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In this issue: volatility, legal, big swings, red arrows, green arrows, budget shares, and 2026 predictions that are NOT investment advice. What's a marketer to do in the first few weeks of the year? 💔

Compare your performance against our year-in-review data. 

You asked, we delivered. Here's 61 pages of exclusive benchmarks, channel by channel performance, spend changes, metrics trends, growth strategies and more. 

This is our biggest whitepaper ever. This report turns Northbeam’s aggregated 2025 performance data into a practical Year in Review; where growth came from, where efficiency broke down, and how operators should plan the next stage of scale.

We analyzed trillions of data points, billions in spend, millions of ad creatives, thousands of ad accounts, and hundreds of different advertisers to bring you this definitive report on what happened in ecommerce in 2025. 

And we seriously pushed ourselves to the limit to create this, easily our finest work. So do me a favor and give it a read. 

This week in data

The new year is bringing fluctuations and volatility to ad performance. For many advertisers this is high seasonal time. But Q4 doesn't make for great testing grounds, so some of these health, wellness, and fitness brands are running the creative testing gauntlet in real-time. 

It means volatility across the board. Meta CPMs are up, but so is conversion rate. TikTok, straight red arrows - except on conversion rate and ROAS. Your week-over-week performance is going to be wonky through this time. 

Focus on the here and now. Are you hitting your performance benchmarks? If so, no reason to overreact to the volatility. Stick to your guns and know when the auction becomes too much to bear. Or, when it becomes a fantastic scaling opportunity. 

One thing to note is budget share. The annual "consolidate everything to Meta and Google in Q4" party still hasn't stopped. It won't last forever, and we expect to see wallet shares for TikTok, Axon, and Snapchat climb upwards again. But if this isn't your seasonal time, it's a fantastic time to explore spreading your spend to new awareness platforms like CTV, Axon, and Snapchat. You can see early movements in the data: Snapchat's share of wallet is up 14% week over week. It's small volume, but it's still a leading indicator. 

We're predicting that 2026 will be the year of diversified budgets. Meta still reigns supreme. But platforms like Axon and Vibe are maturing, and marketers are cracking the code. I mean, good measurement helps. If those platforms aren't working out for you, I humbly recommend measuring them with Northbeam and seeing how it changes. 

Stay tuned. We'll be keeping an eye on these budget shifts into the new year. 

🚀 ICYMI: Northbeam Incrementality is here. Sign up now to join the future of incrementality. 

🤖 ChatGPT ads are coming. In my experience, there's an initial spike in efficiency for first movers to new ad platforms, then an aggressive falloff. I'm sure the first people to hand out flyers in Times Square made a killing, too. 

👩‍⚖️ Several US news publishers are suing Google for "deceptive adtech practices." We'll see how this plays out. 

🚨 JOB: Head of Growth / Javvy Coffee / Remote: join the best marketers in the game, $5m budget, and freedom to make infinite scale happen. This is one of the most exciting roles we've seen in a while. 

🚨 JOB: Kuiu / Planning Director + Apparel Planner / Dixon, CA: this rapidly-growing apparel grand is seeking some experts. Contact garry@kuiu.com for more deets.

💰 9 Operators explored our data live on their podcast. Featuring some familiar faces from the Northbeam side. 

💥 WEBINAR: We brought together all the top ad platforms to talk about Clicks + Deterministic Views. Join this one-of-a-kind roundtable later this month. 

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