Tag: WARC

Budget expectations fall faster than business optimism for marketers in 2026

Stuart Mitchell

Only a fifth (19%) of brand marketers expect budgets to rise next year, despite over half (59%) believing business will improve.   40 percentage point gap highlights continuing need for marketers to do more with less  WARC releases The Voice of the Marketer report- a deep dive into a survey of 1,000+ marketers worldwide  Marketers’ cooling optimism, uncertainty around US trade policies, the impact of AI adoption and the dominance of digital channels on media planning, are the top themes examined in WARC’s Voice of the Marketer report.    Part of WARC’s Evolution of Marketing programme, The Voice of the Marketer uncovers marketers’…

Read More

LinkedIn solidifies its dominance in the B2B marketing landscape as ad revenue surges to $8.2bn fuelled by B2B creators, Gen AI brands and CTV capabilities

Stuart Mitchell

LinkedIn is best known as a leader in business-to-business marketing offering unique professional targeting capabilities. Ad investment in the Microsoft-owned platform has steadily increased, with WARC forecasting it to reach $8.2bn in 2025 (+18.3%), fuelled by gains from the emerging Gen AI category, B2B creators, and by extending B2B campaigns into connected TV.  This latest Platform Insights by WARC Media, provides comprehensive data-driven intelligence on LinkedIn’s advertising landscape, examining the platform’s latest trends through the lens of investment, user engagement and performance.  Celeste Huang, Media Insights Analyst, WARC Media, and author of the report, said: “LinkedIn accounts for a small part of Microsoft’s overall revenue. However, its ad business is outpacing other mid-size platforms like Snapchat and…

Read More

Marketer confidence drops 11 points as lasting economic instability drives shift in consumer priorities

Stuart Mitchell

WARC has unveiled The Marketer’s Toolkit 2026, revealing five critical trends set to disrupt global marketing practices and reshape brand strategies in the year ahead. From the vanishing middle market and the creator investment gamble to the great escape, AI-driven zero-click journeys and shifting consumer milestones, the report provides marketers with essential insights to transform these disruptions into opportunities for growth.   The trend identification for the report, now in its 15th year, is based on WARC’s proprietary GEISTE methodology which focuses on the broad macro trends across government, economy, industry, society, technology, and environment. It further incorporates a global…

Read More

WARC and Intuit Mailchimp research finds mid-market marketers are turning to AI to gain a competitive edge as strong​ ​winds to growth prevail

Stuart Mitchell

A new study by WARC and Intuit Mailchimp presented by LIONS Advisory reveals marketing teams in mid-market companies are in transition in how they are leveraging AI as an “equalizer” that enables them to amplify their impact and give them a competitive edge.  Often overlooked, these organizations with 10-499 employees, are vital to the business ecosystem. After weathering five years of unprecedented challenges — from pandemic disruptions to soaring costs and fragmented marketing channels — with the help of AI, they are adapting marketing strategies and team structures to overcome budget pressures, channel usage and martech priorities.   Lexi Wolf, Head…

Read More

Highly awarded creative ideas are significantly more effective new WARC research reveals

Stuart Mitchell

Each year, WARC tracks the results of the top regional and global award shows for creativity and effectiveness for the WARC Rankings, the ultimate benchmark for marketing.  Using the WARC Rankings results data from between 2016 and 2025, more than 5,600 ideas were analysed by WARC to establish the correlation between creativity and effectiveness.    Amy Rodgers, Head of Content, WARC Creative, says: “Mounting evidence shows creativity is an important driver of campaign performance. Using data from the latest WARC Rankings, we set out to see whether creatively award-winning work has maintained or enhanced its effectiveness advantage since last year’s edition of this report, and what currently are the common traits of the most creative and effective ideas.”  One…

Read More