CANNES – Despite all the advances in marketing technology, chief marketing officers still struggle with a fundamental problem: proving to their chief financial officers that advertising investments drive sales.
“CMOs still lack the ability to show CFOs the yield on investment,” Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “When CMOs are getting metrics like viewability or click-through rate and show that to the CFO, who cares, right? A CFO wants to [know], ‘I’m giving you $10 million. How do you drive sales?’”
This disconnect between marketing metrics and business outcomes drives Perion’s entire strategic approach. The company is building “Perion One,” which Jacobson described as a unified platform designed to orchestrate campaigns across all channels while providing the outcome-based metrics that matter to those very demanding C-suite bean counters.
From 1835 to AI
Jacobson also offered a historical perspective on advertising’s evolution. He mentioned that the company discovered an out-of-home ad from 1835 that proved inspiring. “Back then it was easy, right? You had one message, you know where the audiences are, and you can do that and see if it works,” he said.
The endlessly complex media landscape of 2025 presents a different challenge entirely. “So many different channels and platforms and the audience is so fragmented,” Jacobson noted. With traditional approaches requiring “40 different platforms and seven different agencies and so many an army of experts,” AI presents the first real opportunity to orchestrate everything from one place.
The waste reduction imperative
Perion’s May 2025 acquisition of Greenbids reflects another client priority: reducing waste in media spending.
Originally focused on reducing carbon emissions, Greenbids discovered that environmental efficiency delivered unexpected performance benefits.
“[Greenbids] quickly realized that reducing carbon actually provides better outcomes, up to 40% better outcomes on the same level of investment,” Jacobson explained.
The acquisition addresses a key limitation of major platforms. While Google and Meta’s algorithms work well, Jacobson pointed out they’re “focused on a broader range of clients. It’s not specifically for Nike or for Spotify or for Coca-Cola.”
In contrast, Jacobson said Perion enables custom algorithms for each brand that communicate in real-time with DSPs, optimizing for specific objectives.
Channel agnostic by design
In a Cannes crowded with ad tech companies promoting specific channels or platforms, Jacobson suggested that Perion tries to strike a deliberately different approach.
“We don’t care if you’re using open internet, Google, Meta, TikTok — they’re all good,” Jacobson said. “It’s not about which channels you use. It’s about ‘How do we execute your marketing strategy? How do we provide better outcomes?’”
This channel-agnostic philosophy stems from viewing advertising through a strict marketing team lens rather than focusing on individual platforms. “We’re looking at it from the eyes of a CMO: What’s important to you? What do you want to get out of it? What are the outcomes you are hoping to get?”
The localization complexity
Marketing strategies themselves have become increasingly fragmented, requiring localization down to the neighborhood level. When multiplied across channels, the complexity becomes overwhelming.
“What’s going to be the strategy for that neighborhood on TikTok, on Instagram, on out of home, on YouTube? It becomes more complicated,” Jacobson said.
Perion One aims to simplify this complexity by unifying everything under one platform (hence the name, Jacobson noted). The goal is enabling marketers to orchestrate campaigns across all channels while providing the data needed to demonstrate real business outcomes.
“You can show your CFO what outcomes you’re getting,” Jacobson said.
You’re watching “Dispatches from Cannes Lions 2025: Interviews on Innovation”, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at Cannes Lions 2025, presented by DirectTV, EXTE, Fandom, Future USA, Jivox, Kroger, New Tradition, Ogury, Pentaleap, Perion, Topsort, VuePlanner, and Walmart Connect. For more videos from this series, visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2025 here.
