LiveRamp CEO on the ‘no regret’ move marketers can make amid economic uncertainty

Will they or won’t they?

With all the uncertainty around the Trump administration instituting global trade tariffs and then pausing some of them while increasing others, marketers are caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty.

Historically, economic turbulence has coincided with immense transformations across media. Google Search rose in prominence after the bubble burst in 2000. Social media grew after the Great Recession in 2008, and streaming took off during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Now, advertisers are trying to figure out what the next seismic move could be.

LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe’s career in marketing has spanned upswings and downturns, including at Razorfish (formerly named Avenue A) during the dot-com crash and Microsoft during the Great Recession. He talked with The Current about how marketers can bring stability to today’s environment.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Even with tariffs mostly on pause, there’s still this looming uncertainty around the economy from marketers. On LinkedIn, you compared this moment to the dot-com crash and the Great Recession, noting which channels grew share. How can marketers make the best of the uncertainty today?

What I will say is this is a little bit different because it is so uncertain right now. And I think that’s what is making most of our clients super uncomfortable.

What all executives and advertisers hate, in particular, is not knowing what the future is. And so, I think the knee jerk [reaction is] “are there tariffs or are there not tariffs? Is it 10%? Is it higher?”

The back-and-forth, yo-yo action is exhausting. And they’re trying to figure out what it all means and how to navigate the course. If past recessions are any guide, it’s really important to make the “no regrets” moves.

We know exactly what happens every time there’s a recession. Every CEO turns to their CMO and says, “We have to tighten our belts. We better make sure all that advertising spend is working.”

The “no regrets” move now is to make sure that every dollar of the media plan is measurable and accountable.

Every time there’s been a recession, there has been this shift where the share of accountable advertising — things like programmatic, CTV, search, social — took share from those things that weren’t accountable.

That’s the no regrets jujitsu move to prepare for the future.

How can marketers act on that mindset?

Advertisers that start to set up clean rooms, that start to measure everything, they’re going to collect signals. And that, in a world of agentic AI and outcomes-based marketing, can power their future efforts.

The folks that win in the recession are going to position themselves, this time even more so than past recessions, to win going forward, because the things they’ll do to prepare for the downturn will prepare them for the future. So much of advertising and marketing is going to be driven by the collection of these AI signals, figuring out what it means and then tapping into that for your medium.

You mentioned all the dynamics making marketers unsure. How do you balance not diving in too fast and changing your media plan but also not waiting too long?

The one megatrend that we’ve seen span all these recessions is getting data-driven. People are going to use data to make smarter decisions and try to navigate the recession.

I heard Warren Buffett speak when I was in business school in the ’90s. And one of the things he said was great companies take share in a recession because they figure out ways to win when everybody else is hunkering down.

If an advertiser thinks that now is the time to hunker down and try to lie low, they’re going to end up not winning.

Can you take me back to your memories of being at Razorfish in 2000 during the dot-com crash and at Microsoft during the Great Recession? What were you guys thinking about during those times and how did you strategize during them?

Someone told me back when I was a young guy there are two motivators in the world: fear and greed. And in a recession, people get scared. The winners understand they have to help their clients succeed right now. They’ll show a positive ROI and help you justify how every dollar is spent.

Going back to 2001, I remember our company credo for Avenue A/Razorfish was “know what works.”

We could go into any company in a recession and go, wow, it’s really bad out there. But if you know what works, you can eliminate what’s not working on your media plan. And you’ll look like a genius.

And I think that’s true every single recession. The winners have gone in and told that story.