Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B 

Despite concerns about economic and geopolitical uncertainty, the industry drove record revenue, reaching $294.6 billion in 2025, reflecting a 13.9% year-over-year increase. These results were particularly notable given that 2025 lacked major cyclical events such as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, or elections, which historically drive increased ad spending across the digital ecosystem.

“This revenue growth reflects a market that has reoriented around performance channels. As expectations for measurable outcomes rise, investment is concentrating in areas that can directly correlate spend to business results,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “At the same time, artificial intelligence is rapidly moving from theory into practice, emerging as a meaningful driver of efficiency and effectiveness across the ecosystem.”

Growth by Advertising Category

Shifts in Consumer Usage Patterns

Consumer behavior is continuing to shift toward video, creator-led content, and performance-driven environments—reshaping where and how ad dollars are spent.

Video (including CTV, social video, online video, and short-form video) grew 25.4% YoY, to a total of $78 billion in revenue. Compared to a year ago (19.2%), this shows that video is still capturing a growing share of incremental digital advertising revenue relative to other formats.

Social media ad revenues in 2025 reached $117.7 billion, showing significant 32.6% YoY growth, or an increase of $29 billion. Growth is being driven by the scaling of the creator economy, deeper commerce integration, and continued performance improvements in targeting, measurement, and attribution.

Programmatic advertising rose 20.5% YoY to $162.4 billion, gaining $27.6 billion in new spend as automated buying scales and lays the groundwork for agentic AI-driven media buying.

Commerce media grew 18.0% YoY to $63.4 billion, reinforcing its role as a core performance channel powered by first-party data.

Those same usage patterns are leading to consolidation. The structural advantages of scaled platforms are hard for buyers to resist, including deeper first-party data, integrated commerce ecosystems, proprietary measurement infrastructure, and the ability to offer end-to-end buying environments. As a result, the top 10 global media companies continue to hold the majority of internet advertising revenue share.

“While overall revenue is stronger than ever, consumer usage patterns have changed materially over the last year,” said Jack Koch, SVP, Research & Insights at IAB. “The ability to integrate data, media, and commerce is becoming a defining advantage: companies that can provide seamless, personalized, and commerce-enabled experiences are where the attention and investment are moving.”

Redefining the Market in 2026: AI, Creators, and Performance

Advertising in 2026 finds itself at the intersection of three powerful structural shifts that are combining to redefine the business.

• AI is becoming advertising’s infrastructure layer. It is redefining discovery, creative production, execution, and monetization. Specifically, it will mean deeper first-party data, integrated commerce ecosystems, proprietary measurement infrastructure, and the ability to offer end-to-end buying. AI is redefining the entire value chain, including agent buying and selling, creative production, AI-driven commerce to both humans and agents, and more.
  Search is still important, but growth is slowing. Search revenues (including AI search) continue to hold the largest share of revenue dollars, reaching $114.2 billion in 2025. While search grew 11% YoY, its growth rate slowed considerably vs. 2024 (15.9%).
• Creator advertising is now a core media channel, leveraging always-on strategies. Creator advertising spend reached $37B in 2025. Creator is growing faster than the broader advertising market, with spending projected to reach $44B in 2026. Brands are embedding creators into long-term media strategies, operational workflows, and even product development. What was once campaign-based influencer marketing is evolving into always-on creator programs, with brands building dedicated teams and tools to manage the partnerships at scale.
• Streaming video is performance-capable, interactive, and commerce-connected. But this emphasis on performance means marketers will demand that streaming prove true incrementality. Streaming platforms are increasingly investing in the rights to live sports and real-time events while expanding ad-supported tiers to attract larger audiences. This is creating more premium inventory and intensifying competition for video advertising budgets.

What’s Needed for the Next 30 Years: Measurement and Standards

“The lesson of our 30-year history is that measurement, standards, and interoperability — as mundane as those things can sometimes sound — are what got this industry from zero to just shy of $300 billion,” continued Cohen. “And with the disruption and opportunity that AI is bringing into the ecosystem, there is still lots of vital work ahead.”