The European digital advertising market is restructuring at a pace that renders several strategies that were still effective eighteen months ago obsolete. According to the AdEx Benchmark 2025 report from IAB Europe, presented in July 2026, video accounts for more than half of digital display investments in Europe, and Retail Media exceeds 10% of total digital advertising spending on the continent. These two data points are reshaping the hierarchy of channels to activate for an online business.
Retail Media and video display: marketing budgets are changing destination
Most digital marketing strategy guides have listed the same levers for years: SEO, email marketing, social media, search advertising. These channels remain relevant, but the budget dynamics tell a different story.
Retail Media, meaning advertising purchased directly on marketplaces and distributor sites, captures an increasing share of investments because it reaches the buyer at the moment of purchase intent. For an e-commerce merchant selling on Amazon, Cdiscount, or ManoMano, failing to allocate budget to these placements means giving visibility to competitors on the last click.
On the video side, the shift goes beyond just TikTok or YouTube Shorts formats. Connected TV (CTV) opens up advertising inventories that combine the power of the big screen with the targeting of digital. The resources compiled on the digitalmanager.fr marketing site allow for mapping these emerging channels based on available budget and industry.
Agentic commerce: optimizing presence for AI assistants
AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) generate a volume of traffic to merchant sites that did not exist two years ago. This phenomenon has a name in the marketing ecosystem: agentic commerce.
In practical terms, an AI agent can recommend a product, compare prices, and even initiate a purchase on behalf of the user. The question now is no longer just “how to rank well on Google,” but “how to structure product listings, customer reviews, and pricing policies to be selected by an autonomous agent.”
What this changes for product content
Product listings written for a human scanning a page are no longer sufficient. An AI agent extracts structured data: technical specifications, availability, return conditions, aggregated ratings. If this information is missing or poorly marked up, the product does not appear in the assistant’s response.
- Schema.org markup (Product, Offer, AggregateRating) becomes a prerequisite, not an SEO bonus
- Verified customer reviews weigh more in selection by LLMs than traditional marketing descriptions
- Price consistency between the site, marketplaces, and Google Merchant Center feeds conditions the agent’s trust
Field reports still diverge on the actual scale of this channel. Some merchants report a measurable share of their orders coming from AI assistants, while others struggle to trace these paths. Current attribution tools do not always capture agentic traffic, complicating the evaluation of return on investment.
Video content strategy: going beyond short format
The “short format everywhere” reflex has led to visible saturation on social media. Brands that stand out in 2026 are not solely relying on fifteen-second clips.
Long video content (tutorials, product demonstrations, recorded webinars) retains a central role in the conversion funnel. A prospect watching four minutes of a product demonstration is further along in their decision than a user scrolling through a Reel between two stories.
Balancing production and distribution
Producing a video without a distribution plan is like printing a catalog without sending it out. The choice of distribution channel conditions the format, duration, and tone. The same product demonstration can yield:
- A three-minute tutorial on YouTube, optimized for search
- A thirty-second clip on Instagram Reels, calibrated for engagement
- An enriched version with technical data, integrated into a product listing on the site
- A fifteen-second pre-roll on CTV, targeted by geographic area
The challenge is not to multiply formats to check boxes, but to adapt the same video asset according to the viewing context.
Marketing personalization and first-party data: regulatory constraints as a lever
The planned end of third-party cookies and the strengthening of GDPR are pushing companies to build their own customer databases. This regulatory constraint, often presented as a hindrance, fundamentally changes how marketing campaigns are designed.
An email or SMS database built with explicit consent offers a higher engagement rate than audiences purchased on third-party platforms. Marketing automation, powered by reliable first-party data, allows for triggering personalized sequences based on each customer’s actual behavior.
What works beyond email
Push notifications on apps, transactional WhatsApp messages, and targeted SMS complement email in a loyalty strategy. The common thread of these channels: they all rely on data collected directly from the customer, not on a reconstructed advertising profile.
The difficulty lies in unifying the data. A customer who shops online, checks the mobile app, and interacts on social media generates scattered signals. Without a centralization tool (CDP or unified CRM), personalization remains partial and campaigns lose relevance.
Digital marketing in 2026 is less about the number of activated channels than about the ability to properly leverage three or four well-mastered levers. Retail Media, optimization for AI agents, and strategically distributed video are areas where there is still significant room for improvement.
On the data side, the shift to first-party is no longer a regulatory option: it is the foundation upon which all credible marketing campaign personalization rests.
