The trends reshaping search and the ROI that justifies moving now

The article argues that the business case for shifting search ad budgets to social platforms, particularly Meta, is now clear.
Four trends support this: Google's market share is declining, short-form video is becoming the dominant search result format, AI extends rather than ends the consumer journey, and incrementality data from Measured shows Meta's return on ad spend for new customer acquisition is 2.3 times higher than traditional search.
For brands over $50M in spend, the efficiency advantage is 46%.
The key actions for CMOs include running incrementality tests, optimizing product catalogs for AI-powered discovery, investing in visual content like UGC and creator posts, and measuring true causal impact through geo-experiments.
The article emphasizes that search is a behavior, and social platforms are where that behavior now drives growth, making budget reallocation a strategic imperative.