Brand marketers today increasingly are asked to do more with less – and prove it’s working.
As economic uncertainty intensifies and sales soften across the CPG industry, many companies are tightening their advertising and promotion budgets, while at the same time, consumer trust is tanking, spending is shrinking and attention is stretched across more channels than ever before.
New data underscores just how challenging this environment has become.
According to a recent survey by InMarket, 18% of marketers say smaller budgets and limited resources are their top challenge in 2026. Meanwhile, research from TelmarHelixa finds nearly 40% of advertising professionals say it’s increasingly difficult to reach audiences effectively across today’s fragmented media landscape.
So the question becomes: how do brands actually break through?
In this episode of FoodNavigator-USA’s Soup-To-Nuts Podcast, InMarket VP and Practice Leader (CPG) Matt Knust shares insights from standout marketing campaigns by The Laughing Cow, Welch’s, Bob Evans and others last year that drove incremental return on ad spend as high as $11.43, incremental sales as $1.5 million and meaningful lifts in units. He breaks down what those campaigns got right and highlights three strategic pillars that are fundamental to driving breakthrough outcomes.
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Marketers need to do more with less
Modern marketers may have more tools to help them efficiently build campaigns and more places where they can target consumers compared to even just a few years ago, but many advertisers say it is harder than ever to effectively break through.
As a result, Knust explains, the biggest challenge for marketers now isn’t competition – it is relevance.
“Media consumption right now is at an all-time high. I sit here in front of my computer and I have a tablet right next to it, I’ve got my phone next to my tablet. So, consumers are spending more and more time connected to all of these devices,” he said. That means “the real competition from brands isn’t the other brands in their category, but it is for shoppers’ attention” and digital exposure.
According to Knust, it’s not just attention that’s under pressure, budgets are tightening, too.
“We did a 2026 Prediction Survey and basically one out of five marketers are citing shrinking budgets and limited resources as their #1 hurdle. So, they are needing to figure out a way to do more – or the same – with less money,” he said.
The definition of success is evolving
In an environment defined by less budget and more competition, Knust explains that success starts to look different.
“Brands have tons of data now at their fingertips to help them identify the right shoppers that they want to reach across the many different devices. So, brands that can truly harness that data and find the right shopper and use the right tactics to reach that shopper in the right moment” are the ones that will win, he said.
For example, he said, one of the best times to reach him is with push notifications in store, but his wife orders groceries online, so the best time to reach her is on her phone in the evening while she is watching TV and building her shopping list, he said.
Other people will be more receptive to messages via a podcast on their commute or on TV, he added.
Connect with consumers at the right moment with the right message
That idea of reaching the right person at the right moment is central to InMarket’s new Breakthrough Outcomes report, which identifies three key pillars for optimal modern advertising based on five successful marketing campaigns that ran last year.
As Knust explains, the first of these pillars is precise timing and connecting the message to the moment.
“The strongest results come when brands align messaging with the moment,” which means when the ads are served but also temporal themes, such as seasonality or around behavior patterns, like meal prep, he said.
Knust acknowledges that finding the right time to deliver an important marketing message may require some tradeoffs.
For example, brands that refine their marketing messages may find a smaller window for delivery or a smaller consumer base to target. This is a case of quality over quantity, but of course, with advertising, quantity matters too, which means figuring out when to reconnect with key shoppers so they remember the brand but aren’t annoyed.
Creative clarity removes friction
Reaching the right person at the right moment is only one part of the equation – another is removing the friction for consumers to act on an ad through creative clarity. Knust explains that high-impact visuals paired with clear calls to action can guide shoppers “from awareness to purchase.”
Removing friction means first knowing the desired outcome, or call to action, of an ad, and then designing the content to deliver that goal, he said.
An example featured in InMarket’s report of successfully using creative clarity to remove friction is The Laughing Cow’s campaign to drive awareness and sales of its creamy original cheese wheel and its creamy smoked gouda.
The background of the ad resembles a cheese wedge, which frames the product packaging and literally points to a bold callout to “Learn More” or “Find Store.”
Personalization and real-time activation are essential
The third pillar that InMarket says is essential for a successful modern marketing campaign is personalization at a much more advanced level than in the past. Knust explains that brands need to leverage real-time activation and precision audience targeting to remain relevant and competitive in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
InMarket calls out in its report a campaign by Olly that drove 1.5 million in incremental sales and an incremental return on ad spend of $10.06 in part by using data-led personalization to cut through the noise.
The campaign was tied with back-to-school season and paired the clever tagline “Wellness in Session” with the unwelcome reality that returning to the classroom may mean more exposure to germs. The campaign promoted the company’s hero vitamin lines and targeted families with different needs – such as immunity or stress management – and included a clear call to action as well as a timeliness component.
Three pillars work together
As illustrated by this example, the three pillars highlighted by InMarket are not silos – rather they work together to form a strong foundation for a successful campaign.
While all three pillars are important, Knust acknowledges there are some pieces of data that currently are underutilized by many marketers – notably, real time location.
“Having access to real time data signals, like location, like conversion, allows brands to then become more efficient with their media spend” because they can more effectively coordinate follow-up messages, Knust explained.
Based on InMarket’s analysis, the brands that win in the future won’t necessarily be the ones spending the most, but rather the ones using data more intelligently to show up in the
