With audience saturation, rising costs, and ad fatigue, 75% of advertisers are now seeking alternatives, writes Taboola's Matt Burns-Peake
In today’s uncertain economic environment, advertisers want scale and measurable outcomes. That’s why many now prioritise performance marketing - leaning heavily on search and social despite the cost, complexity and scalability challenges that come with them.
Chief marketing officers striving to improve marketing return on investment (ROI) are particularly drawn to quick wins. According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, 54% of CMOs prioritise performance marketing, compared to just 22% who favour brand marketing.
Yet, of the $55 billion spent annually on performance advertising, much of it fails to deliver the expected revenue growth.
Social and DSP fatigue
Consider the nearly $30 billion spent on social media advertising. With audience saturation, rising costs, and ad fatigue, 75% of advertisers are now seeking alternatives, according to Taboola’s Diminishing Returns in Paid Social study.
Another $25 billion goes into DSPs and niche adtech solutions - but these often lack the scale, data or performance expertise needed to deliver meaningful results.
“Performance advertising beyond search and social media has been far too difficult for too long,” says Adam Singolda, CEO of Taboola. He describes search and social as “maxed out” and adtech as “fragmented, complicated and not scalable.”
Taboola’s research highlights key issues such as creative fatigue and dramatic price surges - an example of which occurred during the 2024 holiday season, when Reuters reported that a spike in competition from Shein and Temu drove up the CPC for "Walmart clothes" by 16 times.
Why DSPs can’t deliver
While DSPs may serve brand marketing objectives well, they fall short for performance marketers. The platforms are often complex, not built for performance goals and increasingly focused on Connected TV – which delivers upper-funnel brand experiences, not lower-funnel conversions.
“Advertisers have settled on search and social because no viable alternative existed,” Singolda says. “Spending with DSPs and CTV may help branding, but they’re not optimised for performance.”
What marketers truly need is measurable, scalable performance outside the walled gardens, and until now, they’ve struggled to find it.
A new alternative: Realize by Taboola
Taboola believes it has a solution: Realize, a new performance marketing platform focused on scale, outcomes, and ROI.
Built for advertisers looking beyond search and social, Realize offers:
- AI-powered ad optimisation
- Access to high-visibility ad placements on publisher sites, apps and OEM devices
- The ability to reuse existing social and display ad assets
- Streamlined workflows, full brand suitability controls, and fraud protection
Unlike traditional native platforms, Realize supports a broader set of formats and gives advertisers creative flexibility, making it easier to scale without starting from scratch.
The results so far
And Realize is already delivering. Language learning app Babbel beat its ROAS target by 35% in six months using Realize. Marketing agency Quigley-Simpson saw the same uplift for one of its clients during testing.
Performance marketing demands scale, simplicity and strong ROI. With Realize, advertisers are finding a way to meet those goals without relying on overstretched platforms or fragmented adtech.
Looking ahead
Performance marketing’s evolution is long overdue. As the limitations of search, social, and DSPs become clearer, the demand for scalable, ROI-focused alternatives is rising. With new platforms like Realize, advertisers finally have a credible path forward and a reason to look beyond the old performance marketing playbook. Find out more here.
Posted on: Friday 18 July 2025
