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Key Q2 2026 Digital Marketing Trends

Here are some of the key digital marketing trends from Q2 2026 advertising data.


Retail media spend rose 26% year over year, with clicks up 27% and CPC holding within a few cents of a dollar for a seventh straight year. Amazon DSP had a breakout quarter: clicks more than doubled, CPC fell 35%, and DSP's share of Amazon Ads investment jumped from 17.9% to 25.5% during Prime Day alone.
Paid search spend climbed 17% year over year, but clicks grew just 2% as impressions fell 6%. CPC rose 14% to defend the same high-intent traffic, now that AI answers resolve a growing share of queries before a click happens.
Paid social delivered the quarter's cleanest efficiency story: spend up 26%, clicks up 53%, CPC down 18%, and CTR up 33%. TikTok takes roughly 17% of social budgets, but it commands a larger share of consumer attention and time spent.
Agentic AI kept reshaping both sides of the market in Q2. Consumers are increasingly discovering products through AI assistants, OpenAI expanded ChatGPT ads, and Google's placing ads inside AI Mode. Skai's new State of Agentic Readiness for Media Teams study surveyed 332 paid-media practitioners and found a mean readiness score of just 35.7 out of 100.
Prime Day 2026 moved to June for the first time since 2021 and turned into the most efficient event on record. Blended CPC hit a record-low $1.63 and CTR hit a record high. It's the clearest blueprint on the calendar for every Q4 tentpole ahead.

The Q2 2026 Quarterly Trends Report

Discover comprehensive quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year digital advertising performance insights from Q1 2026, featuring:

  • Performance metrics: A full breakdown of retail media's 26% growth with steady CPC, paid search's repricing as AI absorbs clicks, and paid social's efficiency gains.
  • Retail media deep dive: Platform-by-platform detail on Amazon and Walmart, Amazon DSP's breakout quarter, and category-level spend and cost patterns.
  • Prime Day 2026: A full recap of the event's move to June, the record-low blended CPC, and the record-high CTR.
  • Agentic AI and media operations: How consumer discovery is changing through AI assistants, what Skai's new State of Agentic Readiness for Media Teams study reveals about where teams stand today, and what needs to happen next.
  • Forward-looking insights: Q3 planning priorities, the Q4 event calendar, and how to apply the Prime Day pacing blueprint to every tentpole ahead.

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