CMO Strategies: How marketers are spending and measuring across social media in 2025 — from Meta to TikTok

Among all channels considered in Digiday’s 2025 CMO Strategies series, social media had the highest usage rate for the third year in a row, with 92% of the more than 190 marketer professionals who responded to our Digiday+ Research survey saying their company uses social media for marketing. That is down 5 percentage points from the percentage of respondents who said their company used social media for marketing last year and the year before — 97% respectively for 2024 and 2023.

Social media remains a popular marketing channel year after year because of its massive audience reach and because it offers marketers the opportunity to establish genuine, organic connections with consumers.

“We believe that investing in social these days is the best distribution channel for any brand,” said Emmanuel Orssaud, CMO at language-learning app Duolingo. “It’s where you are able to reach the highest number of people, and it puts the emphasis on the content and not the spend. … While we spend on performance marketing and acquisition, the best way to build a brand is through content that is distributed through social media.” 

Global social media ad spend is projected to total $276.72 billion in 2025, up 13.6% year over year from 2024, according to Statista. However, President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a potential ban on TikTok in the United States could upend those optimistic projections. Indeed, those factors may already have contributed to the 5 percentage point drop in marketers’ usage of social media in 2025. 
As TikTok’s initial Jan. 19 ban deadline loomed, the platform had already become an increasingly risky prospect for advertisers. Some ad executives told Digiday they had slowed their spending on the platform as a result. However, in June, the president extended the ban deadline for a third time to Sept. 17., and marketers continue to invest.

The exact impact tariffs will have on the ad industry is still in flux and depends largely on the extent of the tariffs. For example, eMarketer’s predictions for total ad spend in 2025 range from $394 billion to $422 billion, depending on where the tariffs land. And it’s worth noting that, on the lowest end of eMarketer’s predictions, ad spend will fall by $1 billion compared with 2024.

To map out marketers’ current digital playbook, Digiday+ Research sent out a survey asking 195 respondents about past and upcoming investments, marketing channel tactics, preferences, and business challenges. 

Digiday+ Research also conducted individual interviews with marketing executives across industries.

Marketers are diversifying their use of social media platforms in 2025, according to Digiday’s survey results. Overall, the top five social media platforms that marketers said they currently use follow the same ranking order as last year, with Meta’s Instagram and Facebook continuing to lead the way, followed by YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest.

However, marketers are using Instagram and Facebook slightly less this year than they did last year — down 2 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively in 2025 vs. 2024. At the same time, they’re increasing their investments in other platforms.

In particular, the percentage of marketers who said their company currently uses YouTube increased by 4 percentage points in 2025 vs. 2024, while the percentage of marketers who said their company uses TikTok grew by 3 percentage points. Reddit usage was up by 2 percentage points this year vs. last year.

Julianne Fraser, founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Dialogue New York, said in an email that she encourages her clients to spread their ad spend across social media platforms. “Be wary of relying on any single platform, but diversify across several (the more obvious ones like TikTok and Instagram, as well as emerging platforms like YouTube Shorts, Substack, etc.),” Fraser said. “Having a test-and-try mindset can be largely valuable to identify where your brand narrative resonates most, and refine from there.” 

One reason some marketers told Digiday they are diversifying their social platform usage in 2025 is because of the lingering uncertainty around the potential ban of TikTok in the U.S.

“We were prepared for the range of outcomes with the potential [TikTok] ban this year, and had scenarios and strategies in place if that was to move forward,” said Laura Knebusch, svp of CPG marketing and consumer experience at Georgia-Pacific. “We are continuing to advertise or leverage TikTok for a couple of our brands in different ways, but we’ll continue to stay close to the pulse and make sure that we’re prepared and understand where and how we can diversify.” 

“We’ve also invested in YouTube Shorts for the first time this year,” Knebusch added. “That is a newer platform for us, but we think it is a great way to reach our target.”

In fact, in addition to marketers’ increased use of YouTube in 2025, YouTube stands to benefit if a TikTok ban is put in place in the U.S. That’s because YouTube’s Shorts video format is very similar to TikTok in terms of ad creative, engagement and capabilities.

On a Feb. 4 earnings call, Google svp and Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler told analysts that ad revenue from Shorts was quickly catching up to revenue from YouTube’s long-form content. “In 2024, the monetization rate of short relative to in-stream viewing increased by more than 30 percentage points in the U.S. and we expect to make additional progress in 2025,” Schindler said on the call.

YouTube has begun encouraging advertisers to spend more on the platform, specifically emphasizing why they should consider YouTube Shorts as an alternative to TikTok, according to three ad executives Digiday interviewed earlier this year. “[YouTube has] shared numbers from eMarketer on how Shorts, after TikTok, is the go-to platform for Gen Z to watch short-form content,” said Shamsul Chowdhury, evp of paid social at Jellyfish.

For its part, earlier this year, Reddit rolled out several new tools that it hopes will demystify the platform for marketers and help marketers engage more with users. The updates — including Reddit Pro Trends, which tracks trends and communities in real time, and ad format AMA Ads, which gives marketers more ways to use paid media to reach the right types of users — aim to surface contextually relevant real-time mentions of brands, topics and categories so marketers know where they should focus both paid and organic content.

As part of marketers’ diversification of their use of social platforms, they’ve decreased use of several platforms as well. X, Snapchat and Pinterest saw the percentage of marketers who said their company uses those platforms drop by 13, 9 and 8 percentage points respectively. 

X still hasn’t recovered from continued turbulence since Elon Musk purchased the platform in 2022. X has been trying to entice marketers back, however, with alternating pressure tactics and price cutting measures that haven’t yielded much success. According to market intelligence company Sensor Tower, 66 of the top 100 spending U.S. advertisers on X prior to its acquisition weren’t spending on the platform as of March 2025. Meanwhile, large brands like American Express that have returned to the platform are putting in only 20% of their previous investment.

Messaging app Snapchat and image-based platform Pinterest tend to attract niche audiences who are more interested in specific content than other platforms with wider audience bases. However, both Snapchat and Pinterest have been trying various tactics to entice a broader range of advertisers. 

A recent pitch deck from Pinterest highlighted the platform’s AI-based, automated ad buying tool Performance+, which Pinterest said improves marketers’ CPA/CPC by more than 10%. 
For Snapchat’s part, the platform has been focused on improving its direct response business to make it more accessible to small- to medium-sized business advertisers. That includes expanding data partnerships, increasing ad products and simplifying buying and automation tools, such as its recently announced AI-powered Smart budget optimization feature.

Across the board, marketers are devoting a smaller portion of their marketing budgets to each social media platform in 2025 than they were in 2024, according to Digiday’s survey results. When asked how much of their ad budget goes to the various platforms, marketer respondents said all platforms saw a decrease in budget allocation in 2025 vs. 2024.

Additionally, Digiday’s survey found that marketers increased their use of other media channels in 2025, while they decreased their use of social media overall. For example, 79% of survey respondents said their company uses display ads for marketing in 2025, up from 75% of marketers who said the same in 2024. Conversely, 92% of survey respondents said their company uses social media for marketing in 2025, down from 97% of marketers who said the same in 2024.

Marketers are still spending the greatest portions of their social media budgets on Meta’s Instagram and Facebook in 2025, just as they were in 2024. But Instagram had a weighted average score of 3.1 in 2025, down from 4.0 in 2024, while Facebook’s weighted average decreased by 1.1 points in 2025 vs. 2024. Similarly, YouTube saw a dip of 1.1 points in 2025, and Pinterest’s weighted average declined from 1.6 in 2024 to just 0.7 in 2025.

Duolingo’s Orssaud said one reason marketers are dispersing their budgets across more social platforms in 2025 is because there are a number of newer entrants, like Threads and decentralized platform Bluesky, that they can run content on and gauge how it performs. 

“As marketeers, you’re always trying to balance your budget,” Orssaud said. “The big difference compared to last year is that we have an array of social channels. It’s important to keep an eye on changes in the landscape — whether that’s due to regulations like a potential TikTok ban or rising channels like YouTube Shorts — and understand how to approach those channels. The best way is to distribute the same content to those channels and see what kind of response you get. That helps to figure out the right strategy for those channels, and then iterate from that.”

Georgia-Pacific’s Knebusch noted that the type of content each platform hosts and each user base plays a large role in determining ad spend as well. “We want to be really choiceful with where we invest, and we want to make sure it’s the right thing for our target consumer,” Knebush said. “There is a foundational element of our media plan and our campaign that we plan out well ahead of time, usually having to do with longer lead time channels like video, but also [channels] where you’re establishing your brand’s story. But, we are investing more in social. We’ve built out our social team to make sure we are prepared to listen and identify where in culture we think our brands can play a bigger role.”

When Digiday asked marketers which social platform is best for branding, 56% of survey respondents chose Instagram, making 2025 the third year in a row that Instagram was respondents’ top choice for branding. Instagram was also marketers’ top choice for conversions in 2025, 2024 and 2023.

In fact, Instagram has dominated all social media platform rankings within Digiday’s CMO Strategies series. Instagram is particularly effective for growing organic brand reach, with more tools for engagement and a focus on images and videos which can inspire comments, likes and shares. Likewise, engaged users are more apt to convert on Instagram.

Unlike its sibling Instagram, Facebook continues not to be a favorite branding tool among marketers. Only 12% of marketers said it was best for that purpose, down 1 percentage point from 2024. Several factors hamper Facebook’s usefulness as a branding tool, including oversaturation of ads, limited customization of brand pages and brand safety challenges. 

YouTube, however, is gaining traction as a branding tool — 18% of marketers said it is best for branding, up 2 percentage points from last year. This marks the second year in a row that marketers said YouTube is the second-best social media platform for branding.

YouTube can be useful for branding because its user-generated content attracts a large, engaged user base. Several of the CMOs Digiday interviewed for this report mentioned that YouTube Shorts, in particular, is an effective marketing tool. 

“We will test some content, see what resonates and, if it works, we will continue on that path,” said Duolingo’s Orssaud. “That’s what we did with YouTube Shorts, for example. We had 400% year-over-year growth in terms of impressions on that platform.”

While Facebook isn’t a top branding tool for marketers, its value for converting consumers continues to grow. Thirty-three percent of marketers said Facebook is best for driving conversions in 2025, up 2 percentage points from last year.

Facebook’s status as a legacy social media platform and its wide variety of ad formats make it a useful platform for generating conversions. In fact, 25% of U.S. adults consider Facebook to be the most influential social media platform for purchasing decisions, putting it just ahead of TikTok (21%) and Instagram (20%), according to data from Relex.

Allison Stransky, CMO at Samsung Electronics America, explained that a campaign’s goal ultimately determines which social media platform will perform best for branding and conversions. “This goes back to the objective of the campaign. Your KPI and your objective are really the most important to match, less so than the platform is,” Stranksky said. “Is this a conversion moment, or is this a reach and awareness moment? You have to make sure that your content is set up not just by objective, but by platform, so that you get the most out of it. An awareness campaign on Instagram is different than on TikTok. That’s how we plan our approach.”

As in the past two years, engagement remains the primary measurement of success marketers turn to on all social platforms in 2025, Digiday’s survey found — with the exception of Pinterest and YouTube where impressions is the top metric this year. 

More than one-third of marketer respondents (37%) said engagement is the main success metric they consider for Instagram in 2025 and more than one-quarter of respondents (26%) said it is their top metric on Facebook. That’s a slight shift from last year when impressions tied with engagement as marketers’ main success metric on Facebook.

Engagement and impressions are closely linked KPIs that can switch places in importance year over year for any given platform because they work hand-in-hand — the greater the number of times an ad is displayed, the greater the opportunity for consumer interactions.

“We care about organic impressions because you can’t fake it and you can’t put the media budget behind it,” Duolingo’s Orssaud said. “It’s purely down to creating content that engages people and, if the content is engaging, the algorithm will prioritize it and serve it to more people. Organic social impressions are the closest connection we have to indicate that a piece of content really hits well and we know that we’ve done something right.”

Ryan Meegan, CMO at disposable wipes manufacturer Dude Wipes, said Meta’s platforms tend to be best for gathering impressions data. “The easiest to buy and get the most valuable impressions is Meta,” Meegan said. “[Meta has] been around probably the longest for a legacy social media company, and they’ve perfected how brands can buy ads and target specific audiences and get good value in terms of CPMs, CPCs and general reach.”

Engagement and impressions were marketers’ No. 1 and No. 2 success metrics on TikTok as well this year — 42% and 25% of respondents selected these metrics respectively. Because TikTok mainly hosts user-generated content that is focused on generating conversation among viewers, brands primarily rely on engagement to gauge success on the platform.

“Within the social space, we think about it as I wouldn’t say different goals per platform, but we do set up different creative per platform, because consumers and viewers engage very differently on each one,” Samsung’s Stransky said. “All of [the platforms] are [meant] for driving engagement, having a more approachable conversation, because this is where we know that [users] are in a connected mindset. However, Instagram and TikTok are very different in terms of what it looks like and what works.”

While the main KPIs marketers track across social platforms may not to vary much from year to year, Duolingo’s Orssaud said that the language-learning app is paying more attention to the number of new viewers it reaches on TikTok, in particular, which he added is one of the few platforms to track this metric. 

“The new viewer rate is very important because as you continue to grow as a brand — we are at about 17 million followers on TikTok — having a new viewer metric allows you to understand what content is engaging the base that you currently have,” Orssaud said. “Reaching the same people every day is good, but that doesn’t help us expand our audience pool. … We care a lot about the new viewer rate to ensure that by diversifying our content, by tapping into new fandoms, we are indeed able to reach a new audience. [That metric] it’s not available on every platform, so we can’t track it consistently across channels, unfortunately.”

Georgia-Pacific’s Knebusch said that regardless of the social media platform the home goods manufacturer advertises on, the company still relies on media mix modeling to gauge campaign success across all media channels. 

“For almost all of our investments, social included, we still use MMM as the apples-to-apples comparison of how all of our investments are doing,” Knebusch said. “The contribution, effectiveness, ROI and ROAS are all coming through MMM. That’s the top line [for] how we’re looking at effectiveness within a campaign. It is objective specific.” 

“Usually, [we look at] viewability, completion rate and engagement as well,” Knebusch added. “As we’ve evolved our social, less into only paid social, but also into organic, activations and influencer, we’re starting to look at metrics that would help us understand that increased engagement.”