As brands incorporate creators and influencers into more of their marketing and advertising strategies, they are fueling the growth of the creator economy, while making it more competitive and complex.

Regulators are tightening rules around kids’ social media use. Classroom phone bans, age checks, and ad limits aim to protect minors—but will limit reach, targeting, and perhaps even budgets for marketers seeking youth attention.

Automation is now table stakes in social advertising. Platforms are pushing AI-driven campaigns at scale. But advertisers still demand control, transparency, and brand safety—and it’s all reshaping how performance media gets bought.

57% of ad buyers will prioritize creator ads in 2026—but success will be driven by repeat partnerships with genuine brand advocates.

The next wave of commerce media growth will come from verticals in which first-party data, digital touchpoints, and consumer engagement converge—even as executional risks threaten to slow progress.

For the past several years, commerce media has been defined by proliferation: New networks, new formats, new acronyms. As the category heads into 2026, industry leaders agree that growth alone is no longer the story. What matters now is connection: Across channels, across data, and across the full customer journey.

This FAQ explains how data clean rooms have become essential infrastructure for retail media, enabling privacy-safe data collaboration, closed-loop measurement, and proof of performance as ad spend grows and marketers demand greater accountability.

Creator marketing will scale in 2026 as brands chase measurable outcomes. At the same time, pressures from AI, shifting platform incentives, and rising automation will reshape how creators earn and grow.

Social networks will claim close to 32% of US digital ad spending in 2026, as powerful AI systems and improved video monetization help push social past a plateau in time spent among US consumers.

As commerce media buyers face more choices, Dollar General is pitching its large store footprint as an opportunity to reach shoppers in rural and underserved markets, particularly with its retail media offering, DG Media Network.

The IAB’s 2025 Creator Economy report shows creator marketing has become a full-fledged media channel—one projected to reach $37.1 billion in spend next year, growing 26% YoY and outpacing the broader ad market by a factor of four. Nearly half of advertisers now call creators a must-buy, yet workflows remain fragmented across budgets, discovery tools, and measurement systems. With AI accelerating both production and complexity, the report lays out the emerging mandate: treat creator marketing as its own discipline with centralized budgets, standardized vetting, unified measurement, and formal AI governance. For marketers, real performance now requires real structure.

In-store retail media is Europe’s next big ad opportunity. But as retailers digitize stores, standardization and measurement challenges are dragging advertiser adoption.

This FAQ explains what media mix modeling is, why it's resurging, where it falls short, and how marketers are closing the actionability gap to build more effective measurement strategies in 2026.

The commerce media space is growing fast, and as it gets more crowded, it’s becoming harder to keep up with the retail media giants. But by teaming up, smaller players can more easily scale their networks to achieve the reach to stay competitive.

A new framework for gaming ads from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) might finally help marketers take full advantage of the highly engaged gamer audience.

Retail and commerce media were huge topics at last year’s Cannes Lions festival, and this year, the festival is doubling down on the channel by introducing a new retail media sub-category in the Media Lions and Creative Commerce Lions awards. However, “the tone is definitely shifting” as the industry matures—and faces the threat of tariff-related impacts, according to our analyst, Sarah Marzano.