SMI data for March 2026 shows social media bookings overtook search for the first time in Australia, making search the third-largest digital channel behind social and programmatic. The overall market dropped more than 5% year-on-year.
The channel that brands once treated as their performance safety net is losing ground to the platforms where audiences actually spend their time.
Social media has overtaken search as the second-largest digital advertising channel in Australia. For the first time in Standard Media Index tracking history, social bookings through media agencies eclipsed search in March 2026.
Search now sits third in the digital pecking order, behind social and programmatic. That is a structural shift, not a rounding error.
The numbers
Total media agency bookings fell more than 5% in March compared to the same month last year. Part of that decline reflects the federal election spike in early 2025 that inflated the comparison period. But the underlying trend is real.
Digital bookings dropped 6.2% on a standalone basis, with late programmatic and search bookings still to flow through. Guideline SMI APAC managing director Jane Ractliffe pointed to "ongoing global geopolitical uncertainty" as the weight dragging on consumer confidence and advertising budgets.
Social and programmatic both outrank search in Australian digital ad bookings for the first time
Why it matters
For years, search was the default "performance" channel. You had budget to spend, you put it in Google. That reflexive allocation is breaking down.
Social platforms have built better commerce integration, better attribution and better creative formats. Meta alone pulled in US$55 billion in ad revenue last quarter. TikTok Shop is converting browsers into buyers without a search query ever being typed. Meanwhile, AI overviews are eating into the click volume that made search advertising so reliable.
For Australian marketers, the implications are direct. If your media mix still defaults 60% to search because "that is where intent lives," you are allocating against a 2022 map of a 2026 landscape.