Trends from late 2025 are expected to carry into early 2026 as cautious consumers, rising costs, and tighter budgets shape the landscape. With discretionary spending under pressure, advertisers must prove performance and understand what truly drives results. Success in 2026 will require a more savvy approach, so here are nine predictions and recommendations to guide the year.
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index shows confidence is staying low and that mindset continues to shape buying behavior. Low and middle-income shoppers are trimming discretionary spending, while affluent customers remain steady. Buyers respond less to brand cues and more to practical value, so advertisers should emphasize savings and the sense of getting premium quality for less. Clear, performance-driven offers will resonate broadly, while premium brands can maintain interest with aspirational messaging focused on luxury and experience.
Delivery costs climbed across major social platforms in 2025 and are expected to keep rising in 2026 as AI-led auctions prioritize higher quality impressions and competition for valuable audiences intensifies. To maintain efficiency, creative must advance at the same pace. Differentiation across UGC and DPA will matter more than incremental bidding tweaks, and simplified setups that highlight strong narratives and visually distinct assets will be key as reach grows more expensive and relevance drives results.
Many performance marketers rely too heavily on last-click attribution, which captures only part of the story and undervalues key touchpoints. MMM, MTA, and incrementality testing reveal additional drivers of performance and ensure influential-but-less-clickable content gets credit. These methods should complement, not replace, last-click, which remains useful for real-time optimization. A multi-model approach that accounts for impression, view, and click signals connects short-term efficiency with long-term growth and will unlock more sustainable performance gains in 2026.
Audiences are spending more time than ever in video-first environments like YouTube, TikTok, and InstagramUsers may not always click to purchase directly from video, but avoiding these environments means missing them where they are most active. Video should sit at the core of paid social strategy, with DPA and Static supporting a stable performance baseline. Success in these settings depends on creative that feels native and relevant. Purpose-built video aligned to each platform’s tone and user behavior will outperform generic assets and strengthen results across the funnel.
As creators play a growing role in how people discover and trust brands, marketers need clearer ways to measure how these campaigns perform across platforms. Traditional attribution misses much of this impact because creator content drives authenticity and early influence, especially for Gen Z, long before a final click. Evaluating UGC alongside traditional performance campaigns links early awareness to measurable conversion, strengthens confidence in creator investment, and reveals incremental lift that last-click models overlook.
AI-generated content is flooding social feeds, and users are tuning out anything that feels automated. eMarketer reports that more than 30 percent of consumers are less likely to engage when they know a brand uses AI in ads, highlighting how low-quality, machine-made content can weaken trust and results. Advertisers should use AI to enhance production, not replace creativity. Creator-led storytelling and human curation will be essential for maintaining authenticity and engagement, and exploring platforms rooted in genuine user intent, such as Reddit and Pinterest, can offer a stronger environment for meaningful connection and measurable performance.
Advancements to Pinterest’s Performance+ and TikTok’s Smart+ have narrowed the performance gap with Meta, with both platforms improving delivery efficiency and reaching audiences Meta often misses. Their AI-driven systems now perform reliably across measurement frameworks, giving advertisers stronger confidence in results. Expanding investment in 2026 will unlock incremental lift that Meta-only strategies cannot, as Pinterest turns inspiration into purchase intent and TikTok scales discovery that converts.
Reddit’s growth is accelerating as users spend more time in trusted, unfiltered communities, reflecting a broader shift toward authenticity across social platforms. While many networks face declining engagement, Reddit continues to see meaningful gains in time spent. That momentum now translates into performance, with Dynamic Product Ads giving advertisers a full-funnel way to reach intent-driven users and capture both immediate and incremental results. With stronger ad tools and rising engagement, Reddit has become a credible performance channel that merits inclusion in every paid social mix.
Paid social success in 2026 will hinge on deeper measurement, smarter creative, and broader platform diversification. As user behavior moves toward authenticity and video-first environments, advertisers must meet audiences where they spend time and measure performance with far greater sophistication. Those who adapt quickly will be best positioned to grow in a market where every impression, interaction, and signal carries more weight than ever.