By Rachel Gantz, Managing Director Proximic by Comscore
What a long, strange trip it’s been in the world of advertising. 2025 was a whirlwind year for our industry with significant M&A activity, AI dominating every conversation, programmatic overtaking direct for CTV, audio having its moment, and contextual targeting emerging as the comeback story of the year.
So what will 2026 hold? We asked industry experts in Proximic by Comscore’s annual State of Programmatic report and distilled their answers into six key themes.
The ‘Eat Your Broccoli’ Findings – Not exciting. Expected. But important nonetheless.
- The programmatic rocket ship is still on the up and up. 58% of marketers are increasing investment in programmatic. No surprises here; the engine keeps humming.
- Linear is going to continue to lose ground in favor of growth formats. 45% of marketers said their increases in CTV investment are coming directly from linear budgets, significantly more than any other channel. Audio is following suit, with 21% redirecting linear dollars there. The writing’s been on the wall for a while; now it’s basically neon.
- Contextual is still on the rise. 43% plan to increase investment in contextual targeting. And for privacy-regulated industries like health/pharma, alcohol, and finance? Contextual ranked as the #1 targeting tactic, a full 12 points ahead of the next most popular approach. Turns out, when you can’t rely on identity, context becomes king.
The ‘Things Just Got Interesting’ Findings – Unexpected. Surprising. Fresh.
- Inventory quality matters and marketers still value pub-direct buys. In an era of infinite supply, quality is making a comeback. 94% of marketers think buying ads via curated marketplaces is important, and 81% see publisher-direct curated packages as an important part of their buying strategy. The primary driver? Ensuring buys land on high-quality inventory. The open exchange free-for-all? Increasingly less appealing.
- Optimization is the buzzword of 2026. The days of static audiences are coming to an end. 82% of marketers said AI-powered optimization was important when evaluating programmatic partners. Set-it-and-forget-it is out; dynamic, always-on refinement is in.
- Creatives don’t have to fret that AI is replacing them just yet. Only 4% of marketers planned to rely primarily on AI for creative generation. However, 30% plan to rely on it heavily for audience targeting, modeling, and campaign pacing and bid optimization. So while AI isn’t coming for the big ideas, it’s taking over the number-crunching. Creatives can exhale for now.
The bottom line? 2026 looks like a year of maturation. The shiny-object syndrome is fading, replaced by a focus on what actually works: quality inventory, smarter optimization, and privacy-ready targeting strategies. Not exactly revolutionary, but sometimes evolution beats revolution.
Here’s to a less unhinged year ahead. Or at least a productively unhinged one.
