蘑菇AV

The news: China is outpacing the US in retail media鈥檚 global rise, with nearly half of its digital ad spending now flowing through retail platforms. While Amazon still leads globally, its growth is slowing鈥攅xpected to rise just 18.6% in 2025. Meanwhile, players like Uber Eats, Meijer, and Albertsons are growing ad revenues at triple-digit rates. Our take: Retail media is becoming more fragmented and competitive. Success now requires portfolio diversification, especially as new channels鈥攍ike last-mile delivery and in-store signage鈥攇ain momentum. What began as an Amazon-centric, US-led trend is now a worldwide shift reshaping how consumers discover, consider, and buy.

The news: Pinterest will host high-performing influencer content posted on affiliate shopping platform LTK, automatically bringing popular images from the platform to Pinterest, according to The Verge. Pinterest also hired Chip Jessopp, former Amazon director of global accounts and ad tech sales, as head of programmatic, per Digiday. Jessopp will help Pinterest create new demand channels while scaling its programmatic abilities. Our take: Pinterest鈥檚 moves could better position it as a legitimate competitor in digital advertising and a promising growth area for influencers and marketers鈥攇iving the platform more legs against social commerce giants like Meta and TikTok.

This is the first installment of our 鈥淯K Ad Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.鈥嬧��

It was first in the region to fully embrace retail media advertising, fueled by advanced digital advertising and retail ecommerce behaviors. The UK leads France and Germany in digital ad spend as a proportion of total media spend, as well as retail ecommerce sales as a proportion of total retail sales. Still, retail media investments are steadily increasing in all three countries.

Retail media will set the pace for digital advertising growth in the coming years as more retailers invest in monetizing the channel and more advertising options become available to media buyers.

The news: Reddit published a report Thursday highlighting its increasing relevance for advertisers as social media users gain trust in the platform for purchase decisions. Reddit routinely delivers promising ad results. Adding Reddit to ad campaigns leads to $6.94 higher incremental ROAS across channels. Our take: Despite lingering brand hesitancy to adopt Reddit as a core advertising channel, the platform is increasingly becoming a reliable source that promises high returns鈥攎aking it a key part of an effective campaign for advertisers who know how to navigate it.

The news: DoorDash鈥檚 acquisition spree continued with its $175 million purchase of ad tech firm Symbiosis. The deal will expand the company鈥檚 offsite capabilities, enabling advertisers to run campaigns across search, social and display channels that are integrated with DoorDash鈥檚 closed-loop measurement system. Our take: DoorDash鈥檚 Symbiosis acquisition and ad updates should help the company attract bigger brands and retailers to its ad platform鈥攅specially as demand for its core delivery services remains healthy.

This adds a level of ROAS [return on ad spend] precision they can't achieve in other channels.". Here are three reasons marketers should embrace the affiliate space:. 1. Affiliate marketing delivers full-funnel impact. While affiliate is a performance channel, its value isn't limited to the bottom of the funnel.

Incrementality has always been the holy grail of retail media. But lately, it鈥檚 taken on greater importance as ad budgets are squeezed and retail media networks (RMNs) fight for their share of ad dollars.

Programmatic plays a small but growing role in digital audio services ad spending. Major digital audio platforms are leaning in.

Retail media ad spending will be increasingly responsible for digital advertising鈥檚 double-digit growth. By 2028, the powerhouse channel will grow to represent nearly 1 in every 3 ad dollars spent.

Google and Meta landed slightly below expectations in Q3, allowing a collection of hungry competitors to inch ahead. But overall, the ad industry remains healthy. Sports events drove streaming and CTV to record gains, and retail media continues to be the sector鈥檚 fastest-growing ad channel.

We expect RMN off-site ad spending in the US to total $10.64 billion this year and to surpass ecommerce channel display ad spending for the first time. In the past year, middlemen with scaled web publisher penetration鈥攊ncluding TripleLift, Criteo, and Button鈥攈ave launched solutions that allow retail media advertisers to put display ads on publishers鈥� sites.

Programmatic has effectively become the defining mechanism for delivering ads. This benchmark guide unpacks how programmatic advertising is shaping spend in key channels.

Healthcare and pharma marketers will continue to devote more of their ad spending budgets to digital media channels. Still, advertising strategies for traditional media will remain a priority, particularly compared with other industries.

The biggest sports channels devote shows to betting odds. It鈥檚 now common for live sports broadcasts to feature gambling lines right on the screen. TV networks and sports leagues have embraced gambling for the financial payoff. They are betting that people who put money on the line will become engaged viewers. But the relationship is an uneasy one.

Spending in the US affiliate marketing ecosystem will exceed $10 billion for the first time in 2024. But content distribution changes, advertiser focus on first-party data, and shifting consumer behavior will push the channel into a new phase.