TripleLift recently partnered with EMARKETER on important research into creative effectiveness in programmatic advertising. Because in an industry drowning in assumptions, we desperately needed some hard truths.
The Creative Consensus Gap
According to the TripleLift/EMARKETER research, 83.5% of marketers agree creative drives advertising performance, but only 58.5% have a shared understanding of what defines quality creative.
Think about that for a moment. We have near-universal agreement that creative matters, but we can’t agree on what “good” looks like. And this isn’t just an academic problem. It’s costing the industry real money and real effectiveness.
The Scaling Problem Nobody Talks About
The research revealed something that’s been bothering me for years: 54.3% of marketers say creative in programmatic campaigns falls short because assets aren’t updated frequently enough, and 51.8% say they don’t produce enough versions for different audiences.
We’ve built this incredibly sophisticated programmatic ecosystem that can target users with surgical precision, but we’re serving them creative that’s essentially static billboards.
The disconnect between our technological capabilities and our creative execution is concerning. We can identify that someone is a 34-year-old parent shopping for back-to-school supplies while walking past a Target on a Tuesday afternoon, but we serve them the same generic ad we’d show anyone else.
AI: Reality vs. Hype
One of the most interesting findings in the research study is that 50% of marketers are using AI to generate ad copy, but 90.9% believe human intuition is critical for evaluating AI-generated creative.
The real opportunity isn’t in using AI to generate creative, it’s in using AI to make creative smarter, more contextual, and more effective. That’s exactly what we’re doing with our technology at TripleLift. We’re not falling for the “AI will replace creativity” nonsense. Instead, we’re seeing AI as what it should be. It’s a powerful tool that amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it.
The Attribution Reality Check
Here’s where the research gets uncomfortable: Only 58.5% of marketers regularly connect creative quality to performance metrics, and just 51.2% have reliable metrics or dashboards to track creative effectiveness.
We’re flying blind. We’ve built incredibly sophisticated attribution models for everything except the thing that drives 86% of sales lift according to Nielsen: Creative quality.
This isn’t just ironic, it’s damaging. How can we optimize what we don’t measure? How can we prove creative’s value if we can’t connect it to business outcomes?
Why This Research Matters Now
We’re at an inflection point. Google’s ad tech dominance is under assault. Privacy regulations are reshaping how we target audiences. AI is transforming how we create and optimize content. Retail media is exploding. In times of massive change, assumptions become liabilities. The companies that win will be those armed with real data about what actually works.
This research isn’t just about validating what we suspected, it’s about identifying the gaps between perception and reality, between best practices and actual practices, between what marketers say matters and what they actually measure.
The Transparency Dividend
By collaborating with eMarketer on this research, we’re sharing the power of creative with the entire industry and recalibrating how we evaluate its importance. Some might ask why we’d do that. Why give competitors insights that could help them compete against us? But, that’s the wrong question. The right question is: How can we elevate the entire industry?
When creative gets the respect and resources it deserves, everyone wins. Publishers get more engaging content for their audiences. Advertisers get better performance. And consumers get ads that are actually worth their attention.
What Comes Next
This research is just the beginning. It establishes baseline understanding of where we are, but more importantly, it points toward where we need to go.
We need industry standards for creative measurement. We need better tools for creative testing and optimization. We need to bridge the gap between programmatic sophistication and creative excellence.
Most importantly, we need to stop treating creative as an afterthought in our sophisticated adtech ecosystem. Creative isn’t just part of the equation, it’s the most important part.
TripleLfit’s research with EMARKETER proves it. Now let’s act on it.
Dave Helmreich is CEO of TripleLift, the industry’s leading Creative SSP. To download the full report go here.
