Meta warned that it will pass taxes to advertisers and the market made noise. Normal. Every time a giant moves a comma, the tide turns. But after the foam, there is a less comfortable question: why do we remain so dependent on few platforms to the point of any adjustment turn drama?
The problem is not the rate. It is the monoculture. When you plant everything on the same ground, any pest brings down the crop. In media it is the same: a new policy, an algorithm more “temperamental”, a cost increase, an assignment change, the end of cookies in Chrome. None of this is new. The story is cyclical. Swap the label of the problem, the root remains.
I saw this closely with a mobility startup. Accelerated growth, geographic expansion, that good feeling of having found the right track. At one point, the company adopted an AI solution to automate the campaigns. It worked so well that they decided to focus everything on a single channel and leave 100% of the investment in this format. Then came the day when the performance plummeted from nowhere. Without change of configuration and without explanation of the system. How the operation was all in the hand of the algorithm, there was no black box to open. The model delivered the ready dish, but not the recipe and the result?It would run to rebuild campaigns, without explanation of the time, it was the loss of revenue, even loss of time, but of time, it was a single place, it was dependent on the time, on the time, on the time, on the time, on the loss of the time, on the same.
Agencies and advertisers know this truth.They talk about diversification in presentations, but on a daily basis the pressure for a goal and the temptation of convenience push everything to the same two or three walled gardens. Meanwhile, movements like Meta serve as a warning: who rules is who controls the infrastructure. They pursue profitability, like any serious business. They are more than right and the question is what we do with this alert.
Diversifying is not fad but governance. It is treating media as it is a financial portfolio, seeking low correlation, balancing risk and return and ensuring strategic liquidity. When the money is spread intelligently, a bad tide does not turn into a shipwreck. When it is concentrated, any wave turns into a hangover.
“Tah, but diversify to where?” There are solid paths that, added together, already account for a relevant slice of the digital pie in mature markets. Programmatic with quality inventory and clean data. Native that respects the context and delivery real reading. Rich media that plays with interaction and remembrance. In-app media with efficient reach and frequency. Audio that builds brand while following the daily. Video in premium formats, from CTV to well-positioned mid-roll. It is not about exchanging one dependency for another, but about putting together a basket with different roles, clear metrics and growth hypotheses.
Agencies need to resist autopilot that prioritizes what is easy to operate and hard to justify when it goes wrong and on the side of advertisers, the invitation is to give media buyers freedom to not just stay in direct response, and have room for long-term metrics.
First, an honest diagnosis of the current risk.How much of your CAC depends on Meta and Google combined? If the answer is: “passes 80%”, you already know where the danger lives. Then, a period of disciplined exploration. Establish a background of experiments per quarter, with explicit hypotheses, cost and quality benchmarks, and evaluation windows that respect the cycle of your business. It is not to play with testing. It is to learn with method. Finally, learning governance. Every week an insight becomes route adjustment. When something performs, it does not happen with the“apaixone”: understand by what science is to get there, documenting, it is to get to science, before it is to know.
If the media plan were a portfolio, the sudden drop in the dominant channel would have hurt less and taught more. With diversification, you keep your pulse. Without it, you get stuck in the mood of systems that do not owe you satisfaction.
The discussion about passed taxes, CPMs that go up and attribution signals that go away is valid. It shows the reality of a market in search of profitability and privacy. But, using this noise only to complain is to miss the chance to come out stronger. What matters is how each advertiser and each agency will redesign its own mix so that the next rule change is a candle adjustment, not a shipwreck.
In the end, the provocation is less romantic and more operational. How is your plan today?It is, in fact, diversified or you continue to ignore the ideal world? Because the ideal world does not exist. What is the plan that you take from the paper, review, measure and improve. The question that applies to 2026 & for any cycle - is just one: you want to play the platform game as a hostage to your rules or take advantage of its incredible resources to build a winning and solid strategy?
By Bruno Oliveira, COO of ADSPLAY
