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his year, just over a quarter (26.7%) of all search ad dollars will be spent on retailer and retailer-affiliated properties. Over the next few years, retail media will account for more new search ad dollars, and by 2027 it will represent well over a third (37.2%) of the market

Retail media is outpacing non-retail media in growth in US search ad spend. As performance-driven advertisers push closer to the point of sale, companies like Amazon benefit. Here鈥檚 what鈥檚 behind retail media鈥檚 search success.

Search spending is a priority in that kind of decision-making environment. Click here to view our full forecasts for US search ad spending penetration by industry and US display ad spending penetration by industry. Display is growing faster than search, but search is growing more in absolute dollars.

蘑菇AV鈥檚 moderate tariff scenario suggests US search ad spending will grow 6.9% this year, below our initial forecast but far from a death blow to the sector. Google鈥檚 growth arc may be flattening under the weight of competitive and regulatory pressures. Alphabet reported $66.9 billion in ad revenues for Q1 2025, up 8.4% year over year, beating expectations.

Amazon and Walmart are search advertising鈥檚 growth engines: The latter is a distant second to the former, accounting for nearly 4 in 10 non-Amazon retail media search ad dollars this year.

Generative AI search engine Perplexity said it will launch ads in Q4, but the platform will need to win over advertisers and convince them their search ad spend will go further than it does on Google.

Amazon will pull in over 80% of US retail media search dollars this year, per our forecast. But Walmart will continue growing its share of non-Amazon retail media search ad spending over the next two years.

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.

鈥淕oogle will account for over half of search ad spending this year, but Google's not the perfect fit for every query that every person could ever ask,鈥� our analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf said on a recent 蘑菇AV webinar. 鈥淚t never has been, and now consumers are also going elsewhere to satisfy their search needs.鈥�

We expect search ad spend to range from $133 billion to $143 billion in 2025, with a moderate tariffs scenario of $138 billion. The heavy tariffs scenario is a 7.1% reduction versus the limited tariffs scenario (the limited scenario corresponds to our existing forecast). Search generally outperforms most channels during economic headwinds, thanks to its clear intent signals and measurable ROI.

70.5% of US traditional search ad spend will go to Google in 2026, according to our March 2024 forecast.

Key stat: Google鈥檚 share of US nonretail search ad spend has declined since 2021, when the company saw $57.49 billion in US search ad revenues, according to our forecast. Among Google鈥檚 rivals outside of retail, both Microsoft and Apple are growing their search revenues faster.

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.

Google will command over half (52.2%) of US search ad spending this year, per our forecast, and 26.4% of total US digital ad spending. Our take: The two antitrust rulings against Google鈥攁s well as Meta鈥檚 FTC battle鈥攕ignal that regulators want to chip away at the ad duopoly鈥檚 market power.

However, traditional search ad spending growth will continue to be outpaced by retail media search through 2028. Click here to view our full forecast for US search ad spending, by media. Social search is also likely to attract more new ad dollars than traditional search. We expect these trends to play out on a global scale as well.

Meanwhile, CPG search ad spending will rise 15.7%, similarly outpacing the national growth rate for search (11.1%). That boost will amount to $2.73 billion in new search spending. The industry will also spend just over $1 billion on other digital ad formats in 2024. CPG is such a large category that even its niche digital ad spending adds up to a significant figure.

Social will steal a greater share of commerce and search ad spend鈥攚ith retail media and AI also set to test Google鈥檚 dominance. Additionally, digital video viewing will overtake traditional for the first time. GenAI will unlock economic and business growth. GenAI has the potential to transform the UK economy.

Under our high-tariff scenario (i.e., full implementation of the universal and reciprocal tariffs announced on April 2), we forecast social ad spending growth of just 1.5% in 2025 and search ad spending growth of 3.1%, versus our previous estimates of 12.8% and 11.0% growth, respectively. Sources. Earnest Analytics. Numerator. Omnisend. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Sensor Tower.

Retail media will reach $60.81 billion in 2025鈥攁dding more new dollars than Meta and Alphabet combined鈥攁nd brands now rank incrementality as a top KPI. In this interview, Tinuiti鈥檚 Elizabeth Marsten lays out how to prove incremental sales, pick smarter tools, and keep measurement future-ready.

Click here to view our full forecasts for US display ad spending share, by industry and US search ad spending share, by industry. Conversely, tech and media companies prefer display advertising far more than the national average:.