UK Digital Adspend Tops £21bn in H1 as Retail Media Surges
Updated: 6 days ago
TL;DR: UK brands spent £21.2bn on digital advertising in H1 2026, up 13% year on year, with retail media the fastest-growing format at £2.0bn (+32%), per IAB UK/MediaSense.
The UK's digital ad market is still growing at pace — and the shape of that growth tells you exactly where budgets are heading. The IAB UK / MediaSense Digital Adspend study reports £21.2bn spent in the first half of 2026, up 13% year on year.
The numbers
To put £21.2bn in context, it is almost £5bn more than was spent across the whole of 2020. Retail media was the fastest-growing format at £2.0bn (+32%), and video reached £5.1bn (+18%).
Search remained dominant at £9.1bn, 43% of all spend, while programmatic accounted for 81% of total digital investment — a reminder that automated buying is now the default, not the exception.
Marketing Minute's read
Retail media's 32% growth is the clearest signal yet that budgets are migrating to the shopper end of the funnel, where purchase data and conversion sit close together. For brands, that is a structural shift to staff and price for, not a passing trend.
It also concentrates power. As more spend flows through a handful of retailer networks and programmatic pipes, measurement, incrementality and brand safety become the questions that decide whether that money works.
What marketers should do
Audit how much of your 'performance' retail-media spend is genuinely incremental versus harvesting demand you already own. And resource the skills — clean data, measurement, creative for commerce environments — that make retail media a growth lever rather than a tax on your own shoppers.
Quick FAQ
How much did UK brands spend on digital ads in H1 2026?
£21.2bn, up 13% year on year, according to the IAB UK / MediaSense Digital Adspend study.
What was the fastest-growing digital format?
Retail media, up 32% to £2.0bn, outpacing video (+18%) and reflecting the migration of budgets toward the shopper end of the funnel.
Retail media growing 32% isn't a format story, it's a power story. Budgets are moving to where the purchase data lives. The brands that win won't just buy retail media — they'll prove which of that spend is truly incremental, instead of paying to reach shoppers they already had. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Retail media's surge is a structural shift toward the shopper funnel — resource it for incrementality and measurement, not just reach.
How much of your retail-media budget is genuinely incremental, and how would you prove it?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Campaign UK, DecisionMarketing, IAB UK/MediaSense.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
