What’s really driving Europe’s €131 billion ad boom

July 08, 2026 Another forecast, another reminder that ad spend is running its own race, economy be damned. This time it’s IAB Europe’s latest AdEx Benchmark Report, which clocked continental ad spend up 10.5% year over year to €131 billion — roughly the size of Morocco’s entire economy, according to the report’s author and IAB Europe chief economist, Daniel Knapp. Advertisement TOP STORY Navigating Economic Instability What’s really driving Europe’s €131 billion ad boom Another forecast, another reminder that ad spend is running its own race, economy be damned. OTHER THINGS TO KNOW Join fellow media and marketing leaders in NYC on July 23 for an evening of networking, meaningful conversations and industry insights. Connect with peers over drinks before and after a live conversation featuring Crossmedia CEO and Co-founder Kamran Asghar and Digiday Senior Editor Michael Burgi. Register or become a Digiday+ member to attend. When AI operates in a unified system, business gains aren’t theoretical. After implementing a single operational layer — which didn’t involve a better creative tool or smarter bidder — one travel advertiser saw incremental bookings rise 34%. Partner insights from Clinch. Programmatic buying has long relied on a combination of identity-based and contextual signals to guide decisions, but the latter has often been applied more narrowly. Partner insights from Seedtag. MEDIA & PLATFORMS Strategizing for the Future Criteo is subject to a takeover bid, further proving private equity’s continued interest in ad tech Vista Equity and Quinti Capital place a 50% premium on stock, raising questions over where the PE firms see value.  Evolving Agencies Advertising’s confidence problem, according to the man who used to price its stocks Advertising’s inconvenient truth: the industry built a commodity and called it a strategy PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM PATIENTPOINT Case study: Programmatic strategies for health and wellness businesses Between securing attention and earning trust, reaching audiences in the health and wellness space is challenging and often requires more to win them over. Download this case study to see how one healthcare company improved its strategies. MARKETING Brands in Culture How Bandit Running is expanding internationally while staying hyperlocal Bandit’s focus on core running communities has helped it grow enough to start expanding outward. PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM TALON.ONE WTF is agentic commerce? In agentic commerce, AI agents manage the end-to-end shopping journey. “People are already using tools like Gemini for discovery. The next phases will bring the entire shopping flow into the AI assistant,” said Laurens Van Wiele, chief product officer at Talon.One. Advertisement PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM OPTABLE The state of agentic advertising From investment and readiness to barriers and impact, publishers, advertisers and agencies are all engaging with agentic advertising in their own ways — and to different degrees. Read this report to learn more. ICYMI The Business of AI Dollar Shave Club’s bet: AI makes agencies optional, not obsolete Dollar Shave Club makes 90% of its advertising in-house. AI is coming for the other 10%. The Creator Economy Dentsu strikes Meta deal to build plumbing for mass influencer activation Top CMOs are assembling armies of creators, but many lack the infrastructure required to get the most out of them. A deal between Dentsu and Meta aims to fix that problem. Written by Jim Cooper and Sara Jerde Were you forwarded this email? Sign up to get it daily. Advertise | Digiday+ | Events | Awards Update your email | Unsubscribe | Privacy policy