Digital channels are still doing the heavy lifting for ad growth.
That’s one of the clearest takeaways from the IAB’s new 2026 Outlook report, which forecasts 9.5% year-over-year growth in U.S. ad spend this year, driven largely by digital formats and the rise of AI-powered buying.
According to the IAB, digital channels will once again outpace the broader market in 2026, with social media ad spend projected to grow 14.6%, CTV up 13.8%, and commerce media rising 12.1%. Linear TV, meanwhile, will decline 1.7% — a softer drop than in recent years, but a drop nonetheless. The IAB says the “stabilization” is temporary with big events like the Winter Olympics, the World Cup, and the U.S. midterm elections, expected to drive short-term spikes in viewership and ad demand.
Why This Matters:
At a high level, the IAB’s forecast reinforces the market’s continued shift toward performance. Social and commerce media, in particular, are seeing strong momentum because they combine rich data with attention and proximity to in-market consumers, making them more likely to convert. CTV, meanwhile, is working to close the performance gap as targeting, measurement, and optimization capabilities mature.
Double-digit growth across social, CTV, and commerce media signals that buyers are prioritizing channels that can deliver outcomes — alongside the flexibility, automation, and advanced measurement needed to support performance-led strategies.
But the linear TV story is just as telling. Even with some of the biggest live-viewing moments on the calendar, linear is only managing to SLOW its decline, not reverse it. That underscores how structural the shift has become. Big events can still move budgets, but they’re no longer enough to offset broader changes in how audiences want content or how advertisers expect to buy it.
Experts React:
Even with change afoot, the IAB (of course) frames 2026 as a positive year.
“Our report shows that in this growth cycle, innovation and experimentation are firmly taking priority as the market is being structurally reimagined,” said IAB CEO David Cohen, adding that buyers remain optimistic as AI-powered tools continue to improve on efficiency and effectiveness.
Our Take:
Is this good news for proponents of the open web? It’s not clear that it is. Social, CTV, and commerce media are largely walled gardens, each with their own silos. If the bulk of ad spend continues flowing into those channels, everyone else is effectively competing for a shrinking share of open-web dollars.
That dynamic helps explain why so many adtech companies are aggressively pushing into CTV and commerce media. It also raises an interesting question: whether open-web players increasingly look to partner with social platforms — on measurement, attribution, or adjacent capabilities — as a way to stay relevant in a market that seems to be becoming more closed by default.
