Performance marketing is hella expensive.
CPMs are up 20-40% YoY (and for some vertical it’s 100%+), but here’s what matters more: payback periods doubled from 6 to 12-24 months. Some verticals now take 2 years to break even. Your margins are evaporating faster than you realize. Good luck growing LTV at the same pace.
Your profit is ad network’s loss. If you think ad networks want you to win, this is delusional – they want you to see the money once and die trying to chase the money back – it’a s pure gambling behavior.
The numbers tell the story:
– Meta’s DAU in US/Canada: 199M (Q2 2025) vs 196M (Q4 2022). Zero growth.
– Your budget is spent on the ever increasing # of impressions per session and lucrative formats like 4 ads collage in one go – obviously, both 4 impressions have 4x less value and just create a noise – but you pay for them as per normal impressions.
– TikTok’s expansion is primarily in markets with 10x lower ARPU.
– App installs dropped 40% over 3 years. People just install less and less. When was the last time you’d installed something out of a pure interest? What happens with CPI? It skyrockets.
– And if you can’t meet the ends on mobile, web funnels won’t help you either. The cost per purchase there is much higher, resulting in a way bigger budgets to make the same amount of tests. Plus, pretty much your whole business model is needed to be fully changed for this approach and this auction.
What worked in 2022 won’t work now. If you haven’t adapted your strategy, you’re burning cash on outdated tactics.
