July 30, 2025 – Skai, the leading omnichannel advertising platform for commerce media, today published its Q2 2025 Digital Marketing Quarterly Trends Report. This comprehensive analysis provides marketers with strategic insights into media investment trends, pricing, and engagement, focusing specifically on the evolving landscape of retail media.
Retail media drives sustained growth and efficiency with strategic scaling
Despite the specter of tariffs, inflation, and potential consumer uncertainty, Skai’s exclusive data found that in Q2 2025, retail media investments climbed 18% year-over-year (YoY), demonstrating marketers' sustained confidence in retail media as a key, if not leading revenue driver. Click volume rose 16%, and click-through rates improved 9%, while cost-per-click remained nearly flat at just a 2% increase. This alignment of growth, engagement, and cost efficiency points to more than just bigger budgets; it signals smarter scaling and a maturing approach to performance.
A major driver of this growth was publisher diversification. Retail media networks beyond Amazon, notably Walmart and others, saw substantial gains in both spending and clicks, often at more favorable CPCs. This underscores the opportunity for advertisers to strategically diversify their retail media approaches to optimize efficiency and performance.
Paid search and social advertising: always-on anchors of commerce media
Despite growing speculation about the future of search in the GenAI era, paid search spend held steady in Q2 2025, reinforcing its critical role in performance marketing. Marketers leaned further into AI-first campaign types like Performance Max, signaling continued trust in Google’s evolving ad ecosystem to deliver results.
Meanwhile, social powerhouse TikTok continued to gain traction with 46% adoption among paid social advertisers and share of spend climbing 13% in Q2 2025. This steady growth – despite ongoing regulatory noise – signals marketer confidence in mobile-first, short-form environments that blend discovery with performance. Marketers are concentrating budgets where both engagement and outcomes align, increasingly expecting social platforms to deliver not just reach, but results.
"Retail media's maturity and strategic importance have never been clearer," said Michelle Urwin, Chief Marketing Officer, at Skai. "The most recent quarter showcased that marketers who align investment strategies closely with consumer engagement and use advanced, AI-powered targeting capabilities are well-positioned for sustained, efficient growth, especially in competitive environments."
To access the full Q2 2025 report, visit skai.io/quarterly-trends-hub.
Methodology
Analysis is based on over 1 trillion impressions, 8.2 billion clicks, and $8.7 billion of Skai platform activity across retail media, paid search, and paid social advertising in Q2 2025 (April 1–June 30). Data is aggregated and anonymized across Skai accounts, including many of the world’s leading consumer brands and agencies. Year-over-year comparisons reflect the same period in Q2 2024. Only advertisers active on the Skai platform for the full duration of both periods were included to ensure consistency.
Skai is the leading omnichannel advertising platform for commerce media, combining advanced digital marketing capabilities with commerce insights and operations to drive growth for brands and agencies. Powered by unified data and proprietary GenAI, Skai delivers full-funnel media planning, optimization, and measurement, plus insights and automation that help brands improve digital shelf performance, retail execution, and revenue recovery. This integrated approach maximizes sales, profitability, and market share across media and commerce touchpoints.
Trusted by over 8,000 brands and agencies, including PepsiCo, Sanofi, and Estée Lauder, Skai integrates with 300+ publishers and retail media networks such as Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Criteo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and TikTok. Headquartered in San Francisco with nine international offices, Skai empowers brands to connect media and commerce for measurable growth and efficiency. Visit skai.io for more information.
For more information, visit skai.io.