Discover how sustainable media buying eliminates waste in digital advertising, delivering better ROI and reduced carbon impact. Win-win optimization starts when you realize every ad, adds up.
The New Year is already a month old, and 2025 dollars are flowing. No matter the budget, every brand has big goals. Two stand out — advertising effectiveness and sustainability targets. It might feel impossible winning big on both, until you look at the numbers from boa’s POV.
Our new report, The 2025 CPG Advertiser’s Guide to Sustainable Media Buying, gets to the heart of the problem and solution. While it’s true that 40% of display advertising is wasted, translating to billions of squandered dollars, proven solutions do exist, now more than ever. Reducing waste puts you on a path for winning two ways. Let’s start with the scale.
The digital advertising landscape is massive and growing. Global expenditures reached $525 billion in 2023, with the CPG category spending nearly $49 billion. Consider:
Each wasted impression isn’t just burning budget. It’s burning energy. A single display campaign generating one million impressions has the carbon footprint equivalent of flying roundtrip from L.A. to NYC. The financial and environmental waste are inextricably linked.
Here’s the good news. Sustainable media buying practices are proving to be more financially efficient, as our recent work with leading CPG brands demonstrates:
These improvements came through strategic targeting, elimination of invalid traffic and optimization of campaign delivery systems. The result? Better performance metrics and reduced environmental impact, without spending more.
The path to more efficient spending is clear:
If you could reduce wasted impressions by even 20%, the ROI is impressive. For a CPG brand spending $1 million annually on programmatic display advertising, eliminating just 20% of wasted impressions could reclaim $80,000 in media spend. That’s budget you could reinvest in high-performing channels, creative testing or targeting refinement. And because more efficient targeting means less server load and data transfer, you’re simultaneously reducing your carbon footprint while improving campaign performance. It’s the definition of a virtuous cycle.
“Throughout this season, we saw again and again that sustainability leadership for brands—digital advertising and strategic media buying included—isn’t just better for the planet, it’s better for ROI too,” says podcast host Avril Tomlin-Hood. “When marketers optimize for both efficiency and sustainability, they’re consistently seeing higher performance metrics while reducing their carbon footprint, and that’s exactly what today’s brands need.”
We’re here to help. Every optimization you make compounds into both cost savings and carbon reduction. You’ll save money and set new standards for sustainable digital advertising.
Get ready to make it happen. First, download our free 2025 CPG Advertiser’s Guide to Sustainable Media Buying for a comprehensive look at how sustainable practices drive better business results. Then book a call so we can talk and get into the details.
Let’s make 2025 the year your digital advertising works harder for your bottom line and your sustainability goals.
The future of digital advertising is sustainable. The only question is, will your brand lead or follow?