Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B as IAB Celebrates 30 Year Anniversary

 Overall Revenue Grew +13.9% YoY; 
Video, Social, and Commerce Media Drive Growth as AI Reshapes the Ecosystem

Creator Advertising is Now a Core Media Channel, with Spend Reaching $37B

NEW YORK, April 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Now in its 30th year, IAB released its 2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, conducted by PwC, which was first issued in 1996 and continues to serve as the industry’s definitive benchmark.

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.”

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.”

IAB Project Eidos is taking an industrywide approach to define the principles, standards, and frameworks that guide how measurement is developed, evaluated, and compared across the industry. The initiative is intentionally focused on addressing the underlying structural issues in measurement—rather than introducing point solutions, temporary fixes, or channel-specific workarounds.

In combination with multiple standards projects, including IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic Advertising Management Protocols (AAMP), IAB is getting the industry ready for its next 30 years of growth. 

Click here to access the “IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2025.” Experts from IAB, PwC, and Madison & Wall will discuss key findings and trends from the report during a webinar on April 21 at 1 pm ET. Register here.

Methodology
Commissioned by the IAB and conducted by PwC Advisory Services LLC (“PwC”) on an ongoing basis, with results released quarterly, the “IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report” was initiated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in 1996. This report uses data and information reported directly to PwC from companies selling advertising on the internet as well as publicly available corporate data. The results reported are considered to be a reasonable measurement of internet/online/mobile advertising revenues because much of the data is compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertising online. The report includes data reflecting online advertising revenues from websites, commercial online services, ad networks and exchanges, mobile devices, and email providers, as well as other companies selling online advertising. The report is conducted independently by PwC, including research by their in-house market research team, on behalf of the IAB. PwC does not audit the information and provides no opinion or other form of assurance with respect to the information. Only aggregate results are published and individual company information is held in strict confidence with PwC. Further details regarding scope and methodology are provided in the appendix of this report.

About IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership comprises more than 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, IAB develops technical standards and solutions. IAB is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and collaboration of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the trade association advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. Founded in 1996, IAB is headquartered in New York City.

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SOURCE Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)