With budgets under pressure and digital ad spend hitting $790B+, efficient growth depends on choosing the right mix of channels.
With marketing budgets under more scrutiny and performance expectations higher than ever, knowing where to spend next is mission-critical. In 2025, it’s less about chasing the latest trend, and more about balancing efficiency, scalability, and measurable impact across a mix of channels that actually move the needle.
So where should your next dollar go? Let’s break it down.
Rethinking Channel Efficiency (It’s Not Just About Cost)
The definition of “efficient” has changed. Efficiency used to mean the lowest CPM or cheapest cost-per-click. But in a year where digital ad spend is expected to top $790B globally (up 10% YoY), it’s no longer about finding the cheapest reach. It’s about spending where outcomes are most predictable and profitable.
Channels that can show a direct line between spend and scalable results are winning budget. That means prioritizing:
- ROI over vanity metrics
- Cross-channel impact over siloed performance
- Sustainable growth over short-term wins
And today’s buyers use an average of 5.8 channels to discover brands, so relying on a single platform is a losing strategy. In fact, no one channel reaches more than a third of internet users, which means the real efficiency is in the mix.
Top Performance Channels of 2025
Marketers today have more tools than ever, but not every channel is right for every goal. In 2025, efficiency comes from understanding how each channel works, what stage of the funnel it supports, and where it can deliver the clearest, most scalable returns.
Here’s how the top performance channels stack up this year.
Connected TV (CTV)
- Best for: Driving measurable full-funnel impact with precision
- Funnel fit: All stages
- Efficiency play: Premium creative + digital precision + real attribution
With 71% of marketers increasing their investments in CTV this year, it’s clear that this channel has matured into one of the most efficient levers for performance marketers in 2025. By leveraging a Performance TV platform like tvScientific, marketers can easily tap into the storytelling power of TV, with the precision, measurability, and audience targeting of digital.
At the top of the funnel, CTV delivers unmatched attention and engagement on the largest screen in the house. But it doesn’t stop there. With today’s tech stack, advertisers can now target based on behavior, measure outcomes like app installs or purchases, integrate shoppable/interactive elements, and even retarget based on who viewed an ad to boost mid to lower-funnel results.
Use CTV when:
- You’re launching a new product and need reach and recall.
- You want to boost brand search and drive mid-funnel exploration.
- You’re retargeting high-intent users with a compelling creative push.
- You want measurable lift in conversions and revenue, not just impressions.
Pair CTV with paid search and social retargeting to create a cohesive, cross-device funnel. Viewers often convert elsewhere–so make sure your reporting is set up to capture it (platforms like tvScientific make this seamless).
Social Media
- Best for: Full-funnel reach, community-driven conversion, and fast testing
- Funnel fit: All stages (especially mid)
- Efficiency play: Highly engaging creative + direct response capabilities
As social media has become ingrained in people’s daily lives, it’s also become an important growth lever for brands. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest offer robust targeting, shoppable formats, and influencer integrations that blur the line between ad and content.
In 2025, what’s working best is authentic, platform-native creative, often delivered via influencers who drive high engagement and trust. In fact, 60% of marketers say influencer content outperforms studio creative.
Use social to test messaging, acquire leads, and convert mobile-first users. And don’t overlook social commerce. More consumers are making purchases directly within apps, with minimal friction.
Search
- Best for: Capturing high-intent users and converting demand
- Funnel fit: Mid to bottom
- Efficiency play: Scalable conversions with clear intent signals
Search remains the cornerstone of performance marketing because it’s where buyers go when they’re ready to act. Paid search delivers immediate visibility and is ideal when you’re launching a new product, driving seasonal offers, or covering gaps in organic rankings. Organic search, on the other hand, builds sustainable inbound momentum over time, particularly for content-rich categories like SaaS, health, or finance.
You can pair paid search with upper-funnel CTV ads or paid social to boost branded search volume. Branded queries are often a leading indicator of performance in other channels.
Mobile App Advertising
- Best for: Driving installs, in-app conversions, and lifetime value
- Funnel fit: Mid to bottom
- Efficiency play: High-intent acquisition + measurable in-app performance + granular targeting
In 2025, mobile apps remain central to how people shop, bank, play, and interact with brands, making mobile app advertising one of the most efficient channels for driving both user acquisition (UA) and revenue. From gaming to retail to fintech, marketers are leaning into app install campaigns that are optimized not just for downloads, but for post-install behavior like purchases, subscriptions, or repeat engagement.
Align your mobile UA strategy with CTV and social campaigns. For example, CTV can drive awareness for your app, and then a follow-up TikTok ad can drive the install.
Display
- Best for: Cost-efficient reach, retargeting, and reinforcing brand presence
- Funnel fit: Upper to mid
- Efficiency play: Scalable impressions + flexible creative + retargeting power
Display often gets overlooked in favor of flashier formats, but it remains a workhorse for performance marketers, especially when paired with first-party data and smart retargeting. Banner and native display ads are ideal for maintaining presence across the web, re-engaging site visitors, and supporting omni-channel attribution models.
In 2025, the efficiency of display has improved thanks to better contextual targeting, AI-optimized bidding, and more dynamic creative formats. You can use sequential messaging to move users from awareness to action.
Use display when you need broad visibility at a relatively low CPM, or when you want to stay top-of-mind between touchpoints. It’s particularly powerful when layered into a programmatic strategy that spans CTV, mobile, and desktop.
Email & SMS Automation
- Best for: Converting interest, increasing LTV, and retaining customers
- Funnel fit: Bottom and post-purchase
- Efficiency play: High ROI with low CAC, powered by automation and segmentation
Owned channels like email and SMS are quietly some of the most efficient in your stack. These channels are perfect for nurturing leads, reducing cart abandonment, and activating previous buyers with upsells or new drops. With the help of AI-driven segmentation and behavioral triggers, automation has never been smarter.
Use email and SMS to close the loop on acquisition efforts from CTV, search, and social. It’s also a cost-effective way to extend lifetime value (LTV) through loyalty and re-engagement campaigns.
Your Checklist to Scale Growth in 2025
Knowing where to spend is one thing. Using these channels wisely to drive results is another. Here’s a quick checklist for allocating budget with confidence:
- Follow audience behavior, not channel trends. Use data to understand where your audience actually converts, not just where they spend time.
- Think in systems, not silos. No one channel wins alone. Map your funnel with complementary touchpoints (e.g. CTV to drive search, email to convert social clicks, etc.).
- Prioritize projectable performance. Invest in channels with consistent ROAS, not one-hit wins. Look for predictability and repeatability.
- Test, measure, and shift. Don’t wait until Q4 to re-evaluate. Use lift studies, A/B tests, and real attribution to guide budget shifts in real time.
The savviest brands today are using performance data to guide spend, testing new formats that deliver measurable outcomes, and thinking beyond the single-channel win. If you're wondering where to spend next, the answer lies in a cross-channel system that drives real business outcomes at scale.
At tvScientific, we help performance marketers turn CTV into a measurable, scalable growth engine — no guesswork, just outcomes. Get in touch with us to see for yourself.
