Noise Is Expensive
Why This Matters Now
Marketing leaders are under pressure like never before. Planning for 2026 is colliding with tougher budgets, sharper CFO scrutiny, and boardrooms that want proof of growth, not just activity.
The challenge isn’t a lack of tools, platforms, or data. It’s the opposite. Marketers are surrounded by more dashboards and reports than ever before, yet clarity has never felt harder to find.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: noise isn’t just distracting. It’s expensive. According to the Association of National Advertisers, nearly 25% of U.S. marketing budgets are wasted on media that never reaches the intended audience [1]. That adds up to billions at the industry level, and potentially millions within individual companies. Not to mention credibility leaking out of the system
If 2026 is going to look different, the cost of noise has to be confronted head-on.
What Counts as Noise (and Why It’s Expensive)
Noise takes many forms in a modern marketing organization. Some of it looks harmless, but every line item compounds into real cost:
Wasted Media Spend: Dollars continue to flow into impressions that never land with the intended audience. It looks like reach on the report, but delivers no meaningful outcome.
Redundant Tech/Tools: Overlapping platforms, subscription creep, poor integration. Every year the stack grows, but efficiency doesn’t.
Vanity Metrics: Chasing clicks, impressions, or views may look good on a slide deck, but if they don’t tie to the P&L (revenue, margin, retention), they’re just noise.
Partner Markups: Too many contracts still hide 20–30% pass-through fees on services like media buying or production [2]. Partners can be critical contributors, but only if costs are transparent and incentives aligned to business outcomes.
Noise may be easy to ignore in the moment, but over a fiscal year it adds up to wasted spend, credibility erosion, and lost opportunity. If that “noise” hasn’t been truly reviewed in the last 2 to 3 years, think about that.
Why Noise Persists
If noise is costly, why does it remain embedded in so many organizations? Four main reasons:
Same-Old Planning: Rolling forward last year’s plan feels safe. McKinsey reports that companies reallocating less than 10% of their marketing budgets annually leave enormous value on the table [3].
Defensible Spend: Marketers often gravitate toward channels with easy-to-defend metrics (impressions, CTRs) … even if they don’t drive real growth. This defensible spend is safe politically, but not strategically.
Vendor Opacity: Opaque contracts and markups keep costs hidden. When invoices are bundled, it’s difficult to know what spend is actually reaching the customer.
AI Hype: Every budget season now comes with a flood of “must-have” AI tools. Deloitte reports that only 29% of CMOs feel confident their teams can use AI effectively to drive measurable business results [4].
Noise persists not because leaders don’t care, but because it’s easier to preserve and defend that past than to question it.
The Business Consequences of Noise
Budget Waste: Millions lost annually at the company level.
Eroded Trust: CFOs and boards lose confidence when marketing can’t tie spend to results.
Strategic Paralysis: Teams get stuck reporting dashboards instead of reallocating dollars to what works.
Customer Drift: While teams obsess over internal metrics, customers experience inconsistent or tone-deaf campaigns. PwC found that 32% of customers will walk away from a brand they love after just one bad experience [5].
Noise isn’t harmless. It bleeds both capital and credibility.
How to Diagnose Noise: The Audit Test
The good news is noise can be identified and addressed. A Noise Audit isn’t a theoretical exercise - it’s a structured review that can be run annually, or even quarterly, to ensure dollars are tied to outcomes. Leaders can walk their teams through these lenses:
The Relevance Test: Would the business or the customer notice if this campaign, tool, or vendor disappeared tomorrow? If the answer is “no” it’s likely noise.
The Financial Test: Does this spend map directly to a line on the P&L (revenue, retention, margin, brand equity)? Engagement metrics are fine on a dashboard, but they don’t influence executive decisions.
The Transparency Test: Do we know the true costs, including partner markups, pass-through fees, and hidden subscriptions? It’s critical to know what portion of spend actually reaches the customer, and what gets absorbed by layers of fees, markups, or unused subscriptions.
The Reallocation Test: Are we shifting at least 20–30% of our budget annually toward proven, higher-return channels? McKinsey’s research shows companies reallocating ≥50% see 2–3x higher ROI [3].
The Outcome Test: Are we distinguishing between activity metrics (clicks, impressions, reach) versus outcome metrics (CAC payback, retention lift, margin impact)? Confusing the two creates noise.
Formalize this as a Noise Audit Scorecard. Assign red/yellow/green to each category. What gets flagged red becomes the immediate cut list for the next planning cycle. By rebuilding around outcomes, transparency, and clarity – leaders can cut away the noise and reinvest in growth.
From Noise to Signal: Action Steps
Once waste is diagnosed, leaders must be deliberate about rebuilding around outcomes. Here’s how:
Audit & Cut Ruthlessly: Kill duplicate platforms, end opaque vendor contracts, and drop campaigns that fail the P&L relevance test – if they don’t tie to the P&L outcome they are noise.
Reallocate Dynamically: Don’t just cut … redirect. McKinsey found dynamic reallocators achieve 2–3x higher returns [3]. Review legacy channels, and move dollars where they create returns. Example: One enterprise cut a redundant $500K event sponsorship and redirected it into digital demand programs that paid back CAC in 9 months.
Demand Transparency: Partners should disclose true costs and work on value-based pricing models. Ask: What’s your markup? Can we see pass-through invoices? How are incentives aligned?
Apply AI With Purpose: Don’t buy AI tools just because they’re shiny. Deploy them to reduce friction, automate reporting, or surface insights; not to create another layer of noise. Treat AI like any other capital investment.
By rebuilding around outcomes, transparency, and clarity, leaders can cut away the noise and reinvest in growth.
Don’t Pay for Noise in 2026
Noise isn’t inefficiency. It’s a financial drain, a credibility risk, and a missed opportunity. And the costs compound every year that noise is allowed to sit in the plan.
2026 cannot be another rinse-and-repeat cycle of last year’s budget. The organizations that win will be the ones that confront waste directly, reallocate aggressively, and demand clarity.
Noise is expensive. But cutting it is liberating.
The companies that win in 2026 won’t be louder. They’ll be clearer.
For a broader view on how to move from noise to clarity, read our full Perspective: Own the Signal
Sources
[1] ANA. Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study. https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/programmatic-media-supply-chain-transparency-study
[2] Digiday. 'Brands Still Frustrated by Agency Markups.' https://digiday.com/marketing/brands-still-frustrated-by-agency-markups
[3] McKinsey & Company. The Granularity of Growth: Making Choices That Drive Enduring Value. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights
[4] Deloitte. 2024 Global Marketing Trends. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/retail-distribution/global-marketing-trends.html
[5] PwC. Experience Is Everything: Here’s How to Get It Right. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/advisory-services/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf
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