Social Video Is Rewriting Australia’s Media Mix

IAB Australia announced on August 31 that the country’s internet advertising market grew 14% to $19.8 billion in the 2026 financial year, its strongest financial-year growth since FY22. The report, compiled by PwC Australia from media owner, publisher and platform data, shows video moving closer to the centre of the market.

The easy reading is that digital advertising simply had another strong year. The more useful reading for CMOs is that video growth is separating into two buying systems: social platforms are taking a larger share of spend, while publishers are concentrating video budgets around connected television. A larger market does not remove the need to decide what each environment is expected to deliver.

Where Australia’s Digital Growth Landed

Search remained the largest category at 43% of internet advertising expenditure, reaching a record $8.6 billion after 13.2% growth. Video rose faster, increasing 18.8% to $5.9 billion and reaching 30% of the total market for the first time.

“Search, video and social all continued to grow strongly in FY26,” IAB Australia chief executive Gai Le Roy said. She also noted that much of the additional spending came from smaller businesses, retailers and overseas advertisers, with more activity running continuously rather than around traditional campaign cycles.

That matters because established brands may be competing against advertisers with different planning rhythms. Always-on demand can keep auctions active outside familiar retail peaks and make annual channel allocations less responsive to changing prices and audience behaviour.

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Social Video Is Taking A Larger Share

Social video was the fastest-growing video format, up 29.5% to $2.4 billion. It accounted for 41% of all Australian video advertising spend, compared with 38% a year earlier, and moved close to the 52% held by other online video in the June quarter.

Australia is not moving alone. IAB’s July US video outlook projected growth across social video, connected TV and online video, while warning that bigger budgets were bringing stronger demands for quality and transparency. The Australian result is notable because social video’s share is already approaching parity with the rest of online video.

IAB Australia’s May buyer survey had already shown the tension behind that growth. Economic uncertainty was the leading concern for 48% of agency decision-makers, while 41% cited cross-channel measurement. Le Roy said advertisers were “not pulling back from investment in video advertising,” despite the cautious market.

Publisher Video Is Consolidating Around CTV

The platform shift looks different inside publisher inventory. Connected TV represented 60% of publisher video expenditure in FY26, up from 51%, while desktop fell from 37% to 25%. Mobile increased modestly to 15%.

That gives broadcasters and premium publishers a clearer growth route, but it does not make their inventory interchangeable with social video. CTV offers a television-like viewing environment and growing programmatic capability. Social platforms offer rapid creative testing, creator formats and direct response signals. Buying both as undifferentiated “video” can conceal different reach, frequency and outcome assumptions.

IAB Australia’s video study found nine in ten agencies had a unified cross-screen strategy, yet 25% rarely or never unified measurement across screens. The gap is now commercial: a planning framework can look integrated while reporting still rewards each platform on its preferred evidence.

What CMOs Should Change In The Next Plan

CMOs should ask teams to separate the roles of social video and CTV before allocating incremental budget, then reconnect them through common reach, frequency and outcome rules. The brief should specify which channel is building memory, which is generating response, how creative will change by environment and where duplication will be measured.

Regional marketing leaders also need local benchmarks. Australia’s $19.8 billion market is mature, but its split between social video, publisher CTV and search cannot simply be copied into Southeast Asian markets with different platform penetration, broadcaster strength and measurement infrastructure.

The FY26 result suggests video is becoming the main contest for incremental digital spend. The executive decision is not whether to invest more in video. It is whether social platforms and connected TV will be managed as one accountable portfolio before their separate buying systems harden into separate strategies.