New report uncovers emerging strategies driving post-holiday performance across digital advertising channels in Q1 2025
April 30, 2025 – San Francisco, CA – Today, Skai, the leading omnichannel advertising platform for commerce media, published its Q1 2025 Digital Marketing Quarterly Trends Report. This analysis offers a comprehensive look at how marketers approached the start of the new year, with detailed insights into media investment, pricing, and engagement across the three major digital channels: retail media, paid search, and paid social.
No holiday hangover: Retail media stays strong as full-funnel strategies expand
Despite the economic uncertainty on the horizon, Skai’s exclusive data found that retail media investment remained unshaken in Q1 2025, rising +21% year-over-year (YoY) thanks to a +20% increase in clicks and a +14% boost in impressions. Despite no major tentpole events, advertisers kept the pedal to the metal, leveraging new inventory and diverse formats across retail media networks.
Paid search powers up with (surprise!) its best quarter in over a year
Paid search delivered an impressive +11% YoY growth, marking its strongest quarter in over a year. CTR rose by 10%, and CPCs stayed mostly flat at +2%, while impressions dipped slightly. The rapid rise of Performance Max—now adopted by 57% of advertisers in this report —signals a clear shift toward automation and full-funnel performance.
Shop the feed: top social commerce platforms trending up
TikTok’s advertiser adoption grew to 44% (up from 32% YoY), and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns saw strong growth—evidence that social is evolving into a key part of the commerce funnel. While impressions were down, marketers focused their spend on high-performing, commerce-driven formats, showing that social is no longer just about engagement; it’s becoming a bridge between brand discovery and transactional intent.
By the numbers:
| Channel | Metric | QoQ Change | YoY Change |
| Retail Media | Impressions | –25% | +14% |
| Clicks | –14% | +20% | |
| Spending | –21%% | +21% | |
| Cost-per-click (CPC) | –8% | +1% | |
| Paid Search | Impressions | –22% | –2% |
| Clicks | –19% | +9% | |
| Spending | –12% | +11% | |
| CPC | +9% | +2% | |
| Paid Social | Impressions | –1% | –7% |
| Clicks | –21% | –8% | |
| Spending | –21% | –3% | |
| Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) | –20% | +5% |
“In Q1, we saw healthy demand, fluid budgets, and a renewed focus on efficiency as marketers chased inexpensive volume, leaned into automation, and worked to maximize the value of every impression,” said Nich Weinheimer, Executive Vice President of Strategy at Skai. “Looking ahead to the potential impact of persistent tariffs and a prolonged trade war, it will be even more imperative that brands ensure they’re pushing the highest-margin, SKU-level advertisements across the most valuable channels. After all, performance media has historically served as a safe haven for brand budgets during economic uncertainty.”
To access the full Q1 2025 report, visit skai.io/digital-marketing-trends/.
Methodology
Analysis is drawn from a population of approximately $8.6 billion in advertising spend over five quarters, comprising more than 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across 40 vertical industries and more than 150 countries running on the Skai platform across Google, Microsoft, Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Instacart, Criteo, Kroger, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Except where noted, only advertisers with 15 consecutive months of performance data are included. Outliers have been excluded. Spending and pricing are reported in USD at the time incurred. This analysis is based on spending from Skai clients only and should not be interpreted as a fully accurate representation of channel or individual publisher performance.
About Skai
Skai is an omnichannel advertising platform, uniquely enabling brands and agencies to run data-driven programs across commerce media. It empowers both media leaders and activation teams to drive impactful results from their advertising program with AI-powered decisioning, activation, and optimization solutions. Its partners include Google, Amazon Ads, Microsoft, Walmart Connect, Instacart, Criteo, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, Meta, and more.
For over a decade, Skai has earned trust from notable brands such as Adidas, DoorDash, Haleon, Philips, Sony, Taschen, and WaterWipes. Renowned for innovation and a values-driven culture, Skai is headquartered in San Francisco and has eight international locations.
Visit skai.io for more information about Skai.