Media buying trends—where brands plan to spend more in the second quarter of 2026

February 27, 2026

Media buyers are evaluating investment strategies for the second quarter of 2026. Using first-quarter performance data and signals from brand spending patterns, they’ve identified several media buying trends. Advertisers are tweaking investments as tech enables faster, contextually relevant buys and rallying around new ad products from platforms.

This story is part of a series tracking how brands are changing their media buying habits each quarter. Information was obtained from media agency executives within holding companies and independent agencies. Sources were given anonymity to discuss the reasoning behind each change freely.

Where Investments Are Increasing

TikTok
As TikTok’s future hung in the balance, so too did brand interest in the ByteDance-owned platform. Brands never fully dialed back spend, but they did allocate it cautiously. Some buyers, however, have seen clients comfortably putting more dollars into TikTok since its fate was decided in January.

On Jan. 22, TikTok announced the creation of a new majority American-owned entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture, to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order approving the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American investor group. ByteDance now owns less than 20% of the new entity.

Some reticence remained among media buyers following hiccups in early February. Issues with TikTok’s ad manager interrupted paid and organic media, and brands remain watchful for how the platform’s algorithm will change under new ownership.

But following the restoration of the ad manager and the creation of a relatively clear path forward, clients have bought back in, according to media buyers. One agency is seeing 64% growth year-over-year on the platform.

"Advertisers never really waned last year with all the legislation that was happening, so they stayed pretty resilient with their volume of investment," said the agency’s investment lead. "Now, they’ll continue to invest even more."

Another has seen clients more comfortable investing in TikTok Shop.

"TikTok Shop requires more resources and a bigger commitment that you wouldn’t quite want to make in the prior environment," the buyer said. "Imagine with Shopify, there being a 50/50 chance that it’s removed from the country or its capabilities are cut in half. You’d have to leave that infrastructure — user data, inventory levels, getting creators going at scale with affiliate commissions—it’d be a slog."

Last year, TikTok Shop brought in $2.7 billion in video ad spend in the U.S., up from $1.4 billion in 2024, according to e-commerce intelligence platform Charm.io.

Connected TV and Sports

Between Super Bowl LX and the Winter Olympics this month, media buyers went all out on sports and streaming in the first quarter of 2026. Brands will dial down spend next quarter, but the channel is still seeing growth, thanks to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in June, as well as new TV deals for the NBA and MLB.

In 2024, the NBA agreed to 11-year contracts with Disney, Amazon, and NBC worth a total of $75 billion. This season, fans have been able to stream any nationally televised game and watch streaming-only games on Peacock and Prime Video. In November, MLB reached a 3-year media rights agreement with ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Netflix, which also allows some games on streaming platforms.

Live sports remain one of the few places where brands can reach mass audiences. As those events reach digital channels, they open up programmatic options. The number of demand-side platforms that can access that inventory continues to grow, and agencies have developed tech that delivers contextually relevant ads during live games.

Media owners have also begun testing automated media buying in live sports. At CES, NBCU launched an initiative alongside indie agency RPA and AI analytics firm Newton Research that uses FreeWheel ad tech to automate sales and activations of linear and CTV ads across its portfolio.

"Tech is definitely accelerating the way we are buying streaming TV," one buyer said. "The ability to understand context in TV and even scene-level recognition now gives you a much more surgical way to understand what you’re buying … all of that is being enabled by agentic buying capabilities."

Out-of-Home and Experiential

Live sports on TV may be one of the few digital channels for reaching mass audiences, but advertisers are gravitating towards out-of-home (OOH) and experiential as ways to reach them in the real world.

"We’re seeing a lot more interest in OOH and experiential," said one buyer. "Outside of major sports moments like the Olympics or Super Bowl, you have to figure out where people are spending their time and how you can cut through and gain more market share."

This interest is also reflected in early 2026 agency reviews, where brands have sought out experiential and OOH specialists. Brian Rappaport, CEO of Quan Media Group, an OOH media agency, noted that brands are separating these capabilities from broader agency-of-record relationships.

"The ability to buy digital OOH programmatically has increased," said one buyer. "Being able to tie locations to dynamic ads or in-store metrics from a retail perspective has created a resurgence for OOH, driven by advertisers that haven’t been doing it."

New Buys and Tech-Driven Investment

ChatGPT Ads
Several media buyers have clients participating in a second round of pilot testing for ChatGPT ads launched in late February. Brand interest has been high, given the channel offers a way to pay for discovery on AI platforms. Adoption has been limited as OpenAI rolls out the product in phases.

Media buyers are also waiting for more robust measurement tools to justify the $60 CPM and roughly $250,000 commitment for entry. OpenAI has promised some aggregate metrics on ad impressions, but performance data has been minimal so far.

With more sophisticated measurement expected later in 2026, media buyers anticipate increased investment.

Meta Manus and Agentic Media Buying
Media buyers are exploring end-to-end agentic buying, where AI agents can fully automate sales. While some skepticism remains, buyers see potential for AI to manage workflows on platforms like Meta’s Manus, which can analyze campaigns and run reports quickly.