By Jarrod Dambro, Senior Director of Sales NA, Digital Turbine
In the IT world, there was once a saying: “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” Today, in media buying, the same could be said for social: “No one ever got fired for buying social.” It’s the default, the safe bet—the place where brands funnel massive budgets without question.
But here’s the problem: Just because social is popular doesn’t mean it’s always the smartest or most effective investment. Many brands have grown complacent, assuming their standard social buys are enough to reach and engage their full market potential. In reality, they’re overlooking valuable, untapped audience segments that exist beyond the social bubble.
To truly maximize impact, brands need to rethink their reliance on social media and embrace a more diversified advertising strategy.
The False Comfort of Social Media Metrics
Brands often fall into the trap of believing that social media provides a complete and effective way to reach all audiences. High engagement metrics—likes, shares, and comments—can create an illusion of success, making it seem as if a campaign is reaching and resonating with the full market.
In reality, these numbers can be misleading. They reflect activity within a platform’s ecosystem, but they don’t account for the audiences brands might be missing entirely.
The social media market is oversaturated, making it harder for brands to stand out as ad clutter grows. Consumer skepticism is also rising, with trust in ads at an all-time low, reducing engagement and conversions. Maintaining a strong presence requires significant time and resources, posing challenges for smaller businesses.
One of the biggest blind spots is the “social-light” consumer—those who either use social media infrequently or engage in ways that don’t align with traditional ad placements. While some users spend hours scrolling through feeds, others tune in sporadically, limiting their exposure to paid content.
This creates a significant gap where brands aren’t reaching potential customers simply because they’re relying too heavily on social platforms to deliver their message. By focusing only on what’s visible through social engagement metrics, brands risk overlooking a large and valuable audience segment.
Understanding the Social-Light Consumer—and Why They Matter
Not all consumers engage with social media in the same way. While some spend hours scrolling, a significant portion—social-light consumers—spend far less time on these platforms. On average, social-light users log just 0.7 hours per day on social media, compared to 2.6 hours per day for the typical user. This difference in behavior has major implications for brands that rely heavily on social ads to reach their audience.
The impact is particularly evident in industries like Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs). Out of 162 million potential QSR customers, a staggering 25 million fall into the social-light category. That means a brand running social-first ad campaigns could be missing out on a massive segment of potential diners simply because these consumers aren’t engaging with social platforms at the same frequency—or at all.
For example, data highlights that social-light consumers see far fewer ads on Amazon compared to their more engaged counterparts, leading to reduced reach and frequency. When social-light users saw only 36 ads in a six-month period compared to 87 for other consumers, it resulted in weaker brand recall, lower engagement, and fewer conversion opportunities.
The business implications are clear: Brands focusing their ad spend primarily on social media risk diminishing ROI due to a lack of engagement from this overlooked audience. With fewer touchpoints, these consumers are less likely to respond to promotions, leading to missed opportunities for incremental sales and long-term customer loyalty. For brands looking to maximize their market potential, understanding and addressing the social-light gap is not just a strategic advantage—it’s a necessity.
Going Beyond the Walled Gardens to Close the Social-Light Gap
To engage social-light consumers, brands must expand beyond social media’s walled gardens and adopt programmatic advertising strategies that reach audiences across streaming services, apps, and gaming platforms. Two particularly effective alternatives are Connected TV (CTV) and mobile gaming.
Many social-light consumers spend more time streaming on Hulu, Roku, and YouTube TV than engaging with social media. CTV ads offer highly targeted, non-skippable placements, making them a powerful tool for capturing audience attention. By pairing CTV with traditional TV campaigns, brands can maximize reach across both digital and linear viewers.
Advertisers find CTV highly effective, with 91% saying it outperforms or matches linear TV, a 30% lift in campaign effectiveness, and a 65% sales increase when paired with other paid channels. Its success lies in precise targeting and real-time performance tracking.
Social-light users spend 2.6 hours per day on mobile gaming—equivalent to the time heavy social users spend on social media. Unlike passive social scrolling, gaming fosters deep engagement, with ad formats like rewarded videos, in-game sponsorships, and interactive content creating more meaningful brand interactions. Gaming ads achieve 99% viewability and 100% ad-viewing rates, surpassing other media. Their seamless integration and interactive nature drive strong engagement.
By diversifying beyond social media, brands can close the social-light gap and ensure their messaging reaches valuable but often-overlooked audiences.
Mastering Your Media Mix: Next Steps for Reaching Social-Light Consumers
To effectively reach social-light consumers, brands need to take a data-driven approach to refine their media strategies. The first step is to size your social-light segment to understand its scale within your target market. The larger this segment, the greater the opportunity—and the bigger the challenge in effectively engaging them.
Once you’ve identified this audience, it’s important to analyze media overlaps using first-party measurement tools to see where social-light consumers are already engaging with your brand and identify any gaps in your current media mix.
Finally, brands should experiment by running incrementality tests and brand impact studies to assess how different ad placements, formats, and channels drive engagement and conversions. This process helps fine-tune your approach, ensuring you’re reaching social-light consumers in the most effective way possible. By mastering the media mix and optimizing strategies across diverse platforms, brands can unlock new revenue streams and drive long-term growth.
About the Author
Jarrod Dambro currently serves as the Senior Director of Sales NA at Digital Turbine. He has 15 years of experience in adtech, with over five years specifically in the mobile space. His background encompasses expertise in both the demand and supply sides, including supply path curation, audience targeting, upper and lower funnel activations, contextual targeting, and UA-based activations. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with renowned brands such as P&G, Progressive Insurance, Nationwide, Kellogg’s, and various QSRs and casual dining establishments, including Wendy’s, Olive Garden, and most recently, Cracker Barrel.
