Advertising and marketing keep shifting as new channels take share from old ones, and brands that don't track the shift end up spending against a channel that's already fading. Three trends define where ad and media budgets are moving now: continued print decline, digital ad spend concentrating in fewer, larger platforms, and retail media becoming its own advertising category.
Is Print Media Still Declining?
Print media's decline has continued for two decades, and most surviving print publications now operate primarily as digital properties with a print edition as a secondary product. The shift didn't stop once smartphones became common; it simply moved further, with most remaining ad dollars now going to publishers' digital platforms rather than their print pages.
Where Is Digital Ad Spend Actually Going?
Digital ad spend increasingly concentrates in retail media and connected TV rather than spreading evenly across search, social, and display the way it did a decade ago. Retail media, meaning ads placed directly on retailer sites like Amazon and Walmart, has grown into one of the fastest-growing categories in digital advertising because it reaches a shopper at the exact moment of purchase intent.
Search remains a core channel for driving traffic and sales, but brands increasingly need a strategy for how they appear in AI-generated answers, not just traditional search results. 5W's AI Search (GEO) practice works with brands on exactly this shift, building the structured, citable content that gets a brand mentioned inside an AI answer rather than only ranked on a results page.
How Has Mobile Marketing Matured?
Mobile is no longer a separate advertising category; it's the primary way most consumers browse, shop, and see ads at all. Promotional text messages, app notifications, and mobile-first checkout flows are now baseline expectations rather than emerging tactics, and brands without a mobile-first ad and purchase experience are competing at a real disadvantage.
How Common Is Retargeting Now?
Retargeting has moved from a novel tactic to a standard part of most digital campaigns. Consumers now expect to see ads based on their recent browsing, and the tactic keeps getting more personalized as platforms refine how they match ads to browsing behavior. 5W's guide to remarketing versus retargeting breaks down how the two approaches differ and which to run first.
What Should Brands Take From These Shifts?
Every trend here points the same direction: advertising keeps moving toward the channel that can prove a direct result, whether that's a retail media placement next to a buy button or an AI answer that cites a brand by name. Brands that keep testing where their specific audience actually spends attention, rather than defending a channel that used to work, are the ones that keep their ad budgets efficient as the landscape keeps shifting.
