Cross-year compare

CPM trends: 2025 vs 2026

By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated October 2026

Benchmarks reviewed October 2026 · next review January 2027

The short answer

Admission rule for this ledger: a channel gets a year-over-year delta only when one source provides two dated data points. As of the October 2026 review, the only public monthly series we can cite (Gupta Media's tracker table, Meta and TikTok) ends at December 2025, and nothing in our citable set has a 2026 data point, so this page publishes zero 2025-to-2026 deltas and says why.

Why no deltas, precisely

Gupta Media's public table is the right place to read Meta and TikTok movement month by month, and it stops at December 2025. Libsyn Ads (formerly AdvertiseCast) publishes a current podcast range with no dated prior-year snapshot to compare against. Every channel without a citable figure is named as quote-only in the table on /rates. When a source publishes 2026 months, this page becomes the delta ledger; the source ledger logs each retrieval date.

The structural forces, which ARE sourced

Retail media's rise.dentsu's forecasts place retail media among the fastest-growing spend categories; budgets migrating into Amazon-shaped closed loops tighten demand there and relieve it elsewhere (context).
Signal loss and the fee chain.The CMA's market study documented ~35% intermediary capture in open display, and the DOJ's adtech suit keeps restructuring pressure on the pipes that set effective prices (the chain).
Macro spend. The IAB/PwC internet advertising revenue report is the neutral series for total demand growth, the tide all channel-level prices float on.

Demand shiftgrowthRetail media is among the fastest-growing ad spend categories in dentsu's global forecastdentsu global ad spend forecastretrieved July 2026

Chain economics~35%Share of open-display advertiser spend captured by adtech intermediariesUK CMA online platforms and digital advertising market study (2020)retrieved July 2026

Macro seriesreportIAB/PwC internet advertising revenue report (macro spend context)IAB internet advertising revenue reportretrieved July 2026

What a small advertiser should expect for late 2026

Mechanically safe expectations, no crystal ball required: Q4 will reprice your auctions upward as it does every year (the surge, worked), and Gupta Media names December as Meta's most expensive month; and any specific percentage forecast you read without a dated source attached belongs in the folklore bin with the rest. Watch your own account's trend monthly; it is the one series nobody can misquote to you.

Build note, on the record: this slug hard-codes its years by design and gets re-pointed for 2027 at the annual refresh rather than silently redated.