US programmatic advertising is running above $200 billion in 2026, and connected TV is the clearest source of new growth. CTV programmatic spend is reported at $36 billion, up from $28 billion a year earlier. Growth in the total says little about where individual budgets are landing, though. The more useful question is how the spend is being routed.
Curated deals are taking the share. Private marketplace and direct deals now carry most of that spend, which means the open exchange is shrinking as a share of the total even while the total grows. Buyers are paying for supply they trust and audiences they can verify, and they are doing it through deal structures that give them more say over where ads actually run.
Retail media and CTV absorb the increment. Both channels are drawing most of the incremental programmatic budget this year. Retail media has moved past sponsored search into a full-funnel channel, with retailers using first-party shopper data to place ads across their own sites, apps, stores, social platforms, the open web, and CTV. One vendor analysis reports a 14 to 22 percent ROAS uplift for brands that rebalanced toward Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and CTV private deals compared with static allocations. Treat that figure as directional, since it comes from a source with an interest in the shift.
The costs of the shift. Fragmentation is the main one. Each retail media network reports on its own terms, and measurement across networks is still uneven. CTV is also experimenting with pause ads, interactive units, and contextual sponsorships as subscription fatigue pushes viewers toward ad-supported tiers, so formats are changing as fast as the budgets.
What to check in your own plan. If your programmatic mix is still weighted toward open-exchange inventory, ask whether that reflects a deliberate choice or just last year’s allocation. The budgets growing fastest are the ones with first-party data attached and a defined supply path. A plan that cannot say where its ads ran and why is working against the direction of the market.
Sources referenced in reporting: Basis, 7 Programmatic Advertising Trends Shaping 2026, eMarketer, US Programmatic Forecast H2 2026, MNTN, Programmatic Advertising Trends, Rockbot, Retail Media Trends 2026.