Ad Age survey signals tougher road for SEO agency growth
Ad Age’s new confidence survey lands as holding companies cut jobs and budgets tighten, warning SEO agencies to prove value faster as clients grow cautious.
Ad Age used its June 16 Agency Report 2026 launch to add a quarterly confidence survey after the largest holding companies collectively shed nearly 12,000 employees in 2025. That is the pressure point SEO agencies need to watch: buyers are not only trimming headcount, they are asking for clearer proof that retainers defend revenue.
The 82nd annual Agency Report also showed how much the market has shifted at the top. Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic Group of Cos. created a new No. 1 agency company in Ad Age’s 2026 ranking, the first time that has happened in 18 years, and legacy holding companies took a smaller share of top-25 revenue. By the end of 2025, Ad Age said the landscape had one fewer major holding company and 11,689 fewer employees across its four largest legacy players.
The revenue backdrop explains why confidence is fragile. Ad Age’s 2025 report said the five major holding companies averaged just 2.0% worldwide organic growth in 2024. Publicis posted one of the stronger numbers in the field, with 5.9% organic revenue growth in the second quarter of 2025 and 5.4% for the first half, helped by AI investments, acquisitions and new business wins. WPP answered with a harder reset, targeting £500 million in annual cost savings by 2028 in a restructuring announced in February 2026, while saying it would hire more AI-native employees and that job cuts would be part of the turnaround.
For SEO firms, that mix points straight at defensive growth. Conductor’s 2026 AEO/GEO report said 97% of more than 250 digital leaders saw a positive impact from AEO in 2025, and 94% plan to increase AEO investment in 2026. That shifts the sales conversation away from generic organic traffic promises and toward faster proof points: cleaner technical delivery, earlier signals on revenue protection, and search programs built for answer engines as well as traditional rankings. Agencies that cannot show that mix will feel the same budget squeeze now hitting the holding companies, only with smaller cushions and shorter runways.
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