AdRoll, a leading marketing and advertising platform that helps business-to-consumer brands grow their businesses,  released the Q3 2024 edition of its State of Digital Marketing Report, a comprehensive summary drawing from marketing and advertising trends and insights consolidated from more than 20,000 online businesses, offering ideas to help digital marketers further improve marketing return on investment (ROI).

In Q2 2024, display cost per mille (CPM) was 47% higher than a year ago, indicating advertising spend is back to a more normal trajectory, a departure from the pessimism and budget cut seen in Q2 2023. The cost of social media advertising, as measured by average CPM across Meta, TikTok and Pinterest, also shows signs of stability compared to the previous year. In fact, TikTok’s CPM was lower and more stable this year compared to last year. However, Pinterest’s CPM was up 30% on average in Q2 2024 compared to a year ago. Overall, the CPM gap among Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest has narrowed, indicating that social media advertisers are taking a more balanced approach to allocating their budget.

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The outlook for the digital advertising marketplace in the second half of the year is uncertain. Various factors, such as the economy, interest rate, consumer sentiment and the election, could drive advertisers’ ROI in different directions. Advertisers should monitor their campaign performance closely toward the last quarter of the year when the election and the holiday shopping season occur.

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“Given Google’s updated approach to third-party cookies, advertisers should double down on first-party and zero-party data strategies,” said Andrew Pascoe, vice president of data science engineering at NextRoll, AdRoll’s parent company. “Advertisers who rely solely on third-party cookies will eventually see their target audience shrink and campaign performance drop, making it harder to meet their target ROI. Using the data they’ve already collected will help them find ways of activating and engaging customers.”