SAN FRANCISCO, CA – July 28, 2026 – Advertising spend grew across every major channel in Q2 2026, with retail media and paid social both up 26% year over year and paid search up 17%, according to the latest Q2 2026 Digital Marketing Quarterly Trends Report from Skai, the leading omnichannel platform for commerce media.
However, performance varied significantly by channel. Expanding inventory helped paid social and parts of retail media generate substantially more clicks at lower cost, while paid search advertisers faced rising CPCs and limited click growth as search behavior continued to evolve.
Key findings
- Ad spend grew across every major channel: retail media and paid social spend increased 26% year over year, while paid search rose 17%.
- Amazon DSP had a breakout quarter: clicks increased 127%, CPC declined 35%, and DSP’s share of Amazon Ads investment grew significantly during Prime Day.
- Paid social was the most efficient channel of the quarter, with clicks up 53% and CPC down 18%, the same year eMarketer projects Meta will out-earn Google in ad revenue for the first time.
- Paid search became more expensive: Spend increased 17%, but clicks remained relatively flat as CPCs continued to rise.
- Agentic AI is reshaping both consumer behavior and media operations: Consumers are increasingly discovering products through AI assistants, while Skai’s new State of Agentic Readiness for Media Teams study finds that many media teams still lack the infrastructure needed to operate effectively with autonomous agents.
Spend climbs across every channel, but efficiency diverges
Inventory availability was a defining factor in Q2 performance.
Retail media’s CPC has held near a dollar for the seventh straight year, evidence that supply is still keeping pace with demand. Part of this surge also reflects Prime Day landing in June for the first time since 2021, though monthly growth still ran high teens to low twenties without it.
Paid social translated higher investment into substantially greater engagement. Clicks increased 53% year over year, while CPC declined 18% and CTR rose 33%, suggesting that platforms successfully expanded inventory and connected advertisers with increasingly engaged audiences.
Paid search experienced a different pattern. Spend rose 17%, but click volume remained relatively flat, resulting in higher CPCs. This comes as search behavior evolves and more users receive information directly within search results and AI-generated experiences. An estimated 68% of Google searches now reportedly end without a click.
Retail media compounds through Prime Day, and DSP leads the way
DSP led retail media’s growth this quarter: clicks more than doubled, CPC fell 35%, and spend rose 48%. Its share of Amazon Ads spend jumped from 17.9% to 25.5% during Prime Day alone, aided by Amazon’s Performance+ automation, which optimizes bidding across the full funnel. Amazon’s broader advertising business crossed into $70-billion-plus territory this year, growing far faster than its retail operation and powered by off-Amazon expansion.
Prime Day turned in its most efficient event on record: blended CPC hit a record-low $1.63 and CTR hit a record high, as advertisers moved a quarter of their budgets into DSP and paced spend evenly across all four days instead of front-loading Day 1, a blueprint for Q4’s tentpoles.
AI is reshaping both commerce and media operations
AI is influencing the market from two different directions.
On the shopper side, agentic commerce is arriving fast: OpenAI continues to expand ChatGPT ads globally; Google placed ads inside AI Mode, which passed one billion monthly users; and the largest holding companies are rebuilding around AI platforms. The window to get ready is measured in quarters, not years.
On the operations side, media teams are being asked to run more campaigns with autonomous agents. Skai’s new State of Agentic Readiness for Media Teams study, surveying 332 paid-media practitioners, found teams willing but underequipped, with the data and systems to run them well still lagging.
“The results show how quickly conditions can change when new inventory, automation and consumer behaviors begin to converge,” said Michelle Urwin, Chief Marketing Officer at Skai. “We expect agentic AI to create a similar shift in how media is planned and operated. Our readiness research identifies the foundations teams need to put in place now, from connected data and trusted systems to clear governance and the right strategic partners.”
To access the full Q2 2026 report, visit skai.io/quarterly-trends-hub.
Methodology
Analysis is based on nearly 1 trillion impressions, 10 billion clicks, and $10 billion of Skai platform activity across retail media, paid search, and paid social advertising in Q2 2026 (April 1 – June 30). Data is aggregated and anonymized across Skai accounts, including many of the world’s leading consumer brands and agencies. Year-over-year comparisons reflect the same period in Q2 2025. Only advertisers active on the Skai platform for the full duration of both periods were included to ensure consistency. The agentic readiness findings are drawn from a separate survey of 332 paid-media practitioners conducted for Skai’s State of Agentic Readiness for Media Teams study.
About Skai
Skai is the leading omnichannel platform for commerce media, enabling brands and agencies to connect data, insights, and execution across the world’s largest publishers and retailers. Built for the agentic era, Skai’s platform unifies planning, activation, measurement, and retail operations in a single integrated system. With its open architecture and AI capabilities, including support for custom AI agents via its Model Context Protocol (MCP), Skai enables organizations to drive smarter decisions, greater efficiency, and improved performance across every channel.
Trusted by over 8,000 brands and agencies, such as PepsiCo, Sanofi, Estée Lauder, Publicis, Tinuiti, and WPP, Skai integrates with more than 300 publishers and retail media networks, including Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Criteo, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and TikTok, and is headquartered in San Francisco with nine international offices. Learn more at skai.io.