Competitive rewards multipliers on essential categories can help co-brands capture spend outside branded purchases.
Income and real spending are still rising, but pessimism and price pressure are likely to shape Q4.
Experiences become part of its wealth transfer strategy
35% of webpages published post-ChatGPT show signs of AI authorship. Distinct voices and unique assets can preserve trust.
AI agents cut manual work, helping brands manage more creators while tying spend closer to results.
Brand demands test creator authenticity: Greater creative freedom and natural influencer fit can protect audience trust and partnership value.
Lenovo's run as FIFA's official technology partner was more than a branding play, it was also a live demo of AI infrastructure and scale that the company can now bring straight into enterprise sales conversations, according to North America President Ryan McCurdy. FIFA named Lenovo as its exclusive tech partner for FIFA World Cup 2026 and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 in Brazil. For the 2026 World Cup, Lenovo deployed and managed more than 25,000 devices and AI-powered infrastructure across three host countries, 16 cities, and 104 matches with 99.99% uptime across all instances, according to the company. That gave McCurdy's team a real-world case study of enterprise-grade AI at scale to point to in sales conversations.
Mike and Ike will also be a presenting sponsor for a major Dignitas Fortnite tournament, “Flavor Brawl,” held in October. This tournament will be hosted by esports streamer AussieAntics on his Twitch channel. The broadcast will include custom Mike and Ike brand integration, according to the company.
Retail media, loyalty, and sports marketing are helping counter the retailer’s Foot Locker drag.
Stronger creator influence helps drive affiliate sales, pushing marketers to rethink how they measure performance.
The move shows how brands can use the places and experiences they already have to inspire original content.
A wide product mix across ages, franchises, and price points helped it beat the toy market.
Chase is challenging Amex on experiential rewards.
As consumers start using chatbots for discovery, FIs need to optimize their content for AI.
AI referrals convert at higher rates, despite limited scale: Marketers should measure value per visit and build AI visibility alongside SEO.
Brands have never known more about their customers, and shopping has never felt more broken. Shoppers still see ads for products they already bought. They still get recommendations that ignore where they are and what they need. The data is there. The experience it should be producing is not.
Commerce media is entering a new phase, one defined less by rapid expansion and more by operational maturity, EMARKETER analysts and industry leaders say. Commerce media ad spending will reach $83.71 billion in the US this year, accounting for 20.5% of all digital ad spending, according to EMARKETER's June 2026 forecast. As the channel becomes a core part of marketers' media strategies, the conversation is shifting from whether to invest to how to make those investments deliver measurable business results. In a new EMARKETER guide titled "Commerce media outlook: What industry leaders see ahead," our analysts and industry leaders give their thoughts about the capabilities brands should prioritize today, the consumer behaviors that will shape tomorrow, and what it will take to succeed as commerce media becomes a permanent pillar of the media mix. Arielle Feger, a senior analyst at EMARKETER covering retail and commerce media, told us what actually gets consumers' attention and how marketers can build trust.
As price advantages fade, they may need better assortment, loyalty, and convenience to keep shoppers.
Where Americans spend their time and where advertisers spend their money have come apart, and social media is the widest gap. Social platforms, particularly Meta, capture a disproportionate share of the nearly $500 billion US advertising market. "Over the last 12 months, we've seen a flurry of [media advertising] activity from outside the retail sector," said our analyst Ethan Cramer-Flood on a recent episode of "Behind the Numbers."
Automation can fill resource gaps while also tying more of advertisers’ workflows to Meta.