Introduction
It’s no secret that 2025 has been a year marked by economic uncertainty. From tariffs to fraught trade deals, via inflation and personal financial insecurities, we’ve all been through a lot.
It isn’t just consumers who are feeling the pinch, though: the marketing and advertising world has found itself having to adapt to an ever-shifting fiscal landscape.
Given that, it won’t come as a surprise to learn that a hot topic at Advertising Week New York 2025 was how marketers and advertisers can make the most of every cent available to them, and why effective measurement solutions are playing an increasingly vital role in keeping budgets in check and both clients and key internal stakeholders happy.
To explore the ways in which marketers are driving efficiency and campaign performance through canny measurement strategies, Cint put together the panel Navigating Economic Headwinds: Maximizing Ad Spend Through Smarter Measurement.
For this discussion moderated by Kerry Flynn (Media Reporter at news publication Axios), Cint’s Senior Vice President of Global Data and Measurement, Laura Manning, was joined on stage by Neala Brown (SVP Strategy and Insights at Teads), Sona Cederquist (Senior Director, Ad Effectiveness at SiriusXM Media), and Allison McDuffee (Global Head of Brand Insights and Measurement at Roblox).
Didn’t make it to Advertising Week New York 2025 but want to get the low down? Read on to discover more.
Leading with numbers
Flynn kicked off the discussion by asking the panel about their strategies for communicating the importance of measurement to senior executives, like CEOs or CFOs, who potentially sit a little outside of the day-to-day of marketing activities.
“When I think of those executive leaders, I’m thinking about numbers, about data,” said Manning. “They want to see the proof point. They want to see how it’s driving return on investment for their business.”
Thanks to Lucid Measurement, Cint’s always-on brand lift analytics product designed to help customers measure the effectiveness of their cross-platform campaigns while they’re live, we’re able to bring those proof points to life.
“At Cint, we’ve done a really good job of making it easier to get those quick little highlights, such as, ‘Oh, my campaign drove ad effectiveness with the 18 to 24 demographic by 7%. Let me go tell somebody so we can shift our priorities or change our strategy,’” Manning stated.
It is crucial, in Manning’s view, to keep data points and real-world outcomes top of mind. “That’s when I’ll email the CFO. ‘Here’s the data, here’s the number, here’s the percentage growth year-over-year.’ That’s the sort of thing you need to tell those stories up the chain.”
Allison McDuffee’s perspective was a little different. “Roblox is really unique,” because the backbone of Roblox are the developers who produce experiences for the gaming platform.
“The language we constantly have to be speaking is about what is the win for them and how do they get involved in our brand partnerships? How do they bring ads to the platform and bring that to life for our brand partners? Everything has to be a win-win for our developer community and then ultimately will be a win-win for our users,” McDuffee said.
Controlling chaos
“The thing about numbers,” Flynn said, “is that certain figures can be used to tell certain stories. You might use some figures to showcase short term effects and others to hone in on a more long-term strategy.”
With that in mind, she was curious to learn more about how to balance that amongst the chaos that is life in 2025.
“The good thing about what we do is that we can help on any size campaign or any length of time,” Manning said. “We have clients who run all year. Every single piece of media they do comes through Cint and they’re measuring it. Every single thing, every new piece of creative is being measured and impacted. On the other hand, we just ran a one-day takeover in Mexico and could also measure that.”
In Manning’s words, “We’re trying to meet clients where they are to give you the data you need to back up the story you’re trying to tell.”
“We’re trying to meet clients where they are to give you the data you need to back up the story you’re trying to tell.”
Laura Manning
SVP of Global Data and Measurement, Cint
As the advertising group for SiriusXM, Pandora, and extensive streaming and podcast networks and the leader in ad-supported audio, SiriusXM Media is measuring a lot of campaigns.
Despite this, Sona Cederquist and her colleagues examine those campaigns at a granular and distinct level. “We want to provide detailed insights on every type of creative execution because a lot of work goes into these creatives and audiences and media plans.”
For Cederquist, a wider view is also of importance when it comes to maximizing ad spend.
“How can we take all of that data, combine it, and create a more holistic view of how your brand is performing, how your marketing is performing? Who are your audiences? Are there audiences you didn’t think about, but the data shows are key, that we can tap into?”
Adaptation and agility
The panel went on to discuss how best to approach cross-platform measurement when there are more platforms to monitor (and measure) than ever for advertisers.
“Cint is a software company first, so I’ll put my engineers in a Slack channel with your engineers and we can work it out,” said Manning. “There’s so many different new ways we can partner with these newer platforms, these newer technologies, especially when you have that opted-in consented user-level data that we can match on. We have so many new ways of doing things together besides just dropping a pixel or a tag on someone’s banner ad and display.”
Manning added, “We’re excited to be working across these newer platforms to keep working to move the industry forward.”
The seemingly unstoppable rise of video games is also garnering increasing attention from brands and marketers seeking to reach audiences in immersive, interactive environments. In turn, this means there’s crucial measurement work to be done in the gaming space.
“We’re very fortunate at Roblox having this growing ads business that we’re growing investment from the ground up,” said McDuffee. “Our clients are coming in and they might find one entry point, then they realize that there’s another opportunity for them and the next thing they can do, they can buy ads programmatically, they can build on the platform.”
In the short term, though, advertisers using games like Roblox as part of their campaign rollouts need to be able to measure metrics of success in the same ways they do across other platforms.
“We know that gaming is different,” McDuffee continued. “In the long term, you get to do the fun stuff. You get to be unique. You get to be innovative. But we have to really make sure that we’re meeting the market and deliver that for customers in the short term in order to get that long-term investment.”
Gaming isn’t the only area that’s seen diversification in measurement strategies coming into play.
Neala Brown added that Teads have recently launched new formats within their connected TV (CTV) offerings, including home screen ads, and other non-standard formats. “We’re taking our traditional measurement frameworks — which existed whether they were for digital video or CTV streaming — and figuring out how we can measure these in the same way. Thinking through the things we need to consider as we extend into other places has been a real benefit to us.”
“We’re taking our traditional measurement frameworks — which existed whether they were for digital video or CTV streaming — and figuring out how we can measure these in the same way. Thinking through the things we need to consider as we extend into other places has been a real benefit to us.”
Neala Brown
SVP Strategy and Insights, Teads
Facing the future in real-time
Flynn rounded off the discussion by asking the panel to talk through the measurement trends that excite them, and to speculate on what might be being discussed throughout the year to come.
For Allison McDuffee and the rest of the team at Roblox, 2026 is shaping up to be a year where the platform looks to connect the dots between intellectual properties (IP) and measurement.
“Roblox just launched an IP platform where we can kind of match our partners and our developers and the IP. What does it mean to bring a new IP back when you don’t have a new film releasing? What does it mean to grow the brand of a sports league with an audience that they’re having a really hard time delivering to? That’s exciting for me. That’s what we’re going to be working on a lot.”
Sona Cederquist’s take on Flynn’s question focused on a full funnel approach to measurement.
“I’m really excited to work with partners that can offer full funnel measurement. To be able to do that in a single touch point sounds easier said than done,” Cederquist said. “I’m really excited to see all the different capabilities that are out there to see what comes next.”
Funnels were also top of mind for Neala Brown and Teads. “The theme we’ve been discussing a lot is that measurement data is data. That’s something that’s really prevalent in the lower-funnel with performance media,” Brown said. “With the advancements that are happening, with the access to more regular data that sits in the upper-funnel or the mid-funnel, we’re excited to see how that will play a role not just in quick decision-making, but also the role it plays in targeting in the way it has done with performance media.”
Manning pointed to Cint working closely with partners on data optimization as a reason to be optimistic about the future of measurement.
“This means being able to take our data, which is refreshed every day, and then work that into a customer’s bidding factors. It could be taking things from our API to be able to say ‘Okay, we’re running a hundred DCO creatives, which one is actually working, or which five are working?’ and being able to make that decision in real time. Your average media buyer is probably not going in and checking brand lift results and then adjusting their buy every single day, but that’s a place where AI and agents can really help. So, I think more to come in that space, and that’s something that’s coming up a lot more in conversations than it even was six months ago.”
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