The news: Cannes Lions 2025 is highlighting how retail media is moving beyond performance marketing into broader applications across brand storytelling, in-store influence, and customer experience. Executives like Victoria Usher and Jim Kane are calling attention to how brands now activate retail data for segmentation, planning, and innovation across media touchpoints including CTV and search. Our take: This shift reflects growing demand for privacy-safe, first-party data solutions amid signal loss and rising complexity. Cannes will underscore retail media’s potential to support creativity and full-funnel integration. The future isn’t just attribution—it’s about making retail platforms vital to brand equity and long-term engagement.

Connected TV (CTV) is booming in households and becoming significantly more important for advertisers.

Facetune, the photo editing app from Lightricks, has expanded from digital screens into the physical world with its first out-of-home (OOH) ad campaign in the US.

Affiliate marketing, a performance-based partnership between an advertiser and a publisher, can offer brands feeling pressure to prove short-term ROI peace of mind and predictability.

Tariffs threaten to reduce US digital ad spending growth this year. This series explains the effects tariffs will have on ad spending in search, social, CTV, and retail media—and which parts of each might fare best and worst.

Strong Q1 ad results show resilience: But AI, tariffs, and antitrust pressures will reshape how and where marketers spend in 2025.

Digital ad giants beat Q1 expectations, but tariffs, regulation, and slowing growth signal choppy waters ahead. This report breaks down which platforms are thriving, which are stalling, and what’s next for search, social, streaming, and retail media.

Google’s AI Max product promises one-click boost to ad performance: AI integration will allow for advanced query matching, but a Chrome sell-off looms large.

Marketers are cutting branding spend in favor of performance media: Search and retail win as caution dominates strategy.

Reddit’s blowout Q1 shows ad momentum: With strong midmarket traction and AI tools scaling, its business model is leveling up.

Meta enhances its retail media tools: New APIs and ad formats aim to drive in-store and ecommerce sales while offering retailers better attribution data.

Omnicom expands Creo into a global brand: The agency will unify creator strategy across markets, blending AI tools, media partnerships, and performance goals.

Digital ad spend in Latin America is set to reach 56.4% of total ad spend in 2025, per EMARKETER’s forecast. As the region’s digital landscape matures, media quality, and performance are becoming top priorities for advertisers.

Latin America’s commerce media ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Financial, travel, and other nonretail players are now looking to monetize their own first-party data—following the path retailers have already paved.

Markets rally, but marketers hold their applause: Trump’s tariff pause could still keep ad execs on edge, given market volatility and long-term planning risks.

Marketers struggle with shrinking returns on social media ad spend: A new study found diversification without divestment is key to staying afloat.

Acadia acquires Crush to expand Amazon-first capabilities: The deal reflects growing demand for full-funnel retail media solutions.

Tariff escalation heightens recession fears: EMARKETER's forecasting team analyzes the economic disruption from Trump’s new trade policies.

Trump’s tariffs fuel ad industry pullback: Marketers are cutting budgets and ad growth projections fall sharply as inflation and trade uncertainty rise.

Spotify boosts global ad tools: New programmatic, targeting, and AI creative features position Spotify as a full-funnel solution for global marketers.