We asked industry figures for their reaction to the latest IPA Bellwether findings and what they mean for the months ahead…

After a long stretch of cautious spending, the latest IPA Bellwether suggests UK marketers are finally ready to loosen the purse strings. The Q3 2026 report records the strongest upward revision to total marketing budgets in nine quarters, the best reading since Q2 2024.

The growth is also broad. Every category tracked by the Bellwether saw budgets revised upwards, with PR and events leading the way, while main media spend reached its own nine-quarter high. Confidence is improving too: although businesses remain wary, their outlook on financial prospects, both for their own companies and for the wider industry, has become noticeably less negative.

Commenting on the findings, Paul Bainsfair, IPA Director General, said: "With growth back at the top of the Government’s agenda, it's encouraging to see businesses increasing marketing investment at the strongest rate in more than two years, underlining advertising's role as a driver of demand, competitiveness and economic prosperity."

So is this the start of a sustained recovery, or a brief rally against an uncertain economic backdrop? And where will the extra spend actually go? To find out, ExchangeWire asked industry figures for their reaction to the latest findings and what they mean for the months ahead.

San Sareen, Regional Vice President (EMEA), impact.com

Social media was reported by panellists as a channel being used to raise market visibility, support new product launches, and generate leads. The fact is, social media, and more specifically, influencer and creator marketing, is being used for all of the above, and much more. People trust creators. 

They are increasingly the first – and last – place they look for advice when researching new products. It’s no coincidence that WalMart is now working with tens of thousands of influencers, and Unilever with 300,000. So while creator marketing isn’t broken out by the IPA Bellwether report, the truth is, it cuts across all disciplines, from PR and events to sales promotion and market research.

Roxanne Harley, VP Strategy & Growth, Azerion

It’s encouraging to see marketing budgets rising, particularly with renewed investment in out-of-home and audio, where innovation is creating exciting opportunities for brands. However, headline online growth can be misleading. With social media spend included in 'other online', the figures risk masking how much investment is flowing into walled gardens rather than the wider open web.

With market sentiment still downbeat, brands need results now, but short-term performance and long-term growth can no longer be treated separately. There’s a real opportunity to invest in innovative channels and trusted, quality environments that deliver measurable results, improve effectiveness, and drive stronger ROI. It’s not just about spending more, but making every pound work harder.

James Macdonald, Co-Founder & CRO, Limelight

I was encouraged to see the positive sentiment towards both main media advertising, with a net balance of 17.2% of panellists reporting an increase in budgets and “other online advertising” (+9.8%).

This second category is a bit of a catch-all but it includes programmatic, which is the sector we operate in, and reflects what we are seeing day-to-day. The positivity from advertisers is having a positive knock-on effect from publishers, who are weaning themselves off the Google-Aid and taking more control of their own destinies, especially as people migrate from search to answer engines.

Stephen Jenkins, MD and Founder, Too Many Dreams 

PR posting its highest reading on record is a lovely result to wake up to. But a bigger PR budget doesn’t fix the problem many tech brands actually have. Squint at a LUMAScape and there are thousands of logos promising the same latest fix - outcomes, incrementality, or an agentic future. When everyone sounds the same, spending in the same way just makes the noise louder. 

Clarity has to come first. A brand needs to know exactly who it is and why that matters to the people buying, otherwise the PR says one thing, the sales deck another and the website contradicts both. That consistency matters more now that AI assistants are often where a CMO starts their research. 

This is where PR earns its record budget. It does the upper funnel work of positioning: building credibility, setting the terms of the conversation and making your point of view hard to ignore. The ideas you champion in the press should be waiting on your website, explored in depth and structured for both search and generative engines, ready for the buyer who comes looking. 

The brands that benefit from making this spend work hardest will be the ones that bring coherence, confidence and conversion together, with a story that holds from first headline to final click. Everyone else will have paid a premium to be forgotten slightly faster.

Debbie Oates, Director of Customer Engagement, Experian Marketing Services

AI continues to be a prominent theme in the IPA Bellwether reports, but the latest findings signal a shift. Brands are starting to ask how they can stand out when everyone has access to the same technology. AI can certainly unlock significant efficiencies, but there's a risk that marketing becomes more automated and generic without the right foundations in place. 

Much of this is dependent on the quality of the data powering AI-driven decisions. Accurate, trusted, and privacy-safe data, combined with strong identity capabilities, gives brands a clearer understanding of their audiences based on real-world behaviours.  

Too often, valuable audience insights remain siloed within CRM and analytics platforms without making its way into media planning and activation. Connecting those dots means marketers can create more relevant, personalised experiences that ultimately drive stronger engagement and return on investment.

Lucy Hinton, SVP, GTM Strategy and Growth, Innovid

The most interesting finding is that advertisers are increasing investment even as confidence in the wider economy remains fragile. That’s a clear signal that brands see marketing as essential to growth, even when the outlook is uncertain.

But more investment without better intelligence is a missed opportunity. With budgets rising across every category, advertisers need to make those channels work better together, understand what’s driving performance across creative and media, and act on those insights while campaigns are running.

AI has an important role to play in connecting intelligence to execution, but technology doesn’t replace strategic judgment. Marketers still need to decide where to invest and what success looks like. The winners will be those who can turn every signal into action and make every impression and pound work harder.

Rob Hall, CEO & Founder, Parallel

The Bellwether has AI down as both an opportunity and a disruption. People tend to think of AI as an efficiency unlock, but the real opportunity is the way it is starting to power simulations on a scale never possible before. In 2027, expect brands to use AI to find out how an ad lands in the content it could run in before any budget is spent: like running a focus group for every impression. The catch is the one the panellists put their finger on. A simulation is only worth listening to if it has been checked against real people. Without that, it is just a larger-scale guess, so expect AI vendors to have to prove their outputs are grounded in real human behaviour.

Paul Briggs, Managing Director EMEA, Silverpush

Video budgets are growing, but advertisers should resist measuring progress simply by how many more impressions they can buy. The more useful question is whether those impressions earn attention and deliver positive business outcomes, looking beyond simple vanity metrics such as VTR and VCR.

Across YouTube, CTV, and social video, reaching an audience is only part of the job. Understanding what people are watching, and how an advertising message fits that moment, should be central to planning rather than an afterthought. The same creative can land very differently depending on the viewing context.

Brands have an opportunity to make increased video investment work harder across both brand building and immediate purchase consideration this golden quarter. Attention should be measured alongside campaign outcomes, rather than assumed because an ad was served.

Kamel El Hadef, Co-Founder, Audion

Having stabilised in Q2, the upward trend of marketing budgets in the latest Bellwether is very encouraging. It’s also testament to the marketers that continue to produce great creatives and maximise their targeting capabilities. However, despite the refresh in the UK, these are still challenging times, illustrated by the muted feedback on the financial prospects of both the industry and companies themselves.

Our message remains consistent. We see audio advertising continue to deliver across the full marketing funnel, its unique attributes enabling brands to engage with consumers throughout every aspect of their daily lives. At Audion we are also extending the channel to include the performance space, as its measurement capacity evolves to allow advertisers to make direct connections between budget spend and real-life results. 

Sherzod Rizaev, COO, Assertive Yield 

Money is following proof, and proof is now measured in real time. Buyers no longer judge a campaign on averages at the end of the month. They’re making decisions impression by impression. 

Publishers have the better product: real audiences, trusted content, people who come back. But too many still price and package it on yesterday’s data and broad averages. The publishers who win this growth will be the ones who understand the value of every single opportunity as it happens, and can show buyers exactly what they’re getting.

Alistair Hill, Co-Founder & CEO, On Device

Increased investment alone doesn't guarantee better advertising outcomes. Different channels have different roles to play in building brands and driving results, and as marketers spread budgets across more channels, the challenge is understanding what is genuinely driving outcomes, rather than relying on reach, clicks or other metrics that don't tell the full story.

The return to growth in market research spending is particularly welcome, but not all Brand Lift measurement is equal; spending more isn't necessarily the same as measuring better. Marketers need reliable, independent evidence of how advertising is influencing brand outcomes, and crucially, insights they can use to make better decisions about where to invest next. With budgets increasing, the cost of getting those decisions wrong becomes even greater.

Julia Linehan, Founder & CEO, The Digital Voice

This is a proper shot of energy for the UK marketing and advertising industry, and it’s brilliant to see. Total marketing budgets rising at the strongest rate since Q2 2024, with every single Bellwether category in growth, shows businesses are putting their money where the results are. When campaigns deliver, investment follows. It’s that simple.

Even more encouraging is the standout strength in PR and events at +15.3% and +15.1%. In a noisy, AI-saturated world, that suggests brands are still putting real value on authentic voices, real relationships and meaningful experiences. The opportunity is to carry that human touch across press, events, content, and the wider channel mix, with each touchpoint amplifying the others and helping brands cut through.