Mid-Year 2026 Marketing Check-In: What’s Working and What’s Changing for the Rest of the Year
June 11, 2026 - 37 minutes read
NOTE: This blog is a transcript from a podcast and therefore may contain errors.
Shannon Allen: Welcome to Digital Marketing ROI. I’m your host, Shannon Allen, and I’m joined again by Krystal Vivian, How are you?
Krystal Vivian: I’m doing great, Shannon. How are you?
Shannon Allen: I’m good. Can you believe it’s June?
Krystal Vivian: I’m so excited that it’s June. That’s why I’m doing great because I am a summer girl, Shannon.
I love fall, and I- I think Maya’s a summer girl- … I’ll enjoy when I get there … I guess
Shannon Allen: she loves her swimming.
Krystal Vivian: Maya is a summer girl. Now, she also says that she loves winter, and there were many times that I had to pull her off a snowbank this past winter because she said, “Snow is my life.”
Shannon Allen: Yes.
Krystal Vivian: And I said, “No, it’s not, because it’s not mine.”
Shannon Allen: That’s so funny. I love that.
Krystal Vivian: But no, I am a summer girl. I am thrilled about all of the sunshine. I’m thrilled to be wearing shorts and sandals and I thrive… I- the vitamin D- Yes … we’re all vitamin D deficient here in the Midwest, let’s not lie.
That’s true … but And I take a supplement because I’ve got to, but there’s nothing better than that just straight to the face- Oh, yeah … sunshine.
Shannon Allen: And there’s something about June, it’s this mid-year feel. Hard to believe we’re, coming up on half the year, six months in at the end of June.
But it’s been a wild few months. It’s- Has it
Krystal Vivian: It has been a very wild few months. 2026 has been crazy.
Shannon Allen: It has, and from a business standpoint, just sales, and like we’re still living in the world, we still, clients still need their businesses to run, but there’s a little bit of chaos, right?
The, between inflation on the rise, the Iran- Iran war, the gas prices. Good news, Fed rates are holding, steady right now, but we would love to see them go down.
And small business community that somehow is still trying to be optimistic. That’s what I can report, is when we talk to our clients that are small business owners they’re still staying positive.
Yeah. And I think that we’re not feeling doom and gloom, but we’re feeling a little, I guess chaos is the word I like to use.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah, a little uncertainty-
Shannon Allen: little uncertainty … because of the chaos. Yeah. And so people, I have seen a little bit of people in first and second that were like, “Let me see how first quarter pans out.”
And then as we’re, coming to the end of second quarter, a little bit of, “Okay, it’s time.” I think sunshine always helps that, especially living here in the Midwest. But I really think that by doing this mid-year check, I just wanted to have a conversation, what’s actually been happening when it relates to the economy and then some key industries really since January.
And then let’s just walk through what we think is gonna happen in the next six months when it comes to what the world and how that relates to marketing.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah. I love that. So let’s start then with that beginning of the first half of 2026 so far, or the first few months, ’cause we’re not quite at the halfway point yet.
What has been going on with the economy and for businesses?
Shannon Allen: So at the end of the year in 2025most predictions were coming in that 2026 was expecting solid growth, right? Goldman Sachs was forecasting 2 to 2.5% GDP growth with mild rate cuts ahead. The mood was cautiously optimistic, as I would say.
And then what happened
Krystal Vivian: We went to war.
Shannon Allen: We went to war.
Krystal Vivian: There’s not much to say
Shannon Allen: about that … there’s all I can say.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Oil jumped more than 76% between late February and early April. That was really the kickoff of it. I think it was really end of April when we went, all of a sudden we woke up and it was gas price was at 4.29, leading up to I remember a 4.99-
And I’ve been traveling for work in my car, and I’m like, “This is getting expensive,” right?
And inflation responded to that. So the April CPI report came out and headline inflation jumped to 3.8% year over year. That’s the highest reading since May of 2023. And then gas prices alone were up 28% over last year during that, going into starting off second quarter.
So that really, set a pace, right? So 28% in gas prices, all of a sudden everybody’s “Wait a second. Am I going here? Am I traveling? Am I doing this?” And you think of all the things that it affects- when it comes to businesses.
Krystal Vivian: Absolutely, because it’s your day-to-day, your driving habits day to day don’t really change.
for most people I think you’re pretty much locked in to your day-to-day driving- or maybe your week-to-week driving, depending on your schedule. But it’s the, that extra driving. And then because your expense of gas has now gone up-
…
Krystal Vivian: And for some people, like for me during that, it went from $40 to fill up my gas tank to $60-
to fill up my gas tank. And when budgets are tight, and it does make an impact, and people are gonna make different buying decisions because of that. It does.
Shannon Allen: Gas is, to me, I feel like gas prices almost is a different… Because it affects everybody. When we talk about, the Fed holding the rate for, three meetings in a row that doesn’t affect everybody as much.
It obviously affects the real estate industry-
…
Shannon Allen: But a lot of things are, people aren’t paying as much attention to. Bank of America back in, I think early May, pushed their rate cut forecast all the way out to July of 2027, because they don’t think it’s happening.
And so that cheap money many businesses were really banking on is not probably coming this year. And gas prices is that trigger, unfortunately. So we are seeing that. So that’s when I look at the economy at a large. When we look at small business, like kind of the reality of it the US Chamber Small Business Index dropped from 68.4 in Q4 of 2025 to 67.0 in Q1.
Not a crash, it just softened it, right? So this is where I talk about the chaos a little bit. 53% of small business owners now say inflation is their biggest challenge. They’re trying to keep up with it. I asked a friend of mineher husband runs a lawn service-
It was like he filled up all of his mowers and everything, and it was like $195 And I’m like, did he send a letter out to all of his clients to say, ‘We’re gonna have a rate increase because of this?'” She’s “No, he’s trying to hold steady.” That’s really hard. So now you’re working as hard as you worked last year-
Krystal Vivian: But making less money. I understand that business owner, because if you pass it on to your consumers, to your clients you could lose some people that way, right? But then it’s eating into your profits, and for a really small business, that’s your family’s money.
It is. That’s your income. So it’s a very fine line to walk for small business owners.
Shannon Allen: And we start talking about families. You talk about, high, upper class, middle class, lower class of what spending is. So consumer spending is splitting in half basically right now.
So according to Cox Automotive they said that disposable income growth in 2026 is concentrated in the top 40% of households. So that’s 60% of households that is not still spending at the same level that 40% of them are, right? So higher income households are still spending, so that is a story to tell, but lower and middle class income are pulling back a little bit.
So that income split is going to shape every industry throughout the year. So whether you’re in the automotive business, that’s either gonna push somebody off or that it’s gonna move them from a car, now they’re payment driven, which I think everybody is anymore. But I’m trying to help my mom sell her 2014Suburban, that’s in fantastic condition.
Only has 125,000 miles on it- And but I said, “We’re gonna struggle.” Yeah. Because it’s a big tank of gas to fill right now.
Krystal Vivian: Absolutely.
Shannon Allen: So the person that can afford $15,000 for that- … which is a great price point-
…
Shannon Allen: Can’t afford the gas to put in it.
Krystal Vivian: Correct.
Shannon Allen: Then that’s a problem.
Krystal Vivian: We were in the car market, and then we decided to stop looking for a new car- because it’s like, we’re good with what we have. Our mileage per gallon is great, and let’s just get another couple months or couple years out of this vehicle-
until we… And then, when gas- prices are better, then we’ll reconsider.
Shannon Allen: And I always say for the first half of the year, what the story’s telling us is there’s still people out there spending. And even if you’re in that lower class or middle class of income then it’s based on what you need, not any luxury items, not any wants.
Maybe travel isn’t done the same. Maybe you’re gonna travel locally versus getting on a plane.
Krystal Vivian: Right.
Shannon Allen: So that’s really what I would say is what’s been happening in the first six months.
Krystal Vivian: Let’s bring it a little bit closer to marketing and advertising, and let’s talk about some of the industries that we work with the most. What’s going on with credit unions and car dealers?
Shannon Allen: This is for everybody out there.
I think you can correlate some of it, but again, for auto dealers, Cox Automotive, which I pull a lot of my research from, is still forecasting that 15.8 million new vehicle sales for 2026. Now, that is down 2.4% from 2025, so it’s not crashing. Again, this is the softening- the slowing that we’re seeing. 90% of auto marketers say CTV and streaming is still a leading consumer trend that they’re responding to. Now, this is where the catch 22 comes in. It’s more expensive. So when that car dealer goes out there and says, “I’m gonna cut CTV ’cause it’s the most expensive,” it’s still what’s resonating with an audience.
Generative AI is a conversation we have to be addressing in the second half of the year for sure in every industry- … not just automotive or credit unions or whatever, is how does this all relate to everything we’re doing when it comes to marketing? So retail itself, we’re seeing 71% of in-market shoppers now expect very transparent pricing.
So we talk about things like gas pricesand we’re trying to save. We wanna feel that empathy-
from the big buys out there, right? Correct. The big buys, the loans we’re getting, we want them to have empathy for what the average person is going through. So I think when it comes to auto specifically, you really gotta dial in on what you’re doing, but you cannot pull back-
Because the biggest mistake any business can do is just stop running marketing.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah, because then you’re not branding, you’re not top of mind. There are still people buying vehicles. There are still people out there. It’s that softening.
It’s a 2 to 3% decrease, but it’s not a whole crash.
Shannon Allen: And right now, flipping over to credit unions, they are still predicting growth because what does a credit union offer? They’re still doing loans. People still have to buy houses. People still have to get mortgages. They still have to buy auto loans.
They still need their
Krystal Vivian: HELOCs.
Shannon Allen: they need personal loans. They might be doing a HELOC instead of buying a new house. So they are predicting that there will be a loan growth of 5.5% for credit unions and financial services in 2026. So that’s good news, right?
Mortgage and personal loan are really that primary growth driver, so let’s think about that. Mortgages could be part of HELOC, so that’s what we talked about, and then personal loans. Sometimes people are like, “Wait a second, I can’t be paying 28% for my credit card, but I might need to do a loan consolidation.”
Krystal Vivian: And so I can get down to a 14% or- Exactly … a 12%.
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: So we’re seeing some of that. Honestly, when it comes to all of this, I think the softening is what we have to keep leaning into, is some things are gonna see growth, some things are gonna see a little bit of a dip. But overall,
We wanna hope for the best, and I think midterms is gonna play a big role in everything we do. So midterms with any industry, whether we’re talking credit unions or auto loans just any retail, as it is, we’re- we know spend might slow down, but this happens whether we’re dealing with a high economy or not in any election year.
Now, midterms tend to not be as affected by the presidential election, But there is a lot of unrest, especially with the war going on.
Krystal Vivian: Yes. There’s a lot of … it goes back to that chaos and that uncertainty that people need to prepare for.
What have we been seeing in marketing and advertising in the first half of 2026?
Shannon Allen: Again, all of those verticals, you’re seeing a little bit of downside in auto. Credit unions are seeing a growth. Our credit unions alone, we are seeing them lean into it. I think they realize they have to.
There’s a whole new audience they have to go after, so they’re leaning into it. Local digital ad spend with retail and small businesses is forecasted to grow 12% in 2026, which is driven by small business. So that means local advertisers’ competition is spending more digitally, not less, which is, that’s good news for us, right?
The IAB, the Internet Advertising Bureau, is forecasting 9.5% growth in total US ad spend for 2026, which is well above the GDP. So social media is up 14.6, CTV is up. And so on the digital side, we are seeing growth. I think what you’re gonna see is your traditional, we’re gonna see hits on the radio side.
You’re gonna see hits on linear. You’re gonna see hits on cable, right? Billboards I never pull that into the equation, but definitely billboards are still strong out there.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: But w- I don’t necessarily know- Smaller direct mail campaigns … if people are increasing marketing budget. I think it’s more of a shuffling game.
So as a digital agency, it’s beneficial to know that can be there for us, but there’s also more digital agencies out there saying they know what they’re doing more than ever, so that’s part of what we deal with a lot really in the first six months, is we’ve seen our competition grow and unfortunately there’s a lot of people that are doing it badly.
So that’s something that we look at in the first part of the year. We’ve really had to take a look at what do we do best. What is it for us that, that how do we stand apart from the average person that’s “Oh, wait. Wait. I do this now, too.”
I sell movie theater advertising, but I can sell you CTV.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah. It gives us a- a extra layer of empathy because this is something that we know that our clients go through, right? Our businesses go through this that we work with, and now we’re coming up against the same thing. And in a lot of ways that’s comforting because we- know strategies to overcome it and we know how we need to handle it.
But it is still just it’s a different playing field.
Shannon Allen: Yep.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s look ahead at the rest of June through December, through the end of the year, what should business owners expect? Because we’ve got World Cup soccer- Yep … we have, like you said, the midterm elections- Yep … and all of the uncertainty that happens with that.
We have the holiday season- on deck.
Shannon Allen: Oh, God. That’s so hard to believe.
Krystal Vivian: We, we’ve
Shannon Allen: got- I know you love fall, but I… Let’s not talk about
Krystal Vivian: that. Oh, I am not trying to think about the holidays or fall. Okay, good. I am still… I am a summer girl, Shannon. I am trying to soak up every bit of summer as I can. I love that.
But from a marketing perspective, we do, as much as in the moment we stay in that-
Shannon Allen: Yeah …
Krystal Vivian: from a marketing perspective, we have to plan three, six- months out. So what do business owners need to be thinking about as they’re enjoying the days at the beach or in the pool in the backyard or running through the sprinklers, what do they need to be thinking about for the rest of the year?
Shannon Allen: you talked about three things, World Cup, midterm, holiday season, all great things to talk about. I think as we talk about this, we’re cautiously optimistic. I think we can be looking at staying… it’s time to layer in. If you pulled back in first quarter, second and third is where you need to really ramp it up because you wanna be ready, that you’re not all of a sudden fourth quarter’s here and you’re just like, “Where’d my year go?”
So you need to be very conscious of that. so doing your basics, living in the world of making sure your consumers can find you through SEM, making sure that you’re top of mind through branding, through, CTV and display, and making sure that your social is on point, because we’re seeing growth in all aspects of those digital arenas.
One of the reasons I layered in live sports in 2026 was it’s an audience that it gives us something to be excited about.
With Olympics this year and, fall college ball to look forward to, We’ve got the World Cup coming up, like you said, that runs through summer.
Really looking at not just doing your basic of everything we talked about, but where do you add a layer?
So if you pulled back in that first quarter, even maybe second quarter, it’s time in third and fourth to ramp up because otherwise your year’s gonna be… you’re gonna be in the hole.
Krystal Vivian: Yes.
Shannon Allen: that’s my general thing. When I think about midterms, political advertising on a whole is going to be projected to exceed that $10 million mark. Most of that lands in Q3 and Q4, and most of it lands on TV and CTV digital. But if you’re still in this age running TV in a midterm year pull your money.
You’re gonna get bumped. it’s gonna be a war of TV, ’cause there’s still a huge older audience that’s still on linear But that’s not where you need to be- as a business owner. Pull your money out of TV when it comes to third and fourth quarter this yearI don’t usually say that, but I’m saying that.
Krystal Vivian: We know that the political … Because it’s midterms, it’s a contentious midterms- Yeah … we know that there’s gonna be more money poured into that. Yep. I look at the state races in Indiana. We just had our primary in early May, and how much money was funneled into the primaries. Yeah. So we’re gonna see a lot of that happening in the actual midterm elections- Yes
in September, October, November. Yep. So there’s … You’re gonna get bumped, and you don’t know what your make goods- No … are gonna be, so you might as well take that money and put it someplace where you know you’re guaranteed delivery.
Shannon Allen: And even for CTV, we’re not gonna run out of inventory on CTV ’cause it’s programmatic, but live sports we will.
So we sell by fear of loss all the time, not because I’m trying to scare you, but if you aren’t buying your fall football games right now and bowl games you’re not gonna get them.
Krystal Vivian: No.
Shannon Allen: So lock it in and same with CTV though. Have your game plan. Have your strategy in place. Look at the data.
Look at what was going on last year. Look at what happened in the first six months, and lock in your strategy. And pivot when you need to. Review it every 30 days with your rep. That’s what we do. Every 30 days we’re looking at it. We’re not just living in the what happened, we’re looking at what’s to come.
And lay out 90 days at a time, but lay out the next six months.
Omnicom estimates that these three events alone, Holiday shopping season we even totally talked about. The consumer is more cautious than they were in 2024 and even 2025, but high income consumer is still spending, and that’s who’s spending the most money anyways.
But when you look at those three events combined, it’s gonna drive $9 billion in incremental ad spend alone in 2026, right? So that money has to go somewhere. We’re gonna see a lot of that in CTV.
Search is gonna still be high, obviously social media. The push is gonna be out there.
So plan your strategy ahead of time.
And honestly, watch the energy story too. If the Iran war fallout keeps pushing fuel and shipping costs- expect inflation to stay sticky into Q4. That keeps the Fed on hold, keeps, borrowing costs high, and keeps the consumer cautious. So we gotta pay attention what…
A lot of that’s gonna depend on, what we continue to see in this chaos.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Right?
Krystal Vivian: Absolutely.
Shannon Allen: And again, AI search is going to keep accelerating. This isn’t slowing down, people. The 25% organic drop that we saw at the end of 2025 could very well double-
…
Shannon Allen: Of where things are going. We’ve pivoted in a good way using our AI answer blogs and just getting our clients to doing SEM the smart way.
If they can do Google Shopping, if they’re retail, do VLAs, if they’re auto-
Krystal Vivian: If they can do location,
Shannon Allen: Location … getting your business listed- Yeah, make sure you’re directories … in your directories. All these little things …
Krystal Vivian: review generation.
Shannon Allen: Yeah.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah. That matters a whole lot to AI. It does.
Shannon Allen: So that’s what I am seeing for the next six months.
If I had to say anything, it’s don’t wait to be reactive. Be proactive right now and have your six-month strategy in place. You can always pivot, but have a plan and don’t cut your budget.
Krystal Vivian: And if you aren’t sure what to do, lean on your marketing partner.
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Krystal Vivian: That brings us very naturally to the last question that we always talk about which is ROI.
So with everything that’s going on in 2026 and as we’re looking forward to the end of the year how should business owners be thinking about ROI for the rest of 2026?
Shannon Allen: in an uncertain economy, ROI is the only conversation that matters, right? It’s why everything we’re doing now is leaning towards that.
So when budgets feel tight, I know business owners wanna cut. I have to remind you, I go back to the big rock theory, right? Big rock is you can’t focus all your time on the rocks, the little rocks and stones and the pebbles. What are your big rocks? And really to any business it’s not any different than what our big rocks are, right?
New business and existing business. Those are the two main rocks that every business out there, for the most part, is trying to retain who they have and find new ones out there. And at a time like this when there is uncertainty, I feel that retention is probably the most underused lever of ROI, because your existing business is your bread and butter, and there are always what I call seasons.
We’re in a season right now of growing our new business. The clients that we have, we feel good about, but You always have that attrition going on, right? And so when I look at our radio division, I look at their loyal people is the lever we need to be moving with radio because if you believe in radio, you’re, there’s a loyalty, there’s a feel there, and you’re getting results.
So lean into them and show them other things that you could be doing. It’s same with any business out there. Don’t forget about your loyal people.
Because that returning business is what’s gonna get you through some of the hard times. And when we look at the next six months, we really need to strategize under those two big rocks.
How do we grow new business? How do we retain and keep our existing?
That’s to me the biggest ROI conversation. I could go into lots of different numbers, but that’s as simple as I can make it, how we get through 2026. It’s what I’m doing.
Krystal Vivian: Yeah. And I think that’s a strong outlook to have, and I appreciate in the midst of chaos, having a positive outlook and knowing that you can just create a plan.
You can lean on your partners. Yep. You can look at your business, you can make strategic decisions, and you can set your business up for success, no matter what kind of chaos is going on in- the world, ’cause there’s always gonna be chaos in the world. Yes.
Shannon Allen: This was good. I think it’s always good to bring it back to seasonality, where we’re at, what’s coming, and just have a honest, hard conversations.
Yeah. We know it’s tough out there, and if you work with the right partner, they’re in it with you. They’re feeling it, they’re dealing with it. And be vulnerable with them and tell them what’s going on, but just don’t react.
Krystal Vivian: Yes.
Shannon Allen: Yeah. Don’t just react to what’s going on. Be strategic about and be proactive about it.
Yep. So that’s it for today. Thanks Krystal, and-
Krystal Vivian: Thanks,
Shannon Allen: Shana … thank you to our listeners, and tune into our next episode of Digital Marketing ROI.