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Key Q3 2026 Digital Marketing Trends

Explore key digital marketing trends from Q3 2026 advertising data.


Retail media spend rose 7% year over year as clicks grew 20% and CPC fell 11%. Across Q2 and Q3, spend grew 16% as Prime Day shifted into Q2.
Amazon DSP spend grew 34% year over year despite Prime Day moving out of Q3, while average CPC fell 44% to $0.99, close to Sponsored Products at $0.94.
Paid search CPC inflation eased from 14% in Q2 to 7% in Q3. Google AI Max adoption reached 66% of accounts in September, up from 38% in January.
Paid social spend grew 40%, with clicks up 49% and CTR up 28%. CPC fell 6% as stronger engagement helped offset higher impression costs.
Agentic AI is taking on a greater role in media decisions, from Google AI Max adoption to Amazon DSP investment growth and new ways for external AI agents to work with advertising platforms.

The Q3 2026 Quarterly Trends Report

Explore digital advertising performance across retail media, paid search, paid social, and AI-led marketing, based on five quarters of aggregated, anonymized Skai platform data.

  • Performance metrics: Channel spend, click, cost, and conversion trends, including the relationship between media efficiency and business outcomes.
  • Retail media deep dive: Amazon DSP investment and efficiency, Walmart and emerging networks, formats, and category benchmarks.
  • Paid search and paid social: CPC trends, Google AI Max adoption, TikTok investment, and social engagement.
  • AI and media decisions: AI-led campaign adoption, automated execution, and the importance of evaluating performance against business goals.
  • Q4 planning and Q1 reset: Prime Big Deal Days findings, DSP ramp-up performance, Cyber 5 pacing, and guidance for post-holiday performance.

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