“YouTube Shorts has become a major player in the short-form space in a short amount of time,” she added.
Globally, ad budgets allocated to short-form video, beloved by Gen Z and popularized by TikTok, are expected to continue growing by a compound annual rate of 50% in 2025, hitting more than $145 billion, per Statista.
Despite looming uncertainty over the ban, TikTok ad spend in the U.S. was projected to surge 57% YoY in the first two months of 2025, according to data from Guideline published in early January. However, on Jan. 10, when Supreme Court justices signaled skepticism of TikTok’s legal case and an inclination to uphold a ban, agencies, marketers, and publishers started to get antsy.
Per e-commerce analytics firm MikMak, major brands began diverting spend from TikTok in the days after Jan. 10, signaled by a dwindling decline in ad clicks on the platform. As of Jan. 17, TikTok traffic to paid media was down 21% daily.
Alphabet (which owns YouTube Shorts) gained the most paid traffic by comparison, followed by Pinterest.
Thinking outside the TikTok box
While some marketers are toggling the on-off switch between platforms to find what will work best, challenger skincare brand Eos has no immediate answer as to what should take TikTok’s place in its marketing plan.
It’s driven sales and engagement on TikTok by collaborating with relevant creators, and even based an entire product line (its “Bless Your F*ing Cooch” shaving range) on a trending video on the platform.
CMO Soyoung Kang told ADWEEK Eos was “actively marketing” on TikTok in the days leading up to the Supreme Court’s final ruling, but was also laying out contingency plans on other social platforms.
“We’ve always had a diversified social strategy, which should allow us to adapt quickly and reallocate resources. Ultimately, we’ll go where our audience goes,” she asserted.
That said, Kang is not set on how to replace the “truly unique” platform like-for-like. “It’s not just about the impressions,” she said. “The community element of TikTok—where there are multiple layers of conversations happening all the time, within the comments and across videos—is such an important part of the entire experience.”
Kang noted that before TikTok, discovery on social media was mostly one-directional. TikTok took the feed from linear to labyrinthine, “creating richer community engagement, and as a result, more opportunities for challengers like Eos to break through,” she added.