By Dan Larkman, CEO of Keynes Digital
For all the industry’s talk about transformation, 2025 exposed what still hasn’t changed enough.
We’ve now reached the point where connected TV, retail media, and programmatic are no longer “emerging.” Budgets have shifted accordingly, and brands have finally built real muscle memory around these channels. Yet for all the maturity we celebrate, this year also underscored how much of our decision-making still rests on shaky ground. As marketers stare down 2026 planning, the lessons from the past year are clear: the easy wins are gone, the gimmicks are fading, and proving what works has become the only real differentiator.
Always-on CTV has outpaced our ability to measure it
In 2025, advertisers stopped treating CTV as an experiment. The channel is now evergreen. But measurement is still stuck two or three years behind. Marketers now run constant CTV campaigns, yet most are comparing apples and oranges. They’re using lift tests, multi-touch attribution, and marketing mix models – often arriving at completely different answers with the same inputs.
The real takeaway is that sophistication doesn’t equal standardization. The industry’s next evolution won’t come from another round of “currency wars,” but from consistent frameworks that allow brands to understand incrementality in non-clickable media the same way they do in search or social. Until we can measure connected media through a common lens, spend will grow faster than confidence.
Retail media and CTV are colliding, but the data still lags
One bright spot in 2025 was the surge of retail-media CTV. The promise is huge: rich shopper data meeting premium video environments. But the reality is still patchwork. Too often, advertisers approach retail media on TV the same way they approached display five years ago – optimizing for short-term sales spikes without accounting for context, creative, or long-term brand lift.
2026 has to be the year where retail media on the big screen gets better data normalization, longer test horizons, and measurement frameworks that bridge the top and bottom of the funnel. The brands that win won’t be the ones buying the most impressions; they’ll be the ones designing smarter experiments.
The “AI revolution” proved that technology can’t fix bad inputs
Across the ad tech ecosystem, 2025 was the year AI became table stakes. Every vendor claimed an “AI-powered” product. The result? A marketplace full of sameness and skepticism. Companies that haven’t already developed an LLM-powered AI “layer” in their product have been left behind – AI is no longer a differentiator. The core issue is the data feeding the technology. Without disciplined data hygiene, AI-powered ad tech products simply automate bad decisions faster.
The next phase will belong to players who verticalize their models, training AI on cleaner, more contextual datasets rather than generic inputs. In advertising, accuracy-plus-automation will beat mystery “black-box” automation every time. 2026 will reward those who prioritize the right data and outcomes rather than rushing a marginal AI product enhancement to market.
“Premium” needs a new definition
For years, “premium” has been shorthand for Tier-1 publishers, glossy shows, or high CPMs. But in CTV, that definition has collapsed to include all kinds of adjacent content and channels. Premium should mean environments with premium, professionally produced content that produce premium outcomes. Those command higher engagement, stronger recall, measurable lift. Sometimes that happens on a FAST channel rather than a cable network. Marketers need to appreciate that as they plan their “premium” media investments.
Likewise, the industry has talked for years about “omnichannel” planning. Now it’s time to deliver on omnichannel accountability. In 2026, advertisers will expect the same level of precision and validation across CTV, retail, social, and digital audio as they do in search. The next competitive advantage will come from better calibration.
The marketers who thrive will treat measurement as an always-on process. They’ll build consistent ways to test creative and context across media, linking short-term conversions to long-term brand equity. They’ll know not just where their ads ran, but what they did.
The past year was a stress test for an industry that finally grew up. Budgets are bigger, expectations are higher, and the accountability bar has never been more demanding. 2025 reminded us that growth without proof is just noise.
In 2026, we’ll separate the marketers chasing efficiency from the ones building effectiveness. The difference will come down to who can prove it.
