Looking at the most recent data available, Australia’s digital advertising market grew 14 per cent across the past financial year, the strongest growth figure since 2022, writes Alessandra Alessio, marketing director, APAC, StackAdapt. Connected TV (CTV) represented 60 per cent of publisher video expenditure, up from 51 per cent according to IAB Australia’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report.
Unsurprisingly, 46 per cent of ad buyers said they were planning to increase investment in programmatic CTV this year, citing frequency control as their top priority when transacting programmatically.
With so much change taking place, StackAdapt decided to survey nearly 500 marketing professionals globally to reveal what they really thought about the state of the advertising industry.
The numbers that stuck with us most are those relating to the top marketing echelon – those who reported significantly stronger year-over-year (YoY) results. This cohort says they are four times more likely to consolidate at least 50 per cent of their tech stack by 2027. And 53 per cent credit consolidated platforms for improving their ROI compared to 31 per cent of other marketers.
Even for those just beginning their consolidation journey, there is significant opportunity to act now. Alongside our research we found five behaviours that will shape programmatic and those who are determined can act now to take their marketing to new heights.
The first trend we observed is cross-channel unification. Marketers told us that siloed channel execution is actually one of the most significant sources of wasted spend in programmatic advertising today, with two-thirds (66 per cent) of respondents stating siloes waste up to 30 per cent of their programmatic budgets.
By contrast, multi-channel campaigns deliver 47 per cent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than single-channel campaigns among the top tier of advertisers. With that in mind, we recommend marketers start by running a few multi-channel campaigns instead of attempting a business-wide omnichannel approach all at once. A good tip is to start by prioritising channels where you may already have strong creative and measurement foundations, (CTV and display retargeting are often appropriate), to build early wins.
And maybe not surprisingly, another key trend we observed is that marketers aren’t yet aligned on exactly how AI will help them win.
Overall, we see it playing a more central role in creative development, targeting, and optimisation by accelerating the workflows marketers rely on most. For example, of the advertisers we surveyed who are using dynamic creative optimisation to improve their digital ad effectiveness, 32 per cent have driven higher CTRs and 56 per cent have seen lower cost-per-clicks.
As marketers mature, AI will continue to gain precedence in creative iteration, testing and variation, audience refinement, and predictive optimisation without replacing strategy. StackAdapt’s recently released Ivy Studio, a new AI-first advertising hub designed to help marketers is an excellent example.
Instead of asking marketers to learn software workflows, Ivy Studio lets them define the outcomes they want, while AI agents grounded in the advertiser’s account context and campaigns surface insights, recommend next steps, and can even take action to build the campaign ready for launch.
Built directly within the StackAdapt platform, Ivy Studio gives marketers the ability to discover audiences, evaluate campaign performance, build forecasts, and make strategic decisions with confidence, while retaining full transparency and control.
And while use of AI tools will become more commonplace, marketers need to continue to carefully manage their tech stack. Given this, it’s unsurprising that stack consolidation is the next trend we identified – and it’s the one that shocks people most when they see the data. Despite the majority of marketers believing specialised tools deliver higher ROI, our research shows even 25–50 per cent consolidation of a marketer’s stack helps lift performance.
Especially with AI-powered solutions becoming commonplace, fragmented stacks will become a competitive disadvantage. To act on this trend, marketers should focus on replacing legacy point solutions with integrated workflows that combine AI, measurement, and activation – this is where top performers are seeing the largest ROI gains.
The fourth trend requires a bit of honesty, because most marketers believe they are already implementing an omnichannel plan, but the data tells a different story. While 75 per cent say they run omnichannel campaigns, only a small fraction are doing so with true orchestration, meaning coordinated, sequenced messaging that guides consumers across CTV, display, audio, and other channels in a unified way.
For the coming year, we suggest marketers define a realistic minimum viable omnichannel model – typically two to three connected channels with shared reporting and unified KPIs.
The final trend is experimenting with emerging channels. Marketers with the strongest YoY performance gains are more likely than peers to confidently invest in the fastest growing formats such as programmatic direct mail, in-game advertising, CTV and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising. In fact, the report predicts all these formats will become highly measurable, full-funnel performance channels in 2026.
Marketers who aren’t already exploring these channels should feel emboldened to adopt a test and learn approach. We also suggest trialling creative templates and AI-powered tools to lower production costs.
The era of messy marketing is ending. For the business leaders who choose to consolidate their tech, prioritise omnichannel orchestration, and leverage AI, there are clear payoffs – higher ROI and making data-backed decisions with confidence are the rewards. It’s time to put the tools for growth to work and move beyond the status quo.
Written by Alessandra Alessio, marketing director, APAC, StackAdapt.
