28 Oct Why Your CPMs are Rising Even When Performance Isn’t Dropping
Your amplified social content is getting lots of views and engagement, but you’re seeing fewer impressions.
If you’re experiencing this, you’re not the only one. CPMs increase year-over-year, and 2026 is no different. In fact, it’s been reported that CPMs have increased by 12%-25% since 2024. Rising costs mean fewer impressions for your current budget and more spend to meet or exceed last year’s performance. If you’re curious why they’re rising and want to learn how to get back some efficiency, you’ve come to the right spot.
What’s Causing CPMs to Rise?
When it comes to rising CPMs this year, there are a number of culprits at play, including:
- Increased auction competition – Ad spending increases year-over-year, and 2026 is no different, with eMarketer reporting a 26% increase in US social network ad spending from 2025 to 2026. An increase in spending results in increased competition, as more and more advertisers are joining the social conversation.
2. US election year – According to eMarketer, US political ad spending is reported to exceed $11 billion this year, a 21% increase from the 2022 midterm elections. The midterm elections in early November, plus the holidays and end-of-year spending surge, result in even higher costs due to more competition in the last quarter.
3. Meta’s changing algorithm – With Meta’s late-2025 rollout of Andromeda, an AI-driven system that prioritizes the creative (over targeting parameters) when serving ads, it’s even more important to run multiple and diverse ads. Advertisers who are working against the algorithm by running a few or similar creative variants may experience an increase in cost because this limits the algorithm’s ability to learn.
Are Rising CPMs Eating Into Your Paid Social Budget?
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What Are Potential Solutions to Rising CPMs?
Now that you know what may be causing your CPMs to rise, you may be asking, how do I reduce them? In no particular order, here are some optimizations that you can make to current or upcoming paid campaigns:
Allocate budgets to non-competitive periods – Consider reducing spend during the competitive periods and moving to more efficient ones, such as Q5. This period is between Q4 and Q1 (December 26 to mid-January), when competition is at its lowest because the end-of-year and holiday rush has ended. Also, if you know there are other periods where you see upticks in cost, plan for it by decreasing support during those months and increasing paid support during the more efficient months.
Watch out: If having a presence during costly times of the year is important to your business, that’s ok, but you’ll want to consider the following additional strategies.
Diversify the channel mix – With the typical social user moving between 6.75 different social platforms every month, having a diversified paid social presence is key to reaching them. Not only is this a way to create frequency from one platform to another, but diversification also offers flexibility when certain platforms are experiencing an increase in CPM. For example, if Meta CPMs are rising closer to the election, consider moving funds to TikTok, as they don’t allow political ads on the platform.
Watch out: Just because you can amplify content on all social channels doesn’t mean you should. Choose the channels your audience uses and that offer the tools (objectives, optimizations, targeting, etc.) to meet your business goals.
Run multiple creatives – Feed the algorithms multiple creative variants so they have more to learn from. This doesn’t need to be a huge endeavor, as content can come from what you’re already posting organically using the Organish® approach, or you can use the same assets and make minor updates to the copy, headline, and call-to-action button. Multiple creatives not only help with rising CPMs but also combat fatigue, which platforms may penalize you with higher costs.
Watch out: Paid social isn’t “set it and forget it,” so make sure to routinely refresh the creative. In addition to rising costs, frequency (the number of times a user sees your content) is also a good indicator that fatigue is occurring, and it’s time to update those creative variants.
Plan for increasing costs – When estimating impressions for the upcoming year, increase your planning rates (instead of using last year’s rates) to set more realistic expectations of how you’ll end the year. Looking at historical data is a great place to start if you’ve run paid campaigns in the past. Just be sure to bump up those rates to account for the increase in cost.
Watch out: Avoid bumping up that cost too much, as you may end up exceeding impression estimates early in the year. The same goes for not bumping them up enough, as you may find yourself far from your estimates.
What’s the Takeaway?
As an advertiser, you can’t control ad competition or algorithm changes that may impact how many users are seeing your content. However, there are levers you can pull within your paid campaign to reduce the impact, such as supporting more cost-efficient months or channels, or adding more creative. The key to combating rising CPMs is knowing why it’s rising and getting ahead of it with strategic shifts.
Need help with how to plan for and combat those rising CPMs? Get in touch with us today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are social media CPMs rising in 2026?
Three main factors are driving CPMs up in 2026: increased auction competition as US social network ad spending grows 26% year-over-year (per eMarketer), a US midterm election year with political ad spending expected to exceed $11 billion, and Meta’s Andromeda algorithm, which prioritizes creative over targeting and raises costs for advertisers running few or similar ad variants.
How much have social media CPMs increased?
It’s been reported that CPMs have increased by 12% to 25% since 2024. Rising costs mean fewer impressions for the same budget and more spend needed to meet or exceed the previous year’s performance.
What is Q5 in paid social advertising?
Q5 is the period between Q4 and Q1, roughly December 26 to mid-January, when ad auction competition is at its lowest because the end-of-year and holiday rush has ended. Shifting budget into Q5 can help advertisers get more efficient CPMs.
How does Meta’s Andromeda update affect ad costs?
Andromeda, rolled out by Meta in late 2025, is an AI-driven system that prioritizes the creative over targeting parameters when serving ads. Advertisers running only a few or very similar creative variants limit the algorithm’s ability to learn, which can increase costs.
How can advertisers reduce rising CPMs?
Advertisers can allocate budgets to less competitive periods such as Q5, diversify their paid social channel mix, run multiple creative variants so algorithms have more to learn from, and plan for increasing costs by raising planning rates above last year’s actuals.
How do you know when ad creative fatigue is happening?
Rising costs and high frequency, meaning the number of times a user sees your content, are good indicators that creative fatigue is occurring and it’s time to refresh your creative variants.