The State of Ad Ops: The Struggle is Real for Marketers

Marketers are struggling to keep up. Across every channel and format, demand is surging, timelines are shrinking, and AI tools have reset what “fast” and “scalable” even mean. Teams are being asked to produce more, faster, with fewer resources. And the infrastructure meant to support it all? It’s not keeping up.  

To understand the root of these challenges, XR teamed with MX8 research to survey more than 200 marketers across brands, agencies, and production studios to uncover where pressure is building and how it is impacting how the work gets done.

These insights are drawn from XR’s State of Ad Ops report, an industry-wide study examining the pain points shaping modern advertising production.

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Part I of our series digs into the widening gap between production expectations and production reality, from strained resources to budget overruns and delayed launches.

Everyone is Doing More with Less

Content demand is surging across every corner of advertising, but resources and operational capacity are struggling to keep pace.

81% of respondents surveyed by XR say they are producing more content than they were a year ago. However, only 30% believe their resources are keeping pace with the growing demand for cross-channel campaigns.  

More demand hasn’t translated into more support. 70% of respondents say they are producing more creative with the same or fewer internal resources. Agencies, in particular, are feeling it, with clients pushing for more content without meaningful budget increases to support the added workload.

Marketers Feel in Control. The Data Disagrees

As production demands increase, visibility into spend and workflow performance becomes increasingly important.  

When asked about visibility into production-related costs throughout the campaign lifecycle, 92% of respondents described it as good or excellent. Similarly, 84% reported strong alignment between their creative and finance teams.

Yet, despite strong confidence in planning and financial oversight, the majority of marketers and creatives admit that going over budget and launching late is the new norm.

Seven in ten respondents report going over budget at least some of the time. For brands, scope creep and unplanned revisions or reshoots are the leading causes of budget overages. Agencies, meanwhile, point to shifting platform and channel requirements as a major contributor.

Together, these findings point to a broader operational challenge: existing production and cost management structures are struggling to keep pace with the speed, scale, and complexity of modern advertising workflows.

Stay tuned for more insights from XR’s State of Ad Ops Report, including where content is being wasted and the role AI is playing in today’s evolving production workflow.