The IAB UK Digital Adspend Study 2025 paints a clear picture: digital continues to dominate, evolve, and — most importantly — deliver measurable results. Despite broader economic uncertainty, marketers are leaning into channels that prove performance and drive real business growth.
At Partnerize, this is the world we live in every day. And this year’s IAB UK Digital Adspend report shows exactly why performance-driven partnerships are becoming the backbone of modern marketing.
The Digital Ad Market Keeps Growing — and Maturing
According to the IAB, the UK’s digital ad market hit 12.8 billion in the first half of 2025, putting it on track to surpass 45 billion by 2026. Growth of around 10% year-on-year shows a sector that’s not only resilient, but increasingly sophisticated in how it allocates spend.
Digital advertising is no longer experimental. It’s the engine of business growth — and marketers are demanding more transparency, efficiency, and accountability from every pound or dollar spent.
Retail Media and Partnerships Take Center Stage
One of the headline findings this year is the continued surge in online retail media, which hit 1.5 billion in H1 2025. That’s a clear signal that brands are doubling down on environments closest to the point of purchase — where data, context, and conversion converge.
This trend mirrors what we see at Partnerize across our client base. Retail media and partner marketing are converging fast. Both prioritize:
- Real-time measurability
- Transparent performance data
- A direct line between spend and sales
As the lines blur between brand, performance, and commerce, the partnership channel’s strength is its accountability. Retail media’s rise reinforces what we’ve known all along: marketers want results they can prove.
AI: The Catalyst for Smarter Performance (And the New Measurement Imperative)
A key theme in this year’s report is the role of AI and automation in optimizing spend and improving measurement. For Partnerize, AI isn’t a buzzword — it’s embedded in how we help brands and partners predict, optimize, and scale their outcomes.
AI-driven decisioning is helping marketers identify high-value partnerships, forecast ROI, and streamline workflows — freeing teams to focus on creativity and strategy. As budgets tighten and expectations rise, that intelligence will separate leaders from laggards.
However, the rise of Generative AI has also created an immediate, critical challenge for the performance-obsessed marketer: zero-click conversions.
As AI summaries and overviews surface content directly, the consumer journey is being decided without the traditional ‘last click’ to track. This change has put immense pressure on attribution frameworks and jeopardized the very accountability the IAB report highlights.
The Solution: Partnerize Launches VantagePoint™
To meet this urgent shift, we’ve just launched VantagePoint™, the industry’s first verifiable and independent attribution solution for the new era of AI-driven commerce. Unveiled recently at PI LIVE London, VantagePoint™ provides the essential measurement currency for this machine-mediated market.
It is the only solution designed to reveal how AI-surfaced content drives measurable outcomes, restoring transparency and ensuring partners are fairly compensated for their genuine influence. As early adopter, HubSpot notes, moving beyond the archaic limitations of last-click to tackle zero-click attribution is an “essential survival strategy.”
What It Means for Marketers
The message from Adspend 2025 is clear:
- The UK market is growing, but more selectively.
- Performance, partnerships, and retail media are leading the charge.
- AI is making marketing smarter, but demanding an entirely new standard of attribution.
- Trust and transparency are non-negotiable.
In other words, the performance era of digital marketing has fully arrived—and the rules of measurement are being rewritten under our feet.
At Partnerize, we’re proud to power that transformation. With VantagePoint™ setting the new standard for Generative AI conversion attribution, we’re giving brands the tools, data, and partnerships they need to drive accountable growth in this evolving digital landscape.
The next phase of digital advertising won’t be defined by who spends the most, but by who spends the smartest and measures the most completely. And that’s exactly where partnership marketing — fueled by data, driven by performance, and now secured by VantagePoint™ — will continue to shine.
Read the full press release for more details on VantagePoint™ and what this means for your measurement strategy.
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