Every year someone declares paid media is dying. Every year the brands that know what they are doing continue to scale profitably on it. 2025 is no different — but the playbook has shifted considerably.

Here is an honest account of what is working across our client accounts right now, and what we have quietly retired.

What we have stopped doing

Hyper-granular audience segmentation on Meta is mostly dead. iOS privacy changes gutted the signal fidelity that made it work, and the platform's own algorithm now outperforms manual audience targeting in the vast majority of cases. We have moved almost entirely to Advantage+ campaigns with creative as the primary variable. The brands resisting this change are leaving performance on the table.

We have also stopped obsessing over last-click attribution. It was always wrong — it just used to be consistently wrong in a way you could plan around. Now, with longer research cycles and more touchpoints, you need a blended view. We use a mix of platform-reported data, incrementality tests, and media mix modelling for any account spending above ₹15L/month.

What is working right now

Creative velocity on Meta

The single biggest lever in Meta performance right now is creative volume and iteration speed. Accounts that are testing 8–12 new creative concepts per month are consistently outperforming accounts running 2–3 static ads. We have restructured our production process to ship more concepts faster — shorter shoots, more UGC-style formats, more direct-to-camera copy.

Google PMAX with tight asset groups

Performance Max works — but only when you give it enough structured signal. Accounts that dump all products into one campaign with generic assets get mediocre results. We organise asset groups tightly by product category, feed it strong creative, and use audience signals from first-party data wherever possible. Results have been consistently strong for both e-commerce and lead generation.

YouTube for mid-funnel B2B

This one surprises clients. YouTube non-skippable and skippable in-stream ads in the 15–30 second range, targeted to in-market B2B audiences, are delivering cost-per-engaged-view we have not seen since 2021. For considered-purchase categories, video at mid-funnel is the most underpriced inventory we are using right now.

The meta-lesson

Platforms change. Attribution breaks. Costs rise. The brands that survive all of this are the ones with strong creative production systems, a first-party data strategy, and the discipline to run proper incrementality tests instead of trusting platform dashboards as gospel.

Paid media is not getting easier. But it is very much still worth it — if you are running it properly.