DMEXCO, short for Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference, is an annual two-day trade fair and conference for the digital advertising and marketing industry, held each September on the Koelnmesse exhibition grounds in Cologne. It exists to put the companies that sell media, data and advertising technology in the same halls as the brands and agencies that buy them, with a conference programme running alongside the stands. The 2026 edition takes place on September 23 and 24, a week from today.

The shorter expansion, Digital Marketing Expo & Conference, is also used. Admission is restricted to trade visitors. This year every ticket sits inside an app that is also used to book meetings and watch recorded sessions.

How the event is put together

Three parties sit behind the brand. Koelnmesse GmbH organises the fair. It operates the third-largest exhibition grounds in Germany, with close to 400,000 square metres of hall and outdoor space. The German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) owns the DMEXCO brand and is described by both sides as its "ideational and professional partner", meaning it supplies industry relationships, working groups and much of the content. The Circle of Online Marketers (OVK), the BVDW unit representing German online advertising sales houses, takes part as a named partner.

The exhibition floor is divided into themed zones called Worlds. For 2026 these are agencies, commerce, media and tech, plus a start-up area. The conference is split into summits. According to a DMEXCO announcement dated May 18, 2026, this year's ten include an AdTech Summit on agentic media buying and identity, a MarTech Summit on hyper-personalisation, a Retail & Commerce Media Summit run with the BVDW, a digital out-of-home (DOOH) summit, and a Future TV Summit organised by the broadcaster marketing body Screenforce, covering connected TV (CTV) and addressable TV. Masterclasses cover agentic advertising, AI commerce and generative engine optimisation (GEO).

Every edition carries a motto. "Bridging Worlds" framed 2015, "Empowering Digital Creativity" 2023 and "Prompting the Future" 2025. The 2026 motto is "Scaling Intelligence".

Tickets are personalised and non-transferable. Third-party event guides list a standard two-day ticket at 299 euros and a student ticket at 29 euros.

Who sells and who buys

The layout mirrors the market. Exhibitors are overwhelmingly on the sell side: publisher sales houses, supply-side platforms, data and measurement vendors, commerce software firms and agencies pitching services. The 2026 commerce zone alone holds more than 120 exhibitors, including Billiger.de, Shopware, Awin, FactFinder, idealo and JTL. IAB Europe's event listing names Disney Advertising, Nielsen, IQ Digital, HubSpot and REWE Group among partners, and counts 17 stages.

Visitors are nominally the buy side: brand marketers and media agency staff. Whether enough of them come is an old argument. According to Meedia, critics complained for years that advertisers, the people who fund the industry, were rarely seen in Cologne.

For 2025, AUMA, the German trade fair industry association, lists 21,379 square metres of net space, of which exhibitor stands took 11,419 and special display areas 9,960. Stands filled just over half the usable floor.

From Düsseldorf to Cologne

Online Marketing Düsseldorf (OMD) ran from 2000 to 2008 with BVDW backing. In its final year it drew 380 exhibitors and, at least officially, about 20,000 visitors, according to Internet World Business. Frank Schneider, who created OMD and ran it until the end of 2007, became head of the new Cologne show.

The move was the association's decision. According to W&V, a new Düsseldorf edition failed because the BVDW chose Cologne instead. The first dmexco, then written in lower case, opened on September 23, 2009 with more than 250 exhibitors booked, and speakers including Tim Armstrong of AOL and Maurice Lévy of Publicis.

The seventh edition, on September 16 and 17, 2015, reported 881 exhibitors and more than 43,000 trade visitors. A year later the organiser claimed over 50,700 visitors and 1,013 exhibitors. That 2016 edition also produced one of its most consequential announcements: the Coalition for Better Ads launched at Dmexco on September 15, 2016, and its standards later determined which ad formats Chrome filters.

In November 2017, Koelnmesse extended its contract with the BVDW and ended its arrangement with KDME, the consultancy that had co-organised the fair. According to the German Wikipedia entry, the Cologne regional court declared that termination invalid and the parties settled out of court in November 2018.

Pandemic years and a new team

A hybrid 2020 edition was planned and then dropped. DMEXCO @home ran online on September 23 and 24, 2020, and the organiser reported more than 20,000 participants, 800 speakers and 260 exhibitors on a platform built in three months. In June 2021 Koelnmesse chief operating officer Oliver Frese announced a second digital-only year, citing exhibitors in the Americas and Asia whose internal rules still barred foreign travel. That edition ran on September 7 and 8, 2021.

Physical attendance resumed on September 21 and 22, 2022, in a hybrid format. A realignment announced in November 2023, which credited Dominik Matyka with building the digital platform, named Verena Gründel to lead the event from 2024.

Why it matters for marketers

Companies time announcements to the Cologne week. Google unveiled AI features for Google Ads at DMEXCO on September 18, 2024, presented by Brendon Kraham. MediaMarktSaturn launched its first offsite retail media programme during DMEXCO in September 2025, with Unlimitail and Epsilon Retail Media, later a reference case in the offsite explainer. VisualDNA chose the show to unveil personality-based audience segments.

The venue matters because of the market around it. Germany was forecast to be the world's fifth-largest ad market in 2025 at $40.8 billion, growing 4.5%, according to WPP Media. The city hosts other set pieces too, including Amazon's first German advertising upfront on June 4, 2025.

The brand owner's standards work also feeds the agenda. The BVDW published an in-store retail media framework on September 3, 2025, a 12-page curation whitepaper on February 26, 2026, and guidance on EU political advertising rules dated April 13, 2026.

Advertiser presence may be improving. According to Meedia, the organiser reported that brand-side visitors rose by about 20% in 2025 compared with 2024, and Procter & Gamble chief marketing officer Kristina Bulle used several stages to repeat the advertiser body OWM's demands for common identity solutions and more market transparency.

The attendance dispute

The largest criticism concerns numbers. For 2024, Koelnmesse reported more than 40,000 participants from about 90 countries, 680 exhibiting companies and partners, and over 850 speakers. The certified figures differ. According to iBusiness, the FKM, Germany's trade fair statistics auditor, certified 27,441 visitor entries and 507 exhibiting companies for 2024, 40 exhibitors fewer than in 2023. The publication reported that communicated and certified visitor totals roughly matched until 2018, and that from 2019 the certified count fell each year while the headline stayed at 40,000.

The pattern held in 2025. Meedia reported the organiser's claim of 40,000 visitors, 1,000 speakers and 700 exhibitors. AUMA's audited listing shows 27,372 entries, 21,176 of them domestic, and 510 exhibitors from 36 countries. The communicated visitor figure is therefore about 46% higher than the certified one in both years.

Definitions explain part of the gap. The organiser's 2024 statement counted people attending "live in Cologne and online" and grouped partners with exhibitors, while the FKM counts hall entries and exhibiting companies. According to iBusiness, rival OMR does not have its figures certified at all.

A 2022 t3n critique argued that sustainability was handled at the level of greenwashing, and industry critics have said exhibitor fees multiplied while the domestic market was neglected. After the second digital year, contentmanager.de reported that many exhibitors were unsure whether to budget for the event again, and it listed the break with founders Schneider and Christian Muche among the upheavals the show had absorbed.

Not the same as

OMR Festival is the Hamburg event run by Ramp 106 since 2011, held in May and pitched as a festival rather than a trade fair. It drew more than 67,000 visitors in 2025 and ran on May 5 and 6, 2026, by its own count.

OMD in this context means Online Marketing Düsseldorf, the predecessor fair that ended in 2008. It is unrelated to Omnicom's media agency network of the same name.

DMEXCO Asia is a separate event in Singapore, co-branded with eCommerce Expo at Tech Week Singapore and run with CloserStill Media. It debuted on October 8 and 9, 2025, and its figures are not comparable with Cologne's.

Recent developments

Koelnmesse and the BVDW announced a long-term contract extension in January 2025, signed by Koelnmesse chief executive Gerald Böse and BVDW president Dirk Freytag. No end date was published. The Singapore spin-off had been announced earlier that month.

The 2026 programme leans on topics dominating the trade. Speakers include Criteo chief executive Michael Komasinski, in post since February 15, 2025, whose company received a reported buyout approach from Vista Equity and Quinti Capital in July 2026. Sir Martin Sorrell of S4 Capital is listed again, 11 years after he spoke in 2015. The AdTech Summit's agentic buying theme follows weeks in which agencies began metering AI agents that buy media, OS Data Solutions shipped a Model Context Protocol server with its OSDX platform on September 2, 2026, and ten European media groups prepared a joint marketplace pilot for September 2026.

The calendar remains crowded, with DMEXCO sharing a mid-September to early October slot with several national search conferences. Whether the certified 2026 attendance moves closer to the headline figure will not be known until the audited numbers appear, and the 2024 figures only surfaced in May 2025.

Timeline

  • 2000: Online Marketing Düsseldorf (OMD) begins, backed by the BVDW
  • 2008: OMD holds its final edition, with 380 exhibitors and about 20,000 reported visitors
  • September 23, 2009: First dmexco opens at Koelnmesse in Cologne
  • September 16, 2015: Seventh edition opens, later reporting 881 exhibitors and more than 43,000 trade visitors
  • September 15, 2016: Coalition for Better Ads launched at dmexco
  • November 2017: Koelnmesse extends its BVDW contract and ends its arrangement with organiser KDME
  • November 2018: Koelnmesse and KDME settle their dispute out of court
  • September 23, 2020: DMEXCO @home, the first digital-only edition, opens
  • September 7, 2021: Second digital-only edition opens
  • September 21, 2022: Physical event returns to Cologne in hybrid form
  • November 2023: Realignment announced; Verena Gründel to lead the event from 2024
  • September 18, 2024: Google announces AI features for Google Ads at DMEXCO
  • January 2025: DMEXCO Asia announced; Koelnmesse and BVDW extend their contract long term
  • May 2025: iBusiness publishes FKM-certified 2024 figures of 27,441 visitor entries and 507 exhibitors
  • September 17, 2025: DMEXCO 2025 opens under the motto "Prompting the Future"
  • October 8, 2025: DMEXCO Asia debuts in Singapore
  • May 18, 2026: Ten summits and the motto "Scaling Intelligence" announced for 2026
  • September 23, 2026: DMEXCO 2026 scheduled to open in Cologne

Summary

Who. Koelnmesse GmbH organises the event; the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) owns the brand, with its Circle of Online Marketers (OVK) as a named partner. Exhibitors are mainly sales houses, platforms, data vendors and agencies; visitors are marketers, agency staff and other vendors.

What. An annual two-day trade fair and conference for digital marketing, advertising and commerce, combining an exhibition split into themed Worlds with summits, stages and masterclasses, and a disputed headline attendance of 40,000.

When. Founded in 2009 as the successor to Online Marketing Düsseldorf, held digitally in 2020 and 2021, and scheduled for September 23 and 24, 2026.

Where. On the Koelnmesse grounds in Cologne, Germany, with a separate Asian edition in Singapore since October 2025.

Why. It gathers the German and European digital ad market in one place, gives companies a stage for product launches and industry initiatives, and serves as a showcase for the BVDW's standards work in one of Europe's largest advertising markets.