蘑菇AV

US digital ad spending growth will dip below 10% YoY in 2025, but retail media, social networks, and CTV will still perform above the overall average.

As one of the hottest areas of digital advertising, CTV ad spending鈥檚 streak of annual double-digit increases could end thanks to tariffs.

The news: Amazon will bring inventory from Roku to its demand-side platform (DSP), the two announced at Cannes Lions, starting in Q4 2025. Our take: Amazon鈥檚 Roku partnership is a well-timed announcement to convince advertisers to stick with their CTV ecosystems even amid tightening budgets.

The news: Netflix is proving its power as the dominant subscription streaming platform with several recent ad wins. The streamer announced that it鈥檚 sold all of its available commercial time in preparation for its two Christmas day NFL games, also noting sponsorship deals with partners like Google and FanDuel. Our take: With its strong lead in ad revenue growth, position as the most-used subscription video service in the US, consistently low subscriber churn rate, and content strategy tailored to unique markets, Netflix is likely to continue dominating advertiser investment in connected TV.

The trend: Healthcare and pharma marketers plan to increase or maintain spending on every digital media channel, according to a May 2025 survey from Mediaocean. The big takeaway: Healthcare and pharma marketers have established their presence and corresponding strategies on still-important media channels such as CTV and search. Digital video and social media are underexplored advertising opportunities for this space.

The news: NFL ads are more effective than anything on linear鈥攂ut ads during streaming-exclusive games outperformed in the 2024-25 season. Streaming ads were 66% more effective than the cable and broadcast average during the most recent NFL season, per data from EDO. Our take: With streaming platforms capturing engaged audiences for tentpole sports like the NFL, advertisers can leverage CTV not just for reach, but for its superior ability to drive measurable action through precision targeting and interactive formats that linear doesn鈥檛 offer.

VideoAmp has extended its partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery in a multi-year deal aimed at advancing flexible ad measurement. WBD will leverage VideoAmp鈥檚 tools across digital, linear, and cross-platform campaigns during the 2025 upfronts, reinforcing its 鈥渕easurement agnostic鈥� stance. This comes as marketers prioritize attribution and precision, particularly in CTV environments. The deal reflects broader trends: 71% of global marketers view advanced measurement as a top opportunity, and currency innovation is becoming essential. With recent leadership changes and ongoing partnerships with major networks, VideoAmp is positioning itself as a key player in the evolving ad currency ecosystem.

Out-of-home (OOH) ads prompt an average 13.3% growth in US ad awareness, outpacing TV (10.2%), digital (3.9%), and connected TV (2.2%), according to a July report from Clear Channel Outdoor and Kantar.

The news: OpenAI鈥檚 GPT-5 could be the start of ChatGPT becoming a transaction-driven super app that monetizes user intent, not attention. GPT-5鈥檚 router鈥攚hich analyzes queries and decides how hard to 鈥渢hink鈥� based on complexity鈥攍ets OpenAI invest more resources during high-intent moments like 鈥渃ompare hiking boots under $200鈥� or 鈥渂est smart TVs for co-op gaming.鈥� Prioritizing queries with high commercial value could help OpenAI monetize users not through ads but via affiliate or take-rate revenues, per SemiAnalysis. Partnerships with Shopify and others suggest that monetization stack is already on the way. Our take: A full-service ChatGPT that鈥檚 intuitive enough to guide full shopping journeys inside a chatbot while keeping backend costs minimal could rewrite the AI platform鈥檚 business model. Brands should be working to optimize for AI-native commerce and integrate with agentic tools.

The news: A report from DoubleVerify unveiled insights on the state of the digital ad landscape as audiences and brands go digital-first. More than three-quarters (77%) say short-form vertical videos (think Reels) perform better than marketers鈥� campaign baselines, while 75% say the same for social media feeds, 69% for connected TV (CTV), 67% for commerce media networks, and 58% for audio and podcasts. Our take: As time spent with digital grows, advertisers are pushed to invest鈥攂ut with ad blockers and brand safety remaining concerns, advertisers must rethink how they earn attention and invest in meaningful, trustworthy, and well-placed experiences.

The result: Mercado Libre鈥檚 ad business is gaining speed鈥攁nd shows no signs of slowing. Retail media revenues jumped 59% YoY on a currency-neutral basis in Q2. Our take: Mercado Libre鈥檚 retail media engine is firing on all cylinders, providing high-margin fuel to support key growth levers like free shipping and brand marketing. But while advertising can help offset those costs, it can鈥檛 carry the full weight鈥攅specially as broader profitability shows signs of strain. 鈥淢ercado Libre鈥檚 first-mover advantage laid the foundation for its retail media dominance in Latin America, but its real edge lies in continued ad innovation,鈥� said 蘑菇AV principal analyst Matteo Ceurvels, pointing to new offsite offerings like the Display Extended Network and a deeper push into CTV.

The news: The connected TV (CTV) market is in flux as retail giants Amazon and Walmart escalate their fight for dominance鈥攕taking claims not just on content or devices, but on the operating systems themselves. Our take: Amazon and Walmart are racing to close the gap between attention and action. Controlling TV hardware and CTV operating systems while linking them to first-party retail data helps build seamless, closed-loop ad ecosystems where viewers can become buyers in a click. To stay competitive, marketers must optimize for closed-loop attribution, prioritize retail media integrations, and treat smart TVs as both screen and storefront as retail media and CTV ad spending surge.

Fandom has partnered with Experian and Audigent to enhance its AI-driven Helix platform, integrating over 2,400 syndicated audience segments to deliver deeper fan insights. The move empowers marketers to combine third-party data with first-party fan behavior, unlocking targeting based on motivations, not just demographics. Early results show significant brand lift in awareness and purchase intent. This partnership marks Fandom鈥檚 evolution into a data-rich media platform, aiming to help advertisers tap into emotional fandom signals across CTV, mobile, and digital. Despite criticism over ad clutter, the platform鈥檚 scale and Gen Z reach position it as a leader in culture-driven targeting.

The news: In the wake of Google鈥檚 impressive earnings report, YouTube is getting more creative AI tools on YouTube Shorts for both creators and advertisers. YouTube added an image-to-video generative AI (genAI) tool to Shorts, which can turn a photo into a 6-second video, powered by Google鈥檚 Veo 2. It also introduced AI-powered tools that resize ads to fit Shorts鈥� format. Our take: These new tools could help YouTube outpace rivals by combining TikTok-style virality with Google鈥檚 deep AI infrastructure. Instead of recycling or repurposing long-form assets, marketers should push more budget to testing Shorts-first content. A/B testing with Shorts鈥� new AI resizing tool and audience-specific, unique content for mobile and CTV can help determine which content can be converted with AI for both platforms and which needs to be remade and retargeted.

The trend: Consumers generally find that AI-generated responses to their online health queries are only somewhat reliable, according to a new survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. Our take: As Google鈥檚 AI gets smarter, healthcare and pharma websites will lose search traffic. Google is in a race with OpenAI and other tech players to make its AI more intelligent and improve users鈥� search experiences. Other consumers will conduct more health queries on platforms like ChatGPT. Brands and publishers must optimize content for AI rather than for search, but they should also be developing strategies to connect more with consumers on non-search channels such as social media and CTV.