That reality has led to reports of some publishers and sellers offering incentives to land more business (and hit 2025 sales goals), including beta-testing opportunities (more on that later). And if historical precedent is to be believed, the instability impacting the market today could easily usher in a Q1 2026 that’s softer than the momentum needed to make the year a winner for brands, for publishers and for agencies. 

“It’s not a soft market — I just got two significant budgets handed to me for the rest of Q4,” said one veteran buyer at a multi-agency group. “But it’s definitely softer than how it started.”

The buyer, who spoke with Digiday on condition of anonymity, said part of the softness is that some of the bigger-spending advertisers put down a larger share of dollars into upfront commitments because of favorable rates, leaving fewer dollars to spend in scatter. That’s left some connected TV players scrambling to fill their coffers, because they had been expecting more money to be working in Q4. 

Some of the strength or weakness in the marketplace — including linear TV and CTV, digital, retail media and audio — depends on where clients are in the purchase funnel. It seems right now, upper-funnel brand marketing is in vogue as advertisers ensure their brand is remembered over the next six weeks. 

“Across all of the ad spend we manage across digital, tradition and retail media networks, we are seeing year-over-year mid and lower funnel spend down 8% and top-of-funnel investments in YouTube, linear, CTV, etc. up 26%,” said Tucker Matheson, co-founder of Markacy. Those numbers seem to indicate “that brands are shifting the next incremental dollar into more brand awareness tactics versus conversion.”

David Dweck, who was just promoted from general manager to president of digital agency Go Fish, said this market is softer than what he’s seen since the pandemic first shook up marketplace activity.

“We’re expecting to have a softer holiday than the last three to five years,” said Dweck, pointing largely to consumer spending drop-off. “We saw a bit of a higher spike [in client spend] in mid-October, but it’s trailed off to the point that it’s been down 10% the last two weeks.”

Categories said to be pulling back spend include some CPG and financial services, while healthcare and pharma clients are actually increasing spend, especially in CTV and retail media. “We are actually seeing a resurgence across a couple categories,” said Jason Lim, chief media officer at Assembly. “We’re actually seeing pretty healthy areas in retail. Some interesting places that we saw a bit of softness was healthcare or anything health oriented previously, but now we’re seeing a bit of a resurgence there.”

But another sign that points to a softer Q4 is the number of incentives those sellers that aren’t in the strongest position are floating to buyers. Specific to the second-tier CTV and digital audio spaces, Alicia Weaver, vp of media activation at Mediassociates, said she’s seen an uptick in incentives. “In the past two weeks, vendors are getting aggressive in their outreach,” she said, citing “incentives to purchase any incremental [inventory], typically in the form of added value.” She added that two sellers even were offering beta-testing opportunities, which enable advertisers to be early adopters — but only if the beta test successfully delivers on goals. “It’s something that [sellers] utilize, I think to make agencies and clients feel special,” said Weaver.

It’s the timing of this that has Weaver thinking something is amiss. “At this time of year, we normally aren’t seeing these types of opportunities come with, ‘purchase us for this amount, and you’ll get this percentage of added value, or access this beta opportunity,’” added Weaver.  “It sounds like sales goals probably aren’t getting hit — people are scrambling these last few weeks to try to get something going.”

Could the use of principal media by the larger holding companies be a factor in the increase in available inventory? Scott Shamberg, president/CEO of media agency Mile Marker, thinks that’s possible. 

“Undoubtedly principal media positions, as we get towards the end of the year are having an influence on the way the market is moving,” said Shamberg. Holding companies “have commitments that pay off by the end of the calendar year. So if I’m holding with Meta or with Google, I have some metrics that I need to fulfill in a time period, and a lot of that is by the end of the year. Especially because Q4 tends to be a budget dump. Maybe this year it’s not as big a budget dump, which means they’re holding more inventory than perhaps they have in the past.”

So how does this all affect 2026? History shows that slowed momentum out of Q4 into a new calendar (and for many, fiscal) year can mean starting 2026 with a whimper instead of a bang. Clients and agencies are definitely getting used to volatility and uncertainty, and media agencies are starting to factor that into planning. 

“Our clients are probably in line with what the market is supposed to be, which is a slight increase in media spend of 2% to 4%,” said Shamberg. “We’re having conversations about how much media inflation is going to be built in for next year, and how they plan for that. The uncertainty theme is going to continue forward, but people are more optimistic maybe going into 2026 in terms of their spend than they were going into ’25.”

That said, with a series of major tentpole events in ’26 — Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, World Cup in the U.S., and midterm elections, which will suck up a lot of inventory at lower rates — a lot of money is already earmarked to flow into big media’s coffers. 

First the market needs to see where Q4 ends to know how ’26 will start. At the moment, no one is hitting the panic button. But the undercurrent of unease is noticeable. 

Color by numbers

We all know AI is touching if not taking over every corner of the brand marketing ecosystem. Just how much is the question. MiQ conducted a global study of over 3,000 marketers from brands and agencies on AI readiness and adoption in advertising. It found that globally, AI adoption is accelerating faster than marketers’ ability to use it well. While 72% plan to expand AI use in the next 12 months, just 45% feel confident applying it effectively, creating a “27-point” global confidence gap. Some other highlights: 

• 40% of marketers say their organization doesn’t fully grasp how to use AI, and 44% cite poor measurement frameworks as a barrier. Nearly half still rely on proxy measures like clicks and web traffic, making it hard to capture AI’s true business value.
• Confirming that people with British accents are probably smarter than the rest of us, 53% of U.K. marketers say they are fully confident in their knowledge of AI, one of the highest rates globally, particularly when it comes to using AI to develop insight and intelligence (51%).

Takeoff & landing

• WPP reportedly was hit with yet another lawsuit last week, when longtime GroupM executive Richard Foster alleged he was fired after internally calling out an “improper kickback operation.”
• British holding company MSQ launched MSQ DX, a new global digital experience agency that meshes agencies 26 DX, MMT and UDG, amounting to 500 staff across the U.K., Germany, Spain and the USA. MMT’s Rebecca Crook was named CEO of the new group.
• Independent marketing services agency Markacy was purchased by talent solutions firm 24 Seven with backing by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. 
• B2B agency The Imaginarium acquired select assets from Arizona-based agency Zion & Zion, a data and technology firm, launching Unbundled ABM Growth System, a new managed service for account-based marketing (ABM).
• Goodway Group landed media, creative and data duties for retailer SiteOne. 
• Personnel moves: WPP named Elav Horwitz its first chief innovation officer, a new role in charge of applied AI and technology-driven solutions for clients … Nielsen tapped Peter Naylor to be its first chief client officer … Dentsu’s Tag hired Matt Kitcherside to be CEO, EMEA, coming over from a similar position at Hogarth. The move bumps Kevan Thorn from CEO, EMEA to chairman.

Direct quote

“Back then I could walk out of a job and walk into five interviews the following day. Now, I can’t get the interview …  It’s a tough market.”

— An unidentified ad tech executive who lost their job earlier this year, as told to Sam Bradley. 

Speed reading

• Kimeko McCoy examined the reasons behind Google’s push to increasingly recommend that marketers spend on non-search, upper funnel channels like YouTube, display and discovery ads.  
• Seb Joseph explained how agentic AI in programmatic circles has gone from barely known about to top-of-mind consideration. 
• Krystal Scanlon took the temperature of media buyers’ reaction to Netflix’s new monthly active viewers metric and found lukewarm feelings.