Understanding whether a customer is shopping for themselves or buying a gift requires reading real-time signals rather than relying solely on purchase history.
The world's top companies rely on EMARKETER for today's industry news and data validation to make big picture strategy decisions.
Become a ClientRetail media budgets are still climbing, and the networks competing for them can no longer win on inventory and price alone. Advertisers are rewarding partners that offer deeper audience libraries, faster activation, and measurement they can defend to leadership. They are pulling spend from the ones that fall short. The money is there. Some 85% of advertisers working with retail media networks (RMNs) and commerce media networks (CMNs) said they plan to increase spend on these networks in the next 12 months, according to GrowthLoop's "2026 Commerce Media Investment Index," a survey of 291 US and Canadian advertisers. Already, 73% allocate at least 15% of their digital ad budgets to RMNs and CMNs, and 94% say those partnerships are meeting or exceeding ROI targets. With more networks chasing the same budgets, the deciding factors are operational: how many audiences a network can offer, how fast it can deliver them, and how clearly it can prove what worked.
Marketers have spent years finding ways to make consumers stop scrolling, watch longer, or notice a message. But those measures offer little indication of whether someone is actually interested in what the advertiser has to say. Advertisers need to look beyond attention and consider receptivity, or whether consumers are open to receiving a message in the first place, according to executives from PulsePoint, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), Gilead, and PHM at an Advertising Week New York panel.
In today’s podcast episode, we explore the three biggest questions surrounding Netflix: Will a new content chief turn around its programming fortunes? Which type of content is most likely to help the company gain and retain subscribers? And how significant is its downward revision of 2026 ad revenue expectations? Plus, more. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Senior Analyst Ross Benes, and Daniel Konstantinovic, Senior Editor of our Marketing and Advertising Briefing, for the discussion. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube or Spotify.
Some 83.2% of US marketers use Claude for content creation, ahead of ChatGPT (75.7%) and Gemini (57.9%), according to a September report from Ahrefs.
Connected TV (CTV) is no longer just a brand awareness play. Advertisers increasingly expect it to deliver measurable sales, customer acquisition, and other business outcomes, especially during the critical holiday shopping season. "TV can be about brand awareness, but it's increasingly about driving a sale or some sort of other outcome," said our analyst Ross Benes, during a recent EMARKETER event.
Agentic commerce readiness has a clear pecking order, and it follows the transaction. The closer a company sits to checkout, the further along it is.
Delivery, faster checkout, and personalization can make memberships more useful and encourage repeat spending.
Vibe’s 3,300 shopper segments give advertisers a more direct route from TV exposure to lower-funnel outcomes.
Its first Super Brand Day combines major IP, creators, and brand partners as social plays a larger role in gift discovery.