This editorial introduces the special section on Advances in Computational Advertising. We define computational advertising, as well as discuss the historical background and conceptualization of the computational advertising field. We describe the unique thought leadership forum (TLF) model that was developed to facilitate new research collaboration among scholars from varying academic disciplines, methodological and disciplinary perspectives, and different expertise to examine important and timely issues related to computational advertising and to set a forward-looking research agenda for the next decade and beyond. Five articles resulting from the TLF project and included in this special section are briefly discussed. Then, we identify future challenges and opportunities of computational advertising and propose future research directions.