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The news: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) gave a glimpse of the TV (CTV) advertising’s future at its IAB Tech Lab event—and proved that pause ads are leading the way. Advertising leaders said they offer the best user experience, were most likely to scale with standardization, and provided the greatest increase in ad spend. Our take: The future of CTV advertising will rely on whether advertisers can implement non-intrusive formats that capture attention. Pause ads are positioned to drive action—but advertisers must reimagine their creative strategy to capitalize on this potential.

The news:** Amazon has quietly doubled the ad load on Prime Video, now serving 4 to 6 minutes of ads per hour—up from 2 to 3.5—placing it alongside Hulu and Paramount+ in volume. This aligns with Amazon’s effort to scale its connected TV inventory and offers buyers greater reach. Our take: The added ad time could shift Prime Video’s role in media planning, attracting performance-focused advertisers if CPMs soften, or reinforcing a premium stance if PMP rates hold. Weekly user engagement remains high, making the platform a reliable environment for consistent exposure. Amazon is quietly positioning Prime Video as a leading CTV ad player.

US ad revenues for Netflix are projected to reach $2.15 billion in 2025, per our forecast. That’s up nearly 56% from 2024, and will climb to $3.12 billion by 2027. Revenue per ad-supported viewer plunged 60% in 2024 to $34.41 as Netflix expanded its user base—but is expected to rebound to $52.80 by 2027.

This deck provides an overview of the travel sector in ecommerce, including forecasts for sales growth, digital ad spending, and KPIs. It also highlights consumer shopping behaviors, research trends, what’s changed since last year, and the influence of technology on purchase decisions.​

The news: Cloudflare, which serves 20% of the web and 35% of the Fortune 500, launched beta tests of Pay per Crawl, a private marketplace that lets websites charge AI companies for scraping content. It’s a strategy other content delivery networks (CDNs) will likely follow that could signal the end of AI’s unchecked scraping. Key takeaway: Though still in beta, Pay per Crawl could give websites a new layer of protection—and a path to profit—if AI companies agree to pay for content they've long used without compensation. If AI wants to keep reading the internet, it may finally have to pay the bill.

The news: Microsoft Advertising now enforces policy compliance at the asset level—ad headlines, descriptions, and images will be reviewed individually. If one element violates policy, the rest of the ad can stay live, as long as the minimum required approved assets remain, per MarTech. Key takeaway: Marketers should embrace modular creative strategies, ensuring each individual asset is in compliance. Build campaigns with redundancy in approved elements to maintain uptime, and monitor flagged assets to quickly respond and ensure ad integrity.

Though growth rates are slowing, the company's US podcast ad revenues are expected to rise from $204.6 million in 2023 to $426.5 million in 2027. Spotify and YouTube are racing to dominate video podcasting, each rolling out new tools to attract users and advertisers. Netflix is moving into video podcasts to rival YouTube, offering long-form creators more exposure and income potential.

Over the next two years, as it cruises past $42 billion in US ad revenues, Instagram’s US ad revenue growth will outpace social network ad spend growth overall. This growth will boost not only Instagram’s share of social ad spending (from 35.5% to 37.5% between 2024 and 2026) but also its share of digital ad spending overall. By 2026, Instagram will represent 11.1% of all US digital ad spending.

Kennedy thinks pharma ad rules are too lax, and have caused an overreliance on prescription medications in the US. He also believes media companies don’t fairly cover the drug industry since they heavily rely on its ad dollars.

Reddit captures only 1% of US social ad revenues, and many brands still consider it an experimental platform where it’s difficult to understand what works and what doesn’t. Brands also remain concerned with the platform’s limited reach, which makes it difficult to scale paid advertising and deters those looking for broader audience exposure.

Total ad spending will grow to almost $32 billion in 2026. That includes all advertising, both to consumers and to healthcare providers.

Why it’s happening: Platforms face slowing ad growth, rising tech infrastructure costs, and supporting gigantic agency-facing teams—as Meta and others do—is expensive. If platforms’ genAI tools can replace agency support functions—like campaign setup, asset creation, or reporting—it could justify reducing headcount in those areas, turning what were once essential roles into potential cost savings.

Its programmatic push could increase its appeal to advertisers as it vies for a bigger share of ad dollars in a crowded landscape. Its latest hire could help evolve Pinterest’s programmatic capabilities, translating to increased ad spend, lower-funnel growth, and measurable results.

The shift in spending aligns with viewing habits: Time spent with CTV is increasing, and nearly three-quarters of the US population will be CTV users by 2029, per our forecast. And for the first time this year, time spent with CTV is projected to outpace time spent with traditional TV—indicating that CTV provides an increasingly lucrative opportunity for advertisers to reach target audiences.

The news: Linear ad impressions declined 4.25% YoY in Q1, falling from about 92% of impressions in early 2023 to around 86% in March 2025, per iSpot’s Q1 TV Ad Transparency Report. But despite the decline, linear ad spend grew 4% in Q1, reaching $12.34 billion—indicating that while audience preferences are shifting, advertiser interest in linear remains steady. Our take: The most effective ad strategies will strike a balance between sustaining investment in linear to capitalize on its scale and reliability, and steadily increasing investment in streaming to align with evolving viewer behavior and future-proof campaign performance.

Temu and Shein ad impressions dropped to 0% as both retailers effectively cut off Google Shopping ad spend in April.

The news: As the 2025 economy tightens under the pressure of tariffs, AI disruption, and shifting global trade policy, brands are embracing adaptability. Retail growth forecasts have been slashed, inflation-wary consumers are scaling back, and even luxury sentiment is weakening. Our take: Resilient brands are leaning into agile planning, reallocating media spend to ROI-focused channels like search and digital out-of-home, and anchoring value in trust and quality—not just price. As emotional volatility shapes consumer decisions, marketers who show relevance and reassurance will lead. The brands that win won’t wait for stability—they’ll build strategies that succeed amid constant change.

This shift positions The Trade Desk to stay ahead as more ad dollars move from the open exchange to curated, data-enriched, high-confidence channels. By addressing the underlying infrastructure, not just the interface, Deal Desk could become an invisible but vital layer of modern programmatic buying.

The news: Google is launching Offerwall, a new Ad Manager tool that lets users unlock publisher content through ads, surveys, or payments—part of a broader effort to mend relationships with publishers facing traffic loss from AI Overviews and eroding ad share. Publishers say Google pays less than rivals like PubMatic and Magnite, and AI-driven zero-click searches have dropped site traffic significantly. Our take: With a DOJ remedies trial looming and ChatGPT traffic rising fast, Google’s publisher outreach isn’t just damage control—it’s existential. If AI is to remain useful and ethical, supporting the content it’s trained on is a must.

Advertisers should map churn cycles and diversify ad spend to align with viewing habits and consumer behavior while prioritizing media plans that follow content, not just platforms.

The DOJ also found that Google monopolized the US ad market and is pushing Google to sell AdX and DoubleClick for Publishers, claiming it illegally monopolized ad tech and harmed publishers by bundling services. Why it matters: By tying Amazon’s practices to Google’s DOJ case, The Trade Desk is actively trying to reframe the regulatory conversation around digital advertising.