TripleLift’s research partnership with EMARKETER, surveying 164 brand and agency marketers, revealed some surprising insights about how the industry approaches creative effectiveness.
Teams Agree Creative Matters, But Lack Common Language
According to our EMARKETER study, while 83.5% of marketers say creative drives advertising performance, only 58.5% report having a shared understanding of what defines quality creative within their organizations. This disconnect creates significant inefficiencies in feedback loops, approval processes, and creative development.
When we asked marketers to define “great creative,” clear brand storytelling (69.5%) and visually compelling design (69.5%) were most cited, followed by personalization and relevance to the audience (66.5%). Interestingly, alignment with surrounding content ranked lower, despite contextual targeting being crucial for performance.
Creative Scale Challenges Are Universal
Our research shows that limited asset updates (54.3%) and insufficient creative versions (51.8%) are the top causes for underperforming programmatic campaigns. Nearly half (43.9%) say overreliance on a single format reduces creative effectiveness. This points to a fundamental infrastructure problem – most brands lack systems to efficiently create and test creative at scale.
AI Adoption Is Reshaping Workflows
Based on our findings, marketers are already using AI to generate ad copy (50%), create images and video (37.8%), and ensure contextual content alignment (29.3%). But the real transformation is happening in workflows. Nearly 55% expect workflow automation to be AI’s biggest contribution over the next two years, signaling a shift toward operational efficiency that supports strategic creativity.
Significantly, 90.9% of marketers believe human involvement in evaluating AI-generated creative is very important or critical. AI augments creative teams rather than replacing them.
Measurement Gaps Create Opportunities
While 71.3% of marketers say creative evaluation has grown more important, just 58.5% regularly connect creative quality to performance metrics. Only 51.2% have reliable metrics or dashboards to track creative effectiveness. As demand for data-driven insights grows, 73.2% expect data analysis to play a greater role in creative success.
Format Innovation Drives Results
Our data consistently shows that innovative formats outperform standard approaches. According to TripleLift research, native formats generate 5x more engagement than display formats. Our research on specialty formats shows Scroll and Carousel formats generate 6x more time spent than standard banners, while Cinemagraph increases purchase intent by 6.4x over industry benchmarks.
Retail Media Represents Massive Opportunity
According to a TripleLift Advanis survey unveiled earlier this year, 50% of companies allocate over 50% of their digital programmatic budget to retail media, with 71% planning to increase off-site retail media spending over the next 12 months. Yet many brands are still treating retail media like traditional display advertising rather than leveraging its unique targeting and creative capabilities.
Connected TV Growth Accelerates
Our research shows CTV has the strongest growth at +8% among off-site retail media formats, suggesting it’s emerging as a key experimentation area. According to EMARKETER, US retail media ad spend on CTV is projected to skyrocket 335.5% year-over-year in 2024.
Practical Applications
These insights point to clear actions every marketer should take. First, establish shared creative quality definitions across your organization. Second, invest in AI-powered tools that enhance creative workflows while maintaining human oversight. Third, develop measurement infrastructure that connects creative assets to business outcomes. Finally, start experimenting with innovative formats and connected TV before your competitors do.
The brands that act on these insights will build sustainable competitive advantages. They’ll create more effective creative more efficiently, measure what actually matters, and stay ahead of rapidly evolving format capabilities.
Toccara Baker is VP Field & Brand Marketing at TripleLift, the world’s leading Creative SSP. Download the full report here.
