TLDR: A recent report by TripleLift and EMARKETER highlights a significant disconnect in the advertising industry: while the vast majority of marketers (83.5%) acknowledge creative as a powerful driver of performance, many lack the unified standards, infrastructure, and measurement tools to effectively scale and evaluate its impact. The study, based on a survey of 164 US marketers, reveals inefficiencies stemming from a lack of consensus on ‘great creative’ and insufficient metrics. However, marketers are increasingly turning to AI to streamline creative production and are urged to establish clear standards and invest in analytics to unlock creative’s full potential.
NEW YORK, September 9, 2025 – A new report from TripleLift, a leading Creative SSP, and EMARKETER has uncovered a critical challenge facing the advertising industry: despite widespread recognition of creative’s power, marketers are struggling with its measurement and scalability. The report, titled ‘From Guesswork to Greatness: How Marketers are Redefining Effective Creative at Scale in Digital Advertising,’ reveals that while 83.5% of marketers view creative as a powerful performance driver, a significant portion lacks the infrastructure and shared standards necessary to maximize its effectiveness across channels.
The study, which surveyed 164 US marketing professionals, found that over two in five teams operate without a unified standard for creative, leading to slower feedback loops, complicated approval processes, and increased inefficiencies. When asked to define quality creative, clear brand storytelling and visually compelling design were the most cited attributes, both at 69.5%, followed closely by personalization and relevance to the audience at 66.5%.
According to Toccara Baker, Vice President of Marketing at TripleLift, ‘True creative excellence remains elusive because we lack a shared language and common metrics. Every organization has its own definition, and despite attempts to establish industry standards, widespread adoption is slow.’ Baker emphasized the opportune moment for alignment, stating, ‘With Generative AI now in the mix, it’s the perfect time to align on what ‘great creative’ means and better link creative analytics more directly to digital marketing KPIs.’
The report highlights significant gaps in infrastructure, with limited asset updates (54.3%) and insufficient creative versions (51.8%) identified as top causes for underperformance in programmatic campaigns. Furthermore, while 71.3% of marketers believe creative evaluation has grown more important, only 58.5% regularly connect creative quality to performance, and a mere 51.2% possess reliable metrics or dashboards to do so. This underscores a clear need for more robust measurement strategies, with 73.2% of marketers expecting data analysis to play a greater role in creative success.
Marketers are already embracing technology to address these challenges. The report indicates that 50% of marketers are using AI for generating ad copy, and 37.8% are utilizing it for images and video. This adoption signals a shift towards leveraging AI to streamline production and enhance efficiency.
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To unlock creative’s full potential, the report concludes with several strategic recommendations for marketers: establishing clear creative standards to align cross-functional teams, utilizing AI to accelerate scale and efficiency while maintaining human oversight, investing in creative analytics to directly tie creative assets to business outcomes, and treating creative as a strategic lever across the entire marketing funnel. Izzy Morris, Paid Social and Programmatic Lead at Vodafone, a TripleLift client, reinforced the importance of measurement, stating, ‘The key is to close the loop between creative diagnostics and outcome metrics.’
