Annual report · 2026
State of Paid Media Finance
The definitive benchmark for finance and operations teams who own paid media spend. Built on €4.2B of anonymised, opted-in spend across 1,447 advertisers and ten platforms.
1,447
Advertisers in the sample
Brands and agencies in 38 countries
€4.2B
Spend monitored
Trailing 12 months, ten platforms
11.2%
Median budget variance
Down from 14.1% in 2025
4.3 days
Median month-end close
Top quartile closed in 2 days
Headline trends
Six findings finance teams should plan around
Pacing is still the #1 leak
Median over/underspend against plan is 11.2% of budget. Advertisers using AI pacing land at 3.8%. The gap costs the median brand €214k per €5M of spend per year.
FX silently eats 1.4% of cross-border spend
Platforms convert at end-of-day rates with spreads that average 1.4%. Treasury-aware funding reduces this to 0.3%. Brands rarely book the difference, but auditors increasingly ask.
Reconciliation cycles are bifurcating
Top-quartile finance teams close paid media in 2 days. Bottom quartile takes 11+. The difference is not headcount — it is whether platform-level fees, taxes, and rebates are pulled in automatically.
AI adoption tripled, oversight lagged
62% of finance teams now use AI for at least one budget task. Only 18% have a written policy on AI-initiated spend changes. EU AI Act readiness will force this gap closed in 2026.
Agencies consolidated to fewer platforms
Median agency spend now covers 4.1 platforms, down from 5.7 in 2024. TikTok and Spotify share grew. Spotify Ads is the fastest-growing platform among B2C brands.
Net 30 became the default
73% of advertisers above €1M annual spend now hold Net 30 terms with at least one platform. Prepayment is increasingly limited to startup tier accounts.
Time series
Twelve months of the industry
Budget variance vs. plan
All advertisers · monthly
14.1 → 10.7
Median days to close paid media
Trailing 12 months
6.8 → 4.3
FX leakage on cross-border spend
Bps of cross-border spend
148 → 137
The full 84-page report
Methodology, cohort breakdowns, per-platform tables, and the unredacted data appendix. Free with a work email. Cited by the FT, eMarketer and the IAB.