Why small businesses should pay attention to the next shift in online advertising

Why small businesses should pay attention to the next shift in online advertising

If you run paid campaigns in the U.S., you already know online advertising is getting more competitive. Advertising costs are rising across Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and platforms increasingly rely on automation and AI to decide where budgets go. Recent 2025 Google Ads benchmarks show cost-per-click increases across most industries, confirming what many advertisers are already experiencing

At the same time, a major technical shift is already underway in Europe, one that hasn’t fully reached the U.S. advertising market yet but is shaping how platforms think about data, measurement, and optimization. Clym explains why U.S. businesses should prepare now.

Europe Shows the Direction Platforms Are Moving

In Europe, advertising platforms now expect websites to send verified consent signals to maintain reliable campaign measurement. While this shift was initially driven by privacy regulations, it quickly evolved into a technical requirement for ad performance.

For example, Google introduced Google Consent Mode V2, which allows Google Ads and Google Analytics to adjust measurement and optimization based on user consent instead of losing visibility altogether. Microsoft followed a similar path with Microsoft Consent Mode, enabling tools like Microsoft Clarity to respect user choices while still supporting aggregated insights.

At the same time, regulators and browsers are increasingly recognizing Global Privacy Control (GPC) as a universal opt-out mechanism, requiring websites in certain jurisdictions to automatically honor user opt-out signals without manual interaction. Together, these changes reflect a broader move toward standardized, machine-readable consent signals that platforms can rely on globally.

This already affects many U.S. businesses. Any company running ads that reach European users must meet these standards in order for campaigns to be delivered accurately, reach the right audiences, and measure conversions properly. Without verified consent signals, targeting and reporting for European traffic can be limited or distorted.

Platforms like Google and Meta operate on global systems. Once a technical standard proves necessary in one region, it often becomes the baseline elsewhere. While U.S. ad platforms are not yet enforcing the same requirements nationwide, the foundation is already being laid.

Why U.S. Businesses Are Already Affected

Several U.S. states already require websites to honor opt-out consent signals under state privacy laws, including California’s California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act privacy requirements, Colorado (Colorado Privacy Act), Virginia (Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act), and Connecticut (Connecticut Data Privacy Act). As a result, many businesses already need a system capable of recording user choices and acting on them correctly.

The infrastructure required to manage these opt-outs is the same infrastructure advertising platforms rely on to understand and process user data. Treating privacy compliance and advertising performance as two separate problems often leads to fragmented tools, manual work, and unreliable reporting.

One Infrastructure, Two Problems Solved

A properly implemented consent management platform does far more than display a banner. It records and stores user choices, applies them consistently, blocks or enables scripts based on regulation and visitor preferences, and sends structured consent signals to advertising and analytics platforms.

With this foundation in place, platforms can adapt measurement responsibly instead of losing visibility altogether. This model is already standard across Europe and closely mirrors how U.S. state privacy laws are evolving.

Digital compliance companies note that as state-level regulations continue to follow GDPR-style frameworks, consent handling is increasingly becoming part of the technical infrastructure behind advertising systems, not just a legal requirement.

The Bottom Line

This isn’t about fixing broken campaigns today. It’s about preparing for how advertising platforms are changing.

U.S. businesses already need consent infrastructure to meet state privacy laws. Choosing a solution that also supports advertising signals reduces manual work, avoids future retrofits, and helps protect long-term campaign efficiency.

This story was produced by Clym and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.