IAB and PwC · 2026 · Market size · Free
The longest-running benchmark of US digital ad revenue, compiled by PwC from company-reported data. The 2025 edition, published in April 2026, marks the report's 30th year.
- IAB and PwC report US internet ad revenue of nearly $300 billion in 2025.
- The report puts year-over-year growth at 13.9%.
- IAB describes the growth as increasingly performance-driven and powered by AI, with commerce media, video, social and creators called out as key segments.
IAB · 2026 · Market size · Free
IAB's annual survey of US brand and agency buyers on how much they plan to spend and where. A September 2026 update revisits the forecast mid-year.
- Buyers surveyed by IAB projected US ad spend growth of 9.5% in 2026, up from 5.7% in 2025.
- Excluding one-off events such as elections and major sports, IAB put projected growth at about 7.1% to 7.8%.
- IAB found that five of buyers' six main focus areas centre on AI, which it describes as moving from experiment to core campaign infrastructure.
WPP Media (formerly GroupM) · 2026 · Market size · Free
One of the most-cited global ad spend forecasts, published twice a year by WPP's media arm. The full data is reserved for WPP clients; the public summary gives the headline view.
- WPP Media expects US advertising revenue to grow 11.9% in 2026, driven largely by AI-related investment and the advertising it generates.
- The forecast puts search (traditional plus generative) at 21.8% of total ad revenue in 2026.
- WPP Media says social remains the largest single channel but expects its growth to slow to single digits from 2027, with commerce and retail media becoming foundational.
Association of National Advertisers (ANA) · 2026 · Programmatic · Paid / registration
A quarterly follow-up to the 2023 study that tracks how efficiently participating advertisers' programmatic budgets turn into quality impressions.
- The ANA reported that working-media efficiency kept improving in Q2 2026, while pricing efficiency moved in the opposite direction.
- The benchmark argues that programmatic value now depends on managing quality, price, measurement and supply curation together, not only on cutting fees.
DoubleVerify · 2026 · Measurement · Free
DoubleVerify's annual set of benchmarks on media quality, fraud and viewability, drawn from the ads it measures, split by region and channel.
- DV's 2026 streaming TV report looks at CTV fraud, viewability and new ad formats as streaming moves from promise to performance.
- Its regional reports give separate media-quality benchmarks for Asia Pacific, EMEA, Latin America and North America.
Integral Ad Science · 2026 · Measurement · Free
IAS's long-running benchmark of brand risk, viewability and fraud across the impressions it measures worldwide.
- IAS found that mobile web display made up about 45% of impressions but 72% of MFA impressions and 55% of brand-suitability failures.
- Video beat display on viewability by 11.8 percentage points, according to the report.
- IAS said media quality improved globally but risk diverged by region, vertical and content type.
Deloitte · 2026 · CTV · Free
Deloitte's annual US consumer survey on streaming, social video, gaming and how audiences discover content, which shapes where ad budgets go.
- Deloitte found that 41% of consumers had cancelled a paid streaming service in the previous six months, and 22% had churned and returned to the same service.
- About half of respondents named social media as their main way of discovering content, rising to 73% of Gen Z.
- Nearly 40% said they would accept clearly labelled AI-created content on streaming, music and gaming services.
IAB and PwC · 2025 · Market size · Free
The previous year's edition of the IAB/PwC benchmark, useful for comparing growth rates year over year.
- IAB and PwC put US internet ad revenue at a record of about $259 billion in 2024.
- That was roughly a 15% increase on 2023, according to the report.
HUMAN Security · 2025 · IVT & fraud · Free
HUMAN's research on a fraud and proxy network built from backdoored off-brand Android devices, disclosed with Google, Trend Micro and Shadowserver in March 2025.
- HUMAN counted about 1 million infected devices, mostly cheap Android TV boxes, tablets and projectors made in mainland China.
- The largest shares of infections were in Brazil (about 38%) and the US (about 18%), per HUMAN's data.
- HUMAN linked several cooperating groups running programmatic ad fraud, click fraud and residential proxies on the devices.
Adalytics · 2025 · IVT & fraud · Free
An independent investigation using years of web-crawler data to test whether ads were served to self-declared bots. The vendors named have disputed parts of the methodology.
- Adalytics reported observing ads from thousands of brands, including US government advertisers, served to declared bots running in data centres.
- It reported that some bot-avoidance and pre-bid products did not prevent these impressions in its samples.
- The report argues buyers need log-level data to check vendor claims about [[pre-bid-filtering]].
US Department of Justice / US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia · 2025 · Programmatic · Free
The April 17, 2025 ruling in the case the DOJ and several states brought in January 2023 over Google's publisher ad server and ad exchange.
- The court found Google illegally monopolised markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges for open-web display advertising.
- It found Google unlawfully tied its ad exchange (AdX) to its publisher ad server (DFP).
- The court held that this conduct harmed publishers, competition and, ultimately, readers of the open web. See [[us-v-google-adtech]].
European Commission · 2025 · Programmatic · Free
The EU's September 2025 antitrust decision on Google's ad tech business, following a Statement of Objections in June 2023.
- The Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for favouring its own display ad tech services over rivals, advertisers and publishers.
- It ordered Google to end the self-preferencing and to propose measures to remove inherent conflicts of interest across the ad tech supply chain.
Google (Chrome) · 2025 · Privacy · Free
Google's October 17, 2025 announcement retiring most [[privacy-sandbox]] advertising APIs after deciding to keep third-party cookies in Chrome.
- Google said it would retire APIs including Topics, Protected Audience, Attribution Reporting, Shared Storage and IP Protection.
- It kept CHIPS, FedCM and Private State Tokens (an anti-fraud tool) and said it would back an interoperable attribution standard.
- Chrome will keep its current approach of offering users choice over third-party cookies.
Government of India (MeitY) · 2025 · Privacy · Free
The rules, notified in November 2025, that put India's 2023 data protection law into operation, with obligations phased in over the following months.
- The government described the Rules as the full operationalisation of the [[dpdp-act]], which Parliament enacted on August 11, 2023.
- The framework sets duties for "data fiduciaries" that handle personal data and rights for individuals, including consent requirements relevant to ad targeting.
Google (Chrome) · 2024 · Privacy · Free
The July 22, 2024 post in which Google dropped its plan to phase out [[third-party-cookie|third-party cookies]] in Chrome.
- Google said that instead of deprecating third-party cookies it would introduce a user-choice experience in Chrome.
- It said it would keep consulting the UK CMA and ICO on the new approach.
Association of National Advertisers (ANA) · 2023 · Programmatic · Paid / registration
The largest audit of open-web programmatic buying to date, following advertiser money from DSP to publisher using log-level data from participating ANA members. A first look came out in June 2023 and the final report in December 2023.
- The ANA estimated that of every dollar entering a DSP, only about 36 cents reached consumers through quality, viewable, non-fraudulent impressions.
- It sized the "value opportunity" from inefficiency in the roughly $88 billion open-web programmatic market at about $22 billion a year.
- Made-for-advertising (MFA) sites accounted for about 21% of impressions and 15% of spend in the study.
- The average campaign ran on about 44,000 websites, which the ANA said most advertisers could cut sharply.
ISBA and PwC · 2023 · Programmatic · Paid / registration
A follow-up to the 2020 study, published in January 2023, testing whether standard contracts and audit rights had made the supply chain easier to trace.
- ISBA reported that the unattributable [[unknown-delta]] fell to 3% of spend, from 15% in the first study.
- The share of impressions that could be matched end to end rose to 58%, from 12%.
- ISBA credited its Programmatic Financial Audit Toolkit, launched in 2022, and better data access for the improvement.
Juniper Research · 2023 · IVT & fraud · Paid / registration
A widely quoted top-down estimate of global ad fraud losses. Estimates like this vary a lot by method, so treat them as orders of magnitude.
- Juniper Research estimated that 22% of online ad spend, about $84 billion, was lost to fraud in 2023.
- It estimated mobile losses were higher, at about 30% of mobile ad spend.
- Juniper projected losses could reach $172 billion by 2028 without better mitigation.
European Commission · 2023 · Programmatic · Free
The Commission's June 2023 preliminary finding against Google's ad tech stack, which led to the 2025 fine.
- The Commission took the preliminary view that Google distorted competition by favouring its own ad tech services.
- It signalled that only a mandatory divestment of part of Google's ad tech services might address its concerns.
IAB Europe · 2023 · Privacy · Free
The consent standard most European publishers and ad tech vendors use to record GDPR choices, updated to version 2.2 in May 2023.
- IAB Europe removed [[legitimate-interest]] as a legal basis for ad personalisation and measurement purposes in [[tcf]] v2.2.
- CMPs must show users the total number of vendors and make it easy to withdraw consent.
- The final implementation deadline was November 20, 2023.
IAB Tech Lab · 2022 · Standards · Free
The protocol most exchanges and DSPs use to send bid requests and responses. Version 2.6 added features for CTV and is updated in dated releases on GitHub.
- IAB Tech Lab traces [[openrtb]] to an industry consortium formed in November 2010.
- Version 2.6 added support for [[ad-pod|ad pods]] and other streaming-TV features.
- Later 2.6 releases, maintained on GitHub, added items such as duration-based price floors for video and audio.
European Union · 2022 · Privacy · Free
The EU law on online platforms' responsibilities, including rules on ad transparency and targeting.
- The [[dsa]] bans ads targeted to minors based on profiling and ads based on sensitive data such as religion or health.
- Very large platforms must keep public repositories of the ads they show, including who paid for them.
European Union · 2022 · Privacy · Free
The EU law setting do's and don'ts for "gatekeeper" platforms, with obligations applying from March 2024.
- The [[dma]] requires gatekeepers to get consent before combining personal data across their services for ads.
- Gatekeepers must give advertisers and publishers free access to pricing and performance data on ads they buy or sell.
Autorité de la concurrence (France) · 2021 · Programmatic · Free
The first competition decision anywhere against Google's ad tech stack, settled in June 2021 with commitments on interoperability.
- The French authority found Google favoured its own ad server and exchange at rivals' expense.
- Google accepted a €220 million fine and commitments to improve interoperability with third-party ad tech.
Apple · 2021 · Mobile · Free
Apple's developer rules for [[att]], which since iOS 14.5 require permission before an app tracks people across other companies' apps and sites.
- Apple says the [[idfa]] returns all zeros unless the user grants tracking permission.
- Apple bans fingerprinting or other identifiers as workarounds and bars apps from rewarding users for allowing tracking.
- Using data only for fraud detection or security does not count as tracking under Apple's definition.
ISBA and PwC · 2020 · Programmatic · Paid / registration
The UK study that first matched individual impressions end to end across advertisers, agencies, DSPs, SSPs and publishers, and coined the term "unknown delta".
- ISBA and PwC found that publishers received on average about 51% of advertiser spend.
- About 15% of spend (roughly a third of supply chain costs) could not be attributed to any party, the so-called [[unknown-delta]].
- Only about 12% of impressions could be matched end to end, which the study blamed on poor data access and inconsistent formats.
Media Rating Council · 2020 · Standards · Free
The US industry standard for how measurement companies must detect and remove non-human and fraudulent traffic. First issued in 2015 and updated in June 2020.
- The MRC splits [[invalid-traffic]] into [[givt]] (filterable with lists and routine checks) and [[sivt]] (requiring advanced analytics or human review).
- The guidelines require accredited measurers to filter both types and to disclose how they do it.
- The 2020 update refreshed the requirements to reflect newer environments such as mobile apps and OTT/[[ctv]].
UK Competition and Markets Authority · 2020 · Market size · Free
A year-long UK study of Google and Facebook's market power in search, social and display advertising, published on July 1, 2020.
- The CMA concluded that competition was not working well in these markets, causing substantial harm to consumers and society.
- It recommended a new pro-competition regulatory regime, which led to the UK's Digital Markets Unit and later digital markets law.
IAB Tech Lab · 2019 · Standards · Free
Two companion standards, finalised in July 2019, that let buyers see every company that handled a bid request and look up who they are.
- IAB Tech Lab says [[sellers-json]] lets buyers discover the entities that are direct sellers or intermediaries in a sale.
- The [[supply-chain-object]] lists each party in a bid request's path, while sellers.json acts as the lookup table for identifying them.
- Together they support [[supply-path-optimization]] and make hidden resellers easier to spot.
ANA and White Ops (now HUMAN) · 2019 · IVT & fraud · Paid / registration
The fourth ANA/White Ops study measuring bot fraud across participating advertisers' campaigns.
- The study projected global losses to bot fraud of $5.8 billion in 2019, down 11% from $6.5 billion in the 2017 study.
- It said that, for the first time, more fraud would be stopped than would succeed, even as digital ad spend grew 25% over two years.
IAB Tech Lab · 2018 · Standards · Free
A shared software kit that lets verification companies measure ads inside apps, web video and CTV without each vendor needing its own code in every app.
- IAB Tech Lab released the [[open-measurement-sdk]] in 2018, followed by a web video version in December 2020.
- It supports impression and viewability measurement plus [[verification]] of invalid traffic and brand safety.
IAB Tech Lab · 2017 · Standards · Free
A simple public text file in which publishers list the companies authorised to sell their ad space. Launched in 2017, with app-ads.txt following for apps and CTV.
- IAB Tech Lab designed [[ads-txt]] to stop [[domain-spoofing]] by letting buyers check that a seller is authorised.
- Each line names an ad system, the publisher's account ID and whether the relationship is DIRECT or RESELLER.
- The companion [[app-ads-txt]] file extends the same check to mobile apps and connected TV.
Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) · 2016 · IVT & fraud · Free
The rules companies must follow to earn TAG's anti-fraud seal, launched in 2016 and revised since. Buyers use the seal to choose cleaner supply paths.
- TAG requires certified companies to detect and filter invalid traffic in line with MRC guidelines and to designate a TAG compliance officer.
- The programme underpins TAG's "certified channel" concept, where every company in a transaction holds the seal.
Media Rating Council with IAB · 2014 · Measurement · Free
The definition of a "viewable" ad used across the industry, finalised as version 1.0 in June 2014 and updated since.
- Under the MRC standard, a display ad counts as viewable when at least 50% of its pixels are on screen for at least one continuous second.
- For video, at least 50% of pixels must be on screen for two continuous seconds.
- The MRC treats viewability as a minimum threshold for counting, not proof that someone paid attention.