm the advertising downturn: The industry is pulling back from pandemic-era highs, and everyone is feeling the impact.

Maps are a safe space for Apple’s ad expansion: Apple has a low share of this market and can point to competitors that already sell map ad space.

Now that the dust has settled from this year’s record-breaking Cyber Five (the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday), it’s time to see how the industry’s advertising efforts shook out, according to new research from Tinuiti.

Advertisers have dragged their feet on developing third-party cookie alternatives and are now under pressure to implement effective measurement solutions, our analyst Evelyn Mitchell said in a recent webinar. But new measurement options come with their own challenges, including slow adoption, lack of published test results, and limitations of first-party data.

As AI and attention metrics become more commonly used, and addressability practices are reevaluated in response to cookie deprecation, the way marketers plan, buy, and measure are evolving.