Digital ad growth could power £242bn economy injection and 1.2m UK jobs
UK digital advertising could contribute £242bn to the UK economy by 2035 and create an additional 1.2 million jobs, according to a report by...
The UK guide to advertising
Clear explanations of how advertising works, what it costs, and what the ASA requires, written for the businesses that buy advertising. The latest UK advertising news sits below.
Try the A/B test calculator Calculate your ad budgetUK advertising news, tracked as it happens
What changed this week in ASA rulings, platform pricing and the channels UK advertisers actually use.
Geoffrey Hinton Gives AI Labs One Year to Install Real Watchdogs
Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton warns Congress that the U.S. may have only a year to regulate advanced AI before it slips out of control through recursive self-improvement. His stark timeline...
IAB UK: Govt must act so digital sector can top £242bn
** The burgeoning market for AI and emerging technologies could trigger a near 40% boost in the val...
OpenAI Faces $280 Billion Compute Spend Over Next 5 Years Amid Soaring Losses
OpenAI is burning through cash at an alarming rate, potentially spending up to $280 billion on computing resources over the next five years to train increasingly powerful models. Despite growing...
AI Hype in 2026: Real Progress Meets Persistent Limitations, Says MIT Review
The summer of 2026 saw a surge of AI announcements blending real progress with heavy marketing exaggeration, as detailed by MIT Technology Review. Despite hype around breakthroughs, independent tests...
Pentagon AI Hallucination Nearly Ignites Conflict With China
A U.S. Special Operations analyst used an AI chatbot to generate an intelligence report claiming a Chinese ship carried nuclear components. The false document nearly triggered a boarding operation...
What's on the site
Guides, tools and reference pages for anyone planning UK advertising spend.
Adwalkers: Walking Billboards in the UK
Adwalkers are people who carry a billboard through a town centre. What the format is, where it is used in the UK, what a buyer should ask about staffing, routes and permissions, and how it compares wi...
How Advertising Works — A Guide
How businesses pay for advertising, how platforms target audiences, and how results are measured — explained without jargon for UK business owners.
UK Advertising Rules — What the ASA Requires
What the ASA and CAP Code require before you run an ad in the UK — substantiation, health claims, comparisons, and endorsements explained.
How Digital Ad Auctions Work
How Google, Meta, and programmatic platforms price ad inventory through real-time auctions — explained for UK advertisers who want to understand what they are bidding on.
Advertising on a Small Budget in the UK
How to advertise a UK business on £500–£2,000 a month — which channels work, what to expect, and where not to waste money.
How Your Data Is Used in Advertising
How platforms collect, match, and use personal data to target ads — explained for UK business owners and the consumers seeing those ads.
The tools and guides for UK advertisers
A short route through the guides, tools and reference pages that make up the site, whichever part of advertising you're trying to get right.
Guides for every channel
Step-by-step explanations of budgets, channel choice and campaign mechanics, written for someone doing this without an agency.
Explore the guides →Calculators for ad budgets
Work out significance, budget splits and benchmark comparisons with tools built around UK pricing data.
Try the calculators →A directory of UK ad channels
A reference list of the channels open to UK advertisers, from paid social to out-of-home (OOH).
Browse the directory →Where the ASA rules sit
A map of which CAP Code rules apply to which channel, so you know what to check before a campaign runs.
See the regulation map →UK ad spend by channel
Reference tables showing how advertising spend is distributed across UK channels.
Check the spend tables →Terms explained as you meet them
CPM, CPC, programmatic and the rest, defined in the language advertisers actually use.
Look up a term →Work out what your numbers are actually telling you
A test result and a budget figure are both starting points, so treat what the calculators return as a working number to check against your own judgement before you commit spend.