蘑菇AV

By 2028, overall off-site ad spending will have increased by more than 5 points of share in retail media and will represent more than $25 billion in ad spending. Two-thirds (68%) of advertisers working with RMNs are already leveraging retail media for mid- and upper-funnel objectives.

The rebrand is a small step in Apple鈥檚 overall ad strategy to combat slower ad growth, but past efforts to expand its ad business haven鈥檛 been wildly successful. Apple鈥檚 services revenues missed the mark in Q4 2024, falling below investor expectations鈥攕uggesting that its ad initiatives might not be performing as well as hoped.

Display advertising will capture 85.7% of the $90 billion in additional ad spending between 2024 and 2028. Search's share of digital spend will hold relatively steady at 41.5% in 2024. Retail media networks and AI search capabilities are expected to drive search growth. Nonvideo formats will account for just $12.75 billion of incremental spend through 2028.

Mirroring the media consumption trend, digital ad spending now makes up more than three-quarters of all ad spending. Canada ranked No. 4 worldwide in digital鈥檚 share of total ad spending in 2024. Digital ad spending growth will start to level off in 2025 after a rebound in 2024. Ecommerce鈥檚 share of total retail sales has almost tripled in the past decade.

US retail media spend will reach $60.81 billion in 2025鈥攁dding roughly $29.2 billion in new ad dollars, more growth than Meta and Alphabet will see combined, according to 蘑菇AV鈥檚 forecasts. At the same time, 71% of advertisers now rank incrementality as the most important KPI for their retail media investments, an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey found.

Most notably, Unilever has enacted plans to work with 20 times more influencers as part of an 鈥渋nfluencer-first鈥� strategy that will see influencer marketing jump from about 30% to about 50% of the company鈥檚 total ad spend.

This growth is mirrored in the US, where our forecast expects influencer marketing spending to rise 15% YoY in 2025, outpacing both social ad growth (12.8%) and overall digital ad growth (11.8%). As holding companies like Publicis Groupe and Havas race to acquire influencer marketing agencies, Omnicom鈥檚 Creo move shows it鈥檚 betting on internal unification rather than outside acquisition.

Chinese retailers may cut ad spending under new tariffs: US tariff crackdown could impact Temu and Shein's ad investments, reshaping the digital ad market.

LG brings ads to CTV screensavers: The rapid pace of new ad space on CTVs reflects a race for ad dollars.

Under the moderate tariff scenario, total ad spending would reach approximately $407 billion, with only the heavy scenario triggering an actual year-over-year decline in total ad spending. "Even in a heavy tariff scenario, top-line digital ad spending, looking at it from a year-over-year growth standpoint, would still grow 4.5% year-over-year," said our analyst Oscar Orozco. Digital channel divide.

Companies like Apple resumed spending on the platform after a 15-month pause, while Amazon significantly increased its ad spending on X despite pulling nearly all of its ad spending from the platform in 2024. The change is largely in response to Musk鈥檚 new political power. Brands are hoping to improve relationships with Musk and, in turn, curry favor with the current administration.

Tariffs are driving a sharp slowdown in US advertising growth. Widespread concern over Trump鈥檚 sweeping trade policies has led to downgraded 2025 ad spend forecasts, with nearly half of advertisers planning budget cuts. Retailers are bracing for margin pressure and softening consumer demand.

Early testing delivered strong results; Dick鈥檚 Media reported a 300% increase in return on ad spend when using its first-party data on Roku compared with traditional ad models. Our take: Dick鈥檚 sees retail media as a long-term growth engine, and its partnership with Roku should enhance its ability to compete with larger players by combining rich loyalty data with precise streaming insights.

The big picture: The digital advertising industry faces a tough 2025, with slowing growth across digital media consumption, ecommerce, and ad spending compared to pre-pandemic and pandemic periods.

Case study: Take Wayfair, for example, which has been increasing its ad spending. The home furnishings retailer said its advertising expenses rose 5% YoY in 2024. Advertising spending equaled 12.4% of the company鈥檚 net revenues last year, up from 11.6% the year before鈥攈ighlighting how even established furnishings players are investing more just to maintain visibility and drive sales.

Spend from current retail media network (RMN) advertisers is showing signs of cooling, forcing RMNs to look to non-endemic advertisers outside their existing ad networks for new ad dollars.