Next up in our predictions series, we look at the importance of outcomes, and how they could come to define 2026…

Are we moving from vanity metrics to meaningful measurement? 2026 could become the defining moment for outcomes-based thinking. After years of talk about attention, incrementality, and business impact, the pressure is now on brands, agencies, and tech partners to prove that campaigns deliver more than reach and clicks -they must show real results.

The shift from impressions to impact is gathering momentum across every corner of the ecosystem. With budgets under scrutiny and AI-driven optimisation changing how performance is delivered and reported, the race is on to define what success truly looks like. Is the year ahead when outcomes finally take centre stage, reshaping how media is planned, traded, and valued?

To find out, we’ve spoken to a panel of industry experts to get their take on what will drive the next phase of the outcomes revolution….

"Attentive reach and frequency will be what brands demand." 

2026 is the year that attention becomes the number one metric.

Attentive reach and frequency will be what brands demand and how success is judged, and native and contextual formats are re-emerging as premium routes for brands that value privacy, quality, and engagement.

Yet challenges remain. Native is still often misunderstood and folded into omnichannel setups without the specialist focus it deserves, while measurement and supply-chain transparency continue to lag behind.

When we think about attention, consumers focus on the content while display ads fight for it. Premium native brand stories, designed to match the look and feel of their host sites and placed alongside the stories publishers write, consistently outperform traditional formats.

Blake Seabrook, Country Manager UK, Readpeak

"Real outcomes will be won upstream."

Outcomes, properly defined, mean driving real-world business impact, not proxy metrics which often work against actual outcomes. Sales uplift, customer lifetime value, new-to-brand acquisition, store traffic. Not clicks dressed up as conversions.

In 2026, brands that win on real outcomes won't be the ones with the biggest budgets. They'll be the ones in control of what powers their media. That control starts upstream. Feeding platforms with proprietary models powered by first-party data: store performance, SKU profitability, retention signals. It also means owning the insights that emerge, not renting them from platforms.

The alternative is handing your competitive advantage to shared infrastructure.

We'll see this in inventory valuation. Pricing every impression based on your proprietary model, what it's worth to your business, before the bid happens. Real outcomes will be earned by those who bring their own logic, data, and direction, not just their budget.

Freddie Turner, Managing Director EMEA, Chalice AI

"The tension between 'quality' and 'outcomes' will intensify."

In 2026, the tension between 'quality' and 'outcomes' will intensify. As the macro-economic conditions falter, advertisers will more aggressively demand proof that their media investments are ROI-positive. Campaigns will shift towards lower-funnel metrics, and even branding channels, like CTV, will increasingly be asked to demonstrate performance. Sophisticated advertisers will question self-reported conversions and adopt a holistic approach to incrementality measurement.

Yet the importance of 'quality' will remain strong. Not as a goal in itself, but as a filter, a lens through which outcomes are assessed. Results coming from quality-less inventory will be questioned, inclusion lists will be tightened, and reports analysed more carefully. Higher expectations will put pressure on margins, creating an incentive for agencies and vendors to find buying opportunities in lower bid-density environments.

Mattia Fosci, CEO, Anonymised

"Who has access to the best data and the most effective AI to execute?"

2026 will be defined by a ruthless War for the Intelligence Layer. 

All parts of the ecosystem will fight for control over the algorithms and data that drive superior performance; disintermediating of anyone who simply acts as a pipe.

The central question will be: Who has access to the best data and the most effective AI to execute?

Lower-funnel budget will be aggressively eaten by AI platforms. These solutions, due to their unmatched access to rich, proprietary intent data, are uniquely positioned to execute highly effective, automated advertising.

The winner of the Intelligence War will be determined by accountability as the industry shifts entirely toward outcomes. Victory requires first access to rich conversion data to fuel the AI, and the ability to execute robust closed-loop measurement. If you can't back your performance claims with irrefutable proof of outcomes, your solution will be replaced by an autonomous intelligence layer that can.

Tom Laband, Co-Founder and CEO, Adsquare

"CMOs can no longer justify budgets with vanity metrics."

The advertising industry has measured impressions for a decade while ignoring what matters: business outcomes. As we enter 2026, boards want clear ROI, and CMOs can no longer justify budgets with vanity metrics. With AI now able to model complex attribution and optimise toward real outcomes in real-time, our research shows 85% of advertisers consider proprietary data and measurement capabilities critical in partner selection. 

The open web is particularly exposed, and as generative AI continues to disrupt search and web browsing, advertisers are realising web impressions were never a good proxy for outcomes. Our research also shows that 45% of brands are shifting budgets to mobile in-app within 12 months, where engagement is higher and outcomes are measurable. Brands need partners who can prove business impact, not just deliver impressions.

Stephen Upstone, CEO and Founder, LoopMe

"Advertisers will gain the visibility they’ve been missing."

In 2026, progress on outcome-based marketing will come from improving identity where it’s been hardest to achieve - across ID-less environments like iOS, Safari, Chrome Web, MAID-restricted, and CTV ecosystems. 

As the industry strengthens its ability to identify more real people in these privacy-safe user environments, advertisers will gain the visibility they’ve been missing: understanding who was reached, what media drove action, and how to optimise spend accordingly. It’s not about closing the loop once and for all, but about tightening it - expanding the share of media that can be tied to verified outcomes. The more accurately and at scale we connect exposure to result, the closer we move to true accountability in advertising.

Fabrice Beer-Gabel, SVP Strategy & Partnerships, Intent IQ

In the last decade, "outcomes" have resurfaced in advertising debates, often conflated with performance. Today reflects a deeper structural shift. We analysed the earnings calls of the 500 largest listed marketers, and outcome-related terms have surged by over 30% in 2025 in a quest to firmly connect marketing with top- or bottom-line business growth.

In 2026, platform-based outcome machines will put urgency on the open web’s development agenda to control more parameters and forge partnerships linking advertising to business KPIs. TV and video, more widely, will position toward outcomes, helping markets understand that outcomes happen across the "funnel". As pressure on agency FTE models mounts, shifting to outcome-based services injects new competitive dynamics. 

Yet for outcomes to deliver real impact, they require company-specific definitions. If brands don’t do this hard work, they risk standardised "cookie-cutter" outcomes determined by others that create diminishing returns and ultimately replicate the limits of impression-based buying.

Daniel Knapp, Chief Economist, IAB Europe

There is an argument that the agentic age has already begun. With the right setup agents can plan and setup campaigns, and from a macro perspective change targeting, bid pricing and make optimisations.

To make 2026 the start of the agentic age, businesses need to make sure they have all the data they need to not constrain the AI. DSPs have already released agents that help buyers with decisioning (or demand the agent make the decision!), but they have the wealth of data from which to make those decisions and define measurement. Businesses that don’t have that trove of data need to look at 2026 to prioritise the build of stable, structured and granular data, and find partners with whom to work in a landscape that changes by the day.

For businesses that already have those mature datasets, 2026 can absolutely be the year where agentic buying evolves, with granular decisioning being made by agents.

Ben Alpren, Managing Director, Attentive