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Why it matters: Media companies are especially exposed to shifts in consumer behavior and ad spend鈥攁nd both are now under pressure. Ad budgets face new headwinds. As costs rise, consumer brands in retail, tech, and CPG may scale back marketing鈥攂ad news for platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and Roku, which increasingly depend on advertising. Content spending will tighten.

Talent hunt: As brands focus on retail media network ad spending that provides better omnichannel customer targeting, tracking, and improved performance measurement and campaign attribution, retailers need to fill their skills gaps by hiring talent in ad tech, martech, and growth marketing, according to Dan Goldsmith, managing director at Three Pillars Recruiting.

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This first-of-its-kind report compares and contrasts our US ad spending forecast with our US time spent with media forecast. It identifies unexpected incongruities between how marketers are spending ad dollars and where consumers are spending their time.

Digital ad spend is growing and going increasingly toward programmatic formats. Search ad spend is on the rise as well, as retail media growth remains healthy. And social media is in better shape than previously projected. Here are five recent charts forecasting the future of ad spend.

Commerce media is becoming more competitive as retailers and non-retailers continue to build out their networks and advertisers prioritize measurement for proven results. Looking ahead to 2025, cross-industry partnerships will grow and in-store media will enable retailers to merge online behaviors with in-person shopping.

Macy鈥檚 had a mixed Q3: Sales at its luxury Bloomingdale鈥檚 and Bluemercury labels rose, but its namesake brand is struggling to attract shoppers

Generative AI tools are transforming retail media by personalizing shopper experiences, with retailers like Instacart introducing aisle-aware ads and location-based coupons. In-store retail media is growing rapidly, with players like CVS and 7-Eleven using digital screens and audio ads near points of purchase, despite infrastructure challenges.

US Retail Industry Ad Spending 2024 (蘑菇AV subscription required). Methodology: Data is from a February 2025 Civicscience survey. 4,000+ US adults ages 18+ were surveyed online during February 3-4, 2025. The survey was weighted by the U.S. Census.

Even as some signs foretell a rebounding economy, total US ad spend is still down. Advertisers will keep investing in performance-oriented channels, which is good news for retail media search. At some point, retail media search ad spend will hit a ceiling. Amazon shoppers say the feed has already become cluttered with sponsored results.

However, the two metrics usually move in tandem, with ecommerce booms heralding ad spending booms, and ecommerce deceleration heralding ad spending deceleration. Worldwide ecommerce sales growth began a two-year decline in 2021 that the global ad industry quickly emulated.

Retailers are reimagining shopper journeys with AI-assisted search. As platforms refine their new tools and features, consumer behavior and retail search ad formats will evolve. Obstacles to measuring incrementality remain.

Instacart is the latest retail brand attracted to the Super Bowl: Even at $7 million a pop, brands find the spots are worthwhile buys.

Mediaocean acquires Innovid: $500 million deal merges platforms to challenge google in connected TV and global ad tech.

US retail media ad spend will reach $59.61 billion this year, according to our October 2023 forecast. 18.5% of retail media network ad spend is coming from off-site advertising, and that share is growing, per our forecast. With retail media gaining so much of the digital ad landscape, it鈥檚 no surprise ad giants like Google and Microsoft are building out their own retail media tools. Use this chart:.

Though we鈥檝e downgraded our retail media forecast, we anticipate the channel will experience double-digit growth through 2027. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 an exaggeration to say that retail media is one of the most important and potentially most transformative ad spending channels in media right now,鈥� said our analyst Max Willens.

The economy鈥檚 bumpy ride, worse-than-expected retail ecommerce growth, and advertiser skittishness in H1 2023 did not slow retail media鈥檚 growth. We now expect US retail media ad spending to be nearly a billion dollars greater in 2023 and nearly $4 billion higher in 2024 than previously estimated (see leading chart). Expect even stronger near-term growth.

Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel we track in the US, growing by 26.0% this year. Its share of total US media spend will reach 14.1% this year, and come 2028, nearly 1 in 5 ad dollars spent in the US will go to retail media. But the channel has the potential to grow even more. Here are four key factors that present challenges to retail media growth right now.

US financial media network ad spend will soar to $1.22 billion in 2026, nearly doubling from $640 million in 2025鈥攁 66.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), per our May 2025 forecast.

But for now, YouTube leads competitors in both time spent and ad spend. For 2024: Embrace the pivot to digital. It鈥檚 where viewers are spending an increasing amount of time and where ad formats tend to be more shoppable. 3. Cookies are going away, for real. Google confirmed last month that it will begin deprecating third-party cookies in 2024.

Programmatic advertising will account for 91.3% of US digital display ad spend this year, or a total of $157.35 billion, per our December 2023 forecast. Last week, advertisers at Programmatic I/O discussed where those ad dollars are headed and how programmatic advertising is changing. From ad spend waste to the expansion of retail media, here are three big trends discussed at the event.

As linear TV ad spending continues to dwindle, connected TV (CTV) is more than filling the void. The net result is healthy growth when we look at the combined TV and CTV market. Key Question: How are TV and CTV ad spending performing, and what do those trends mean for ad buyers and sellers? Key Stat: Combined spending on TV and CTV will grow by over $12 billion between 2023 and 2027.