Budget is eight times more likely to drive effectiveness than ROI
When it comes to driving advertising effectiveness, scale trumps efficiency, according to new IPA research from Les Binet and Medialab Group chief data officer Will Davis.
The researchers analysed winning IPA Effectiveness Award case studies, and found that ROI only accounts for 11% of the variations in profit payback observed, compared to 89% for budget. This means that larger budgets are eight times more likely to drive effectiveness versus the ROI of the campaign.
This contradicts with the views of many marketers, with just 35% of 500 senior marketing decision-makers say budget is the most important contributor to effectiveness, compared to 65% for ROI, according to a Medialab survey.
Marketers may be increasingly fixated on the idea of doing “more with less” at the expense of actual effectiveness. Analysis of the IPA databank finds that while ROI has increased by 4% since the Covid pandemic, net profit generated is down 11% in the same timeframe.
The research also found that many marketers look to reach particular segments, rather than all of their potential customers. Over half (56%) of the senior marketers surveyed say they target sub-segments of customers with advertising.
Source: IPA, Les Binet and Will Davis
Influencer marketing ROI ‘outperforms’ linear TV and paid social
New IPA research finds influencer marketing ROI outperforms linear TV and paid social, delivering “strong returns particularly over the long term”.
Spanning 220 campaigns from 144 brands across 36 sectors and 28 markets, the findings are taken from a cross-industry influencer database, led by IPA Effectiveness Leadership Group member Jane Christian, executive vice-president of analytics, WPP Media.
Based on 59 UK campaigns, the short-term ROI of influencer marketing was found to be comparable with all channel averages, delivering a short-term ROI index of 99, aligned with the all-channel average of 100. Some 4.5% of short-term sales from the campaigns were also driven by influencers.
Despite the short-term sales percentage for linear TV being 32% compared to influencers at 4.5%, the ROI index is comparable with the return on investment for influencer marketing coming in at 99 versus linear TV ranking at 97.
The ROI index for influencer marketing also exceeds standard paid social (86), despite paid social having a 13% sales contribution.
Another study of 18 UK campaigns found the long-term ROI effect of influencer marketing was greater than that of paid social. According to the IPA data, influencer marketing has an ROI index of 151 compared to 77 for paid social.
Influencer marketing also has the greatest long-term multiplier across all media channels at 3.35, compared to linear TV at 3.27, the study suggests.
Source: IPA
Four in five marketers increasing spend on AI creator content
Around four in five marketers (79%) have increased spend in creator content that utilises generative AI in the last 12 months, according to data from Billion Dollar Boy.
In terms of where this increased budget is coming from, over three quarters (77%) of marketers plan to divert advertising budgets from traditional, solely human-produced creator content into AI-powered creator content in the next 12 months. A similar proportion (77%) plan to divert spend from other marketing channels to generative AI-powered creator content in the next twelve months.
In terms of what is motivating that increased investment, over four in five (81%) marketers agree that generative AI has made creator collaborations more cost-efficient. Almost three-quarters (73%) of marketers agree that content they’ve produced by integrating generative AI as part of the process performs better than traditional creator content.
This view is even more prevalent among influencers, almost four in five (78%) of whom agree AI-powered content has performed better than traditional creator content.
For now at least, generative AI appears to be boosting influencers’ income, with 85% of creators saying AI has increased their potential earnings.
While marketers and creators themselves may be upbeat about the role of AI in the industry, the research highlights growing consumer scepticism. While two in five (40%) consumers aged 25 to 34 say they prefer AI-powered creator content, the research records a 44% drop in preference for this kind of content among consumers overall versus 2023 levels.
Source: Billion Dollar Boy
Colgate, Dove, Nivea among most considered personal care brands
Colgate is the most considered personal care brand in the UK, according to YouGov. Almost half (45%) of UK consumers say they would consider Colgate for their next personal care purchase.
Dove takes second place in the consideration ranks, with 37%, followed by Nivea and Oral-B in joint third place, with over one in three (34%) consumers saying they’d consider the brand for their next personal care purchase.
The most improved personal care brand in the rankings is Vaseline, which saw its consideration score improve by three percentage points versus last year to 27%. The brand, which was founded over 150 years ago, scores particularly well among Gen Z consumers, scoring 49% in 2025, which is almost four times the sector average.
The research identifies a potential key segment for the personal care industry, “‘youth conscious Brits”. This group makes up around one in eight (13%) of the population. They are those who place a high value on continuing to look young, with two thirds (66%) of them saying “I use beauty products to prevent skin from ageing”.
Source: YouGov
One in 10 marketers are secretly using AI
One in 10 marketers are using AI behind their bosses’ backs because the use of the technology is against their companies’ policies.
Separately, one in 10 (10%) say they do not know where to start with AI. When it comes to barriers blocking marketers’ effective use of AI, just under one in three (28%) say managing multiple AI tools makes it harder to track performance, while around one in five (18%) report poor integration between generative AI and the rest of their tech stack.
Marketers identify compliance as another barrier to AI adoption and integration. Nearly one in five (19%) cite data privacy and governance concerns as blockers to wider adoption, raising the risk of disjointed results and uneven policies.
Source: Optimizely