This week in data
Massive news stories (Iran, tariffs, inflation) continue to pummel consumer buying momentum, but advertisers truck onward. Performance is holding up, costs are diverging sharply across platforms, and budget concentration is tightening.
Tariffs got a surprise reset, sort of. The Supreme Court ruled on February 20 to strike down a significant portion of IEEPA-based tariffs, replacing them with Section 122 tariffs for a 150-day window. For advertisers and consumers, this is modestly good news in the near term: lower tariff rates on key trading partners like China and Brazil mean some cost pressure eases. Your inventory will hopefully cost less.
But, the uncertainty is far from over. Effective tariff rates remain well above the ~2% historical average, and the clock is ticking on that 150-day window.
Plus, tariff-driven inflation is still sticky and pressuring (some) consumers. Fed Governor Christopher Waller noted in a February 23 speech that core PCE inflation was running near 3%, above the Fed's 2% target — but that "underlying inflation," stripped of tariff effects, is actually close to target.
That distinction matters: it suggests the Fed won't be rushing to cut rates, and that real consumer purchasing power remains under pressure. The income divergence between higher- and lower-income households continues to widen, with lower-income consumers pulling back on discretionary purchases while wealthier shoppers remain resilient. I bet you can see this in your data.
Advertisers that spent 2025 reallocating spend toward performance channels and away from brand are not rushing back to the old playbook, but that doesn't mean they're right.
The IAB recently reported that over 80% of advertisers say they will concentrate more budget in channels that can demonstrate ROI when cost pressure rises. Obviously. We've seen that in this newsletter data for years.
It's more intense than ever: the budget share seen here is brutal. Advertisers consolidate to Meta when times get tough. The burden is on these other ad platforms to demonstrate provable ROI. C+DV helps with that, by the way.
The dominant attitude across this week's data is the flight to measurability. Google's efficiency gains and Meta's stable CAC all fit this pattern. The channels struggling - Axon's exploding CAC, TikTok's soaring CPCs - are those where marketers are still learning to measure ROI properly.
It's not that these channels don't work, they do. It's that people are still learning to properly measure ROI there. Once again, this is why we built C+DV.
Differentiate yourself in this nervous marketing environment. Learn to measure view-through impact properly. It will unlock insane gains for you on YouTube, Snap, Axon, and TikTok.
As our CEO/Co-Founder Austin would say: "Zig when everybody else is zagging."
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