Earlier this year, we outlined five areas demanding the attention of marketing procurement leaders in 2026, from the rise of agentic AI to the growing accountability gap in retail media networks. We’ve already gone deeper on AI governance, now we’re turning to the second signal on that list: digital channel growth.
Digital ad spend growing 10% in the U.S. in 2026 sounds like good news. And for the platforms, the holding companies, and the programmatic supply chain sitting between your budget and your audience, it absolutely is. The question procurement needs to be asking is whether that growth is working as hard for clients as it is for the ecosystem absorbing it.
The momentum across social, CTV, and commerce media is real. But momentum is not the same as efficiency, and in a market growing this fast, the gaps between what clients think they’re buying and what they’re getting tend to widen.
CTV is the category that deserves the most scrutiny right now. Click Here to Turn Your Marketing Procurement Into a Competitive Advantage!
Connected TV has rapidly matured from an emerging channel to a significant budget line for many advertisers. It carries the brand-safe, premium environment associations of linear TV with the targeting precision claims of digital. That combination is compelling, and it’s exactly why it needs rigorous procurement discipline applied to it.
The transparency problem in CTV is not yet solved. Programmatic CTV buying still involves a complex supply chain with significant room for arbitrage, domain spoofing, and inventory misrepresentation. “Premium CTV” in a media plan does not automatically mean your ad ran on a legitimate streaming platform in a brand-appropriate context. It may mean it ran on a made-for-advertising app with inflated viewership metrics and a CPM that looks competitive on paper.
Procurement’s response to this isn’t to avoid CTV, that would be commercially indefensible given where audiences are. It’s to insist on supply path transparency: direct publisher deals or curated PMPs over open exchange buying, clearly defined inclusion lists, and third-party verification from a supplier that isn’t also selling you the inventory.
On social, the measurement conversation is the negotiation.
Social platforms continue to benefit from the combination of audience scale, first-party data depth, and walled garden measurement environments. That last point is where procurement needs to apply pressure. Platforms measuring their own performance is a structural conflict of interest that the industry has largely accepted because the alternatives are imperfect. That acceptance should be conditional, not permanent.
Incrementality testing is the most defensible antidote. If your media agency isn’t building incrementality tests into social investment plans as a standard practice, ask why. The methodology exists. The holdout frameworks exist. The only thing missing is the will to surface results that might complicate the media plan.
Linear TV isn’t dead, but its premium pricing needs justification.
Major live events retain genuine strategic value. Super Bowl, Olympics, and major sports franchises represent reach and cultural simultaneity that digital genuinely cannot replicate. Procurement’s role is not to eliminate this spending, but to ensure it’s bought correctly: with proper rights management, clear measurement frameworks, and a critical eye on the scatter market pricing that networks have historically used to extract margin from advertisers who wait too long.
The broader point is this: a 10% growth forecast in digital does not mean a 10% increase in value delivered. It means the market is expanding. Whether your organization captures value from that expansion – or simply funds it – depends on how procurement, media, and marketing are aligned on measurement, transparency, and supplier accountability.
Growth without governance is just a larger invoice.
Click Here to Turn Your Marketing Procurement Into a Competitive Advantage!
Written by Mike Cadieux, VP of Operations, Marketing & Travel at Green Cabbage