StackAdapt’s 2026 report finds marketers who unify channels, consolidate tech, and apply AI pragmatically are pulling ahead in programmatic advertising.
StackAdapt has released its State of Programmatic Advertising 2026 report, finding that marketers who unify channels, streamline their technology stacks, and adopt AI pragmatically are significantly outperforming their peers on performance, efficiency, and growth.
The report draws on insights from 484 senior marketers across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, alongside platform data from more than 6,000 global advertisers. Its central conclusion: programmatic advertising is entering a defining phase in which fragmented tools and siloed execution are no longer just inefficient, but a clear competitive disadvantage.
Top performers—defined as marketers reporting markedly stronger year-over-year results—are pulling further ahead as programmatic matures. The gap between leaders and laggards is widening, the report shows, driven less by budget size and more by operational discipline.
While optimism remains high—75 percent of marketers expect budgets to increase and 84 percent report stronger year-over-year performance—the data points to a growing maturity gap. Only the top tier of marketers is translating that momentum into durable advantage. These leaders are unifying workflows, consolidating technology, and embedding AI directly into execution, connecting creative, data, and media across the funnel.
“Programmatic has reached an inflection point,” said Yang Han, co-founder and chief technology officer of StackAdapt. “The marketers seeing the strongest gains aren’t adding more tools—they’re consolidating around platforms that can connect channels, data, and AI in one system.”
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The report also highlights a persistent disconnect between omnichannel ambition and operational reality. Although 75 percent of marketers say they run omnichannel campaigns, most lack the infrastructure and workflows required to act on cross-channel insights consistently. The result, according to the findings, is fragmented activation, wasted spend, and uneven performance.
“Measurement has finally caught up, but execution hasn’t,” Han added. “In 2026, the advantage will belong to marketers who turn visibility into action—using AI to accelerate what’s slow, unify what’s fragmented, and amplify what already works.”
Together, the findings suggest that the next phase of programmatic growth will favor fewer tools, tighter integration, and AI applied with intent—rather than experimentation for its own sake.
