4 insiders explain how they would invest a $500,000 ad budget right now
Illustration by Christian Ray Blaza / Getty / Shutterstock / The Current
Reddit ads are hot. YouTube is full of AI slop. Netflix has doubled U.S. upfront commitments. And yes, Roblox should be taken seriously as an advertising channel.
These are just some of the hot takes ricocheting around the advertising press lately. But for marketers, it can be hard to see past the headlines and focus on what really matters: where to invest their campaign budgets for the best return.
To cut through the noise, we asked four investment leads at independent media agencies in the U.S., including Blue Chip and Arm Candy, for their takes on what makes for sound deployment of media budgets right now.
We posed a simple but revealing question: If you had half a million dollars to spend for a client right now, where would you invest it — and feel comfortable in the ROI?
Their answers point to a common theme: the rise of connected TV (CTV), retail media, and omnichannel strategies that prioritize both performance and flexibility. Read on for what they had to say, as told to Global Editor Zac Wang:
Mary Kate Huffman, senior director of commerce and investment strategy, Blue Chip
Full-funnel retail media
The plan: Leverage retail media to effectively reach target audiences through high-impact channels, such as CTV, online video and display. This approach enables a dual focus: driving sales while simultaneously enhancing brand visibility. Additionally, retail media provides valuable performance insights, including retail sales measurement and audience- and creative-level analytics, which can inform and optimize future campaigns.
The delivery: Begin by identifying the markets or retail partners that present the greatest opportunity for your business and concentrate investment there, rather than diluting efforts across a broad national footprint.
It’s important to consider the size of your audience, their purchase frequency and inclusion of category buyer when determining the audience that presents the greatest opportunity for immediate impact.
Encompassing an audience with a lapsed purchase history can inflate audience sizes and incorporate shoppers with a low purchase frequency, but when you have a limited budget, we want to focus on where we can make the biggest impact.
Lastly, develop a cross-channel plan that reaches the target along their path to purchase. Drive top-of-mind awareness and consideration and inspire action with high-impact touchpoints. Then, reengage them while they’re in an active shopping mode with contextual and proximity targeting.
The landscape: Brands are consistently challenged to do more with fewer marketing dollars. Retail media continues to evolve, offering increasingly precise targeting capabilities through platforms like Instacart, Walmart, Amazon, Target, Kroger, etc. These channels enable brands to reach high-value audiences using rich first-party data.
Measurement capabilities within retail media are also advancing, allowing for clearer attribution and the ability to quantify incremental sales driven by specific activations. This level of insight makes it easier to validate marketing effectiveness and justify increased investment.
An alternative: There’s something truly rewarding about seeing a campaign you’ve worked on come to life in the real world. I would consider investing in local digital out-of-home placements — not only to experience the campaign in my everyday environment, but also as a tangible reminder of the impactful work I’m fortunate to be part of.
Alysia Ehle, VP of strategy and product, Arm Candy
Meta and CTV one-two punch
The plan: Our $500,000 media investment would be a cross-channel media mix of two channels proven to deliver: Meta and CTV. Cross-channel because increased number of sources in the market plus frequency are proven to drive intent.
The delivery: We start with a channel-first approach driven by the media mix that is proven to achieve a specific business goal.
CTV is best executed through curating premium inventory. Executing CTV on the open exchange is likely driving frequencies that are too high, across inventory with a lower percentage of the U.S. consumer base viewing it.
Ad-supported subscriptions like Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+ are becoming more popular and provide a premium way for an advertiser to reach anyone.
Meta is recommended in nearly every media strategy we create with a strategically selected KPI, due to its mass reach and algorithmic capabilities.
Of course, pairing any social platform with programmatic can pose its own challenges when it comes to attribution for online or in-store sales due to lack of communication between the systems. To remedy this, a form of media mix modeling is typically recommended to either project attributed KPI or forecast business results to allocate the proper media mix or supplement with additional channels.
Audience targeting will then be managed within the platform starting with first-party data or the next best audience data available. We find the most success with channel and PMP selection, but first-party integrations and behavioral data can complement our plan.
The landscape: When it comes to CTV, contextual placements are becoming more and more important with the fickleness of cookies and quality of placements across the open exchange. That said, attribution remains the most important question to answer and is typically the most sought out for smaller investments. Finding a partner to develop and maintain consistency around a media mix model that is tailored for the business is key.
An alternative: Pause ads are the hot new feature across several CTV providers. Even though my kids freak out when they see them, this would be a fun placement to test in a select market to understand if the longevity of the pause ad, alongside 15- and 30-second streaming ads, move the needle.
Nicky Delasalle, VP of growth, DirectAvenue
CTV for precision work
The plan: I’d recommend leaning into a performance-first media strategy that balances reach with precision. The mix I’d advocate is 70% linear TV and 30% CTV (CTV). A $500,000 budget should be treated as a performance engine. Use linear to cast the wide net and build awareness, then let CTV do the precision work of driving conversions.
The delivery: Linear delivers frequency at scale, measurable against performance KPIs. CTV adds targeting efficiency — using first-party data to build lookalike audiences, exclude existing customers and retarget those who showed intent but didn’t convert.
Negotiated PMP deals bring down CPMs by as much as 30% compared to open exchange rates, while still running through our DSP for optimization rigor.
Frequency capping prevents wasted impressions and keeps campaigns efficient. It’s not about bombarding audiences — it’s about delivering the right number of touchpoints to drive action.
The landscape: We’re moving toward hybrid programming models, where networks air new episodes on linear first, then push to streaming within 24 to 48 hours. This protects broadcast ad dollars while feeding the binge-watching crowd. For advertisers, that means more opportunities to extend a single buy across both platforms seamlessly.
An alternative: Digital audio is having a moment. Podcasts and streaming services are creating deep, personal connections with listeners. In fact, digital audio already commands 63% of audio ad dollars. Add in hybrid radio (traditional + streaming), interactive ads via smart speakers and AI-powered personalization, and you’ve got another highly targeted way to hit consumers right where they’re tuned in.
Matt Shenton, director of biddable media, Croud
Playing the AI discovery game
The plan: The $500,000 is spent on creating topic-specific content designed to build authority signals organically on YouTube (where long-form and Shorts content fuels both discovery and AI search placement) and Meta platforms (where Instagram posts increasingly surface in search results). Proven assets that show strong watch time, engagement, and search visibility are then amplified with paid media across these same platforms to maximize reach, lower costs and strengthen long-term visibility in AI-driven discovery.
The delivery: The approach starts by allocating 20% of budget to create 8 to 10 longer-form content pieces around 2 to 3 core themes the brand wants to “own,” then seeding them organically with light boosts or partnerships.
The next 60% is dedicated to scaling spend on YouTube videos, Shorts or Meta posts that have already demonstrated authority signals — such as high watch time, strong engagement or organic search surfacing.
The final 20% goes toward retargeting and sequenced messaging across YouTube and Meta, moving engaged users from awareness through to conversion.
The landscape: As AI transforms search and discovery, platforms increasingly reward depth, expertise and engagement. Paid and organic no longer operate in silos. They reinforce each other in ecosystems where engagement and topical authority compound over time. Brands that master this “organic-to-paid loop” on these high-leverage platforms will benefit from lower media costs, stronger visibility and a more durable presence in AI-driven recommendation and search environments.
An alternative: Instead of running the budget purely as a brand, create a fictional AI influencer or character who becomes the face of your content journey. They could “document” their rise to topic authority on YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok — sharing behind-the-scenes wins, flops and learning moments in a relatable, humorous way. Over time, the character partners with your brand as a collaborator, co-creating content around your core themes.