5/23/2025
If you’ve been watching the headlines—or listening to the recent Behind the Numbers podcast from eMarketer—you’ve heard the word: advertising is slowing down.
Thanks to rising tariffs, shaky consumer sentiment, and broader macroeconomic turbulence, 2025 is shaping up to be one of the most uncertain ad markets in over a decade. For many marketers, that’s cause for concern. But for live event marketers? We see an opportunity.
Let’s break down what’s happening, and why it could work to your advantage.
In its latest analysis, eMarketer outlines three ad spend scenarios for 2025:
Best Case: +6.7% growth in total media spend (~$420B)
Moderate Case: +3% growth with ~$15B shaved off
Worst Case: A rare decline in total ad spend (first since 2009)
Even in the worst-case scenario, digital ad spend is still growing, albeit slower. The key takeaway? Marketers are pulling back—but not giving up. They’re shifting spend away from riskier bets and toward what works: search, performance media, and lower-funnel tactics with clear ROI.
Here’s how the slowdown is already changing marketer behavior:
Experimental budgets are frozen
Social media CPMs are dropping due to fewer international advertisers
The "Tripoly" is winning — Google, Meta, and Amazon continue to earn budget
Marketers want flexibility — daily optimization, rapid pivoting, and measurable results
In short, this is not a retreat—it’s a recalibration. And that’s where live events can win.
If you’re a festival, venue, team, or promoter, here’s why this market shift could play to your strengths:
Less competition = cheaper CPMs. Your media dollars stretch further, reaching more fans for less.
Live events deliver emotional value—connection, music, sports, memories. Those are recession-proof priorities.
Selling tickets shares traits with e-commerce. That makes your campaigns a great fit for performance-driven media.
In a performance-driven environment, metrics like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) are more than nice-to-haves—they're mission-critical.
That’s where FanIQ’s unified reporting stands apart:
Cross-Platform Clarity: View campaign performance across Meta, Google, and more—side by side, apples-to-apples.
Real-Time Insights: No more waiting on spreadsheets or jumping between dashboards. See what’s working, instantly.
Smarter Decisions: Unified data means you can make better, faster optimizations to lower CPA and boost ROAS.
End-to-End Visibility: From first impression to final ticket sale, you’ll see the full customer journey and know exactly where to reinvest.
In short, FanIQ gives you one source of truth—so you spend less time guessing and more time scaling what works.
We built FanIQ One to make performance marketing simple, even in turbulent times.
Smarter Targeting
Creative Tools
Unified Reporting
Cross-Platform Flexibility
And with most campaigns launching in under 20 minutes, we give your team the agility this moment demands.
The ad market may be entering a new normal—slower, leaner, and more ROI-obsessed. But for live event marketers willing to adapt, it’s fertile ground.
So instead of pulling back, double down on performance, test smarter, and win bigger while the competition hesitates.
We’ll be right there with you.
