The IAB raised its full year 2026 U.S. ad spend forecast to 12.3% year over year growth on September 10, up 2.8 percentage points from the 9.5% projection it published in January. The revision, based on a survey of more than 200 brand and agency ad investment decision makers, credits a stronger than expected first half driven by major cyclical events and easing concern about the broader economy. Social media (16.5% growth), connected TV (15.6%) and commerce media (13.6%) all gained more than a full point over their earlier projections, while linear TV stayed in decline at negative 1.5%.
Why it matters: a forecast revision this large, arriving mid year rather than at the usual annual cadence, tells marketing leaders that budget models built in January are already out of date. “The first half was strong, major live events delivered, and advertisers have increasingly powerful tools in their arsenal to find and engage customers,” said David Cohen, CEO of the IAB. The survey also found brand investment priorities splitting, with 63% of respondents prioritizing customer acquisition and 43% prioritizing brand equity, evidence that budget growth is not flowing evenly across marketing objectives even as the topline number rises.
The original insight: the IAB’s own explanation credits AI driven consumer discovery for reshaping how brands plan spend, which lines up with what commerce media operators are already reporting on the ground, including the kind of retail ad inventory growth covered in Grocery Chains Keep Turning Aisles Into Ad Space. What the forecast does not resolve is measurement: as budgets shift faster than usual toward AI mediated discovery and commerce media, the tools to prove which channel actually drove the sale are still catching up, a gap explored in Measurement Is Racing to Catch Up With AI Shopping. A marketing leader revising a 2026 plan around this forecast should treat the topline growth number as real and the attribution behind it as still under construction.
Source: IAB
