Currency debates are fading as advertisers shift to outcome-based measurement. As performance takes priority, marketers are focusing more on lower-funnel outcomes, while measurement vendors double down on specialized offerings.

This FAQ covers how incrementality testing works, where it fits alongside attribution and marketing mix modeling, and how marketers can build effective testing programs in 2026.

Sneaker fans experienced a full-court press at the NBA’s All-Star weekend in Los Angeles this month. Nike's Jordan Brand unleashed a series of activations throughout the city, putting in action a playbook for marketers looking to make a real-world impact on brand enthusiasts.

Next year will bring shifts that redefine how networks operate, how brands show up, and how performance is measured. Here are three predictions for commerce media in 2026.

Streaming CPMs are flattening as swelling CTV inventory reshapes pricing power and forces advertisers to rethink how they balance cost, ad clutter, and reach.

The news: Despite the shift toward programmatic advertising, a study from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) identified a lingering issue with the trend: The growth of wasted ad spending. The amount of wasted ad spend in programmatic advertising has risen 34% in two years, up to $26.8 billion from $20 billion in June 2023. Our take: The efficiency and growing relevance of programmatic comes with brand safety trade-offs, making transparency and stronger verification a prerequisite for sustained investment.

Cannes Lions, an annual opportunity for advertisers to score accolades for their creativity, is refining its agenda to acknowledge how that work drives business.

There are now more than 80 retail media networks (RMNs) in the US. The volume of RMNs, combined with the dominance of Amazon and other established competitors, makes it challenging for new and niche RMNs to capture share.

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

In seven charts, this report tells the story of some of the most critical trends that digital leaders need to know about in 2024 and beyond.

Programmatic will account for more than 9 in 10 display ad dollars this year. How it fares as the last legacy identifiers die out will make or break the future of digital advertising.

Programmatic digital display is no exception to the ad spending downturn that has sent ripples through our forecast. As marketers scrutinize their investments, social networks are losing share of the programmatic pie while CTV and retail media drive growth.

Cara Pratt, SVP of Kroger Precision Media, is right when she says that “retail media is media.” While the fast-rising ad format may draw its unique power from retail—specifically the first-party consumer purchase data used for high-octane targeting and closed-loop measurement—it’s not a physical product sold on store shelves and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Attention metrics are moving beyond consumer research into programmatic bidding strategies. But a lack of measurement standards is preventing mainstream adoption, even as AI-generated content threatens to upend engagement rates.

The price tag on agency reviews is going up: Plus, they’re time-consuming, disrupt workflows, and raise concerns about fee structures amid rising costs.

Retail media networks (RMNs) are both still in their infancy and intimidatingly complex. Most brands advertising via retail media are using multiple networks, according to the Association of National Advertisers, but data and analytics aren’t standardized across platforms. The result is a major headache for advertisers. Here are some tips for using retail media right.

Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, joins eMarketer co-founder and Insider Intelligence chief evangelist Geoff Ramsey in a conversation about how the pandemic is affecting the ANA: How has it pivoted? How does the business fallout from the pandemic compare with previous economic downturns? What is the ANA's outlook for ad spending in 2020 and 2021?

For our upcoming report on the future of the CMO, we spoke to Brandt about making the Chipotle brand more visible and relevant to its customers through telling stories about the company's fresh-food values.

Brands are auditing their agencies to verify how their businesses operate, but some agencies have pushed back against audits. Ali Plonchak, managing director of digital strategy and integration at ad agency Crossmedia, said that agencies should embrace audits because they facilitate transparency, which brand clients demand more of.

One of the biggest trends in advertising this year will be consumer privacy and security concerns, which has forced marketers to get their data houses in order.