Programmatic has effectively become the defining mechanism for delivering ads. This benchmark guide unpacks how programmatic advertising is shaping spend in key channels.

Q1 results show how the largest ad companies are weathering uncertainty around the Iran war and AI spending

As marketers increasingly bet on in-store commerce media and consumers shorten their shopping trips, GSTV argues that brevity is a reason advertisers should bet on convenience stores.

AI is rewriting the digital shelf. As discovery shrinks to a handful of recommendations, brands are forced to optimize for both humans and machines or risk disappearing early in the purchase journey.

"One of the biggest disconnects in our industry today is that commerce media has shoppers experience a certain single, continuous omnichannel journey," said Guthrie Collin, vice president of product at Roundel, during the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) recent Connected Commerce event. "But in our world, media, data, technology, measurement systems, we think of them, and they still operate in quite a fragmented way."

Amazon’s AI ad engine: Q1 ad sales rose 24% to $17.2 billion as automation and first-party data power full-funnel buys.

WPP Commerce kicks off reset: The holdco unites retail media muscle to steady losses, but rivals are already entrenched.

As discovery, validation, and purchase increasingly happen in the same moment on the same screen, global consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands are confronting fundamental questions about organizational structure, measurement, and retail readiness.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the main reasons people return items, the different policies we would keep or curb to help get returns under control, and the number one way to reduce returns. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Sky Canaves, and Senior Analyst Blake Droesch.

The lack of a standard definition for agentic commerce reveals a fundamental split in how the industry is preparing for AI’s role in shopping

Many retail media networks operate independently from core business functions, but staying disconnected may limit how far they can grow. "Most retail media networks essentially were launched as startups within large legacy organizations, and they are tasked to grow and scale quickly in an industry that the rest of the retailer is not familiar with, which is media," said Molly Hjelm, head of retail media for Ace Hardware's RedVest Media network, during IAB’s Connected Commerce event last week.

In-store retail media is moving beyond pilot programs and becoming a strategic priority for major brands, with leading consumer-packaged goods (CPG) companies now operationalizing campaigns across budgets, teams, and measurement frameworks to reach shoppers where most purchase decisions are made.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how this kind of energy-driven inflation shows up differently for retailers compared to what we saw with tariffs last year, the ripple effects that are being underestimated, and which of these changes we think are temporary versus those that will actually reshape how people shop. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Zak Stambor, and Analyst Rachel Wolff.

Social media is emerging as a key growth channel for retail media networks (RMNs) as they expand beyond their owned properties.

AI is reshaping how consumers discover and choose products, creating a fast-growing new commerce channel with its own set of unique challenges.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the difficulty of defining a department store, what to keep or discard from the old model, and how success should be measured. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Paul Briggs, and Analyst Rachel Wolff.

This FAQ covers what agentic commerce is, who the key players are, and what brands and advertisers should do about it.

On this episode, we examine the challenges and best practices for measuring impact of commerce media advertising. We discuss discuss moving beyond platform-reported metrics, incrementality testing frameworks, clean room strategies, cross-network measurement and building internal capabilities. Arielle Feger, EMARKETER’s Senior Analyst, Media Content hosts Jack Kneuper, Senior Digital Performance Marketing Manager at Perdue Farms and Matt Barresi, President of Digital Commerce and Capabilities at Kimberly-Clark.