Global ad spend $1 trillion but there are geopolitical challenges
Global advertising spend is on course to surpass $1 trillion for the first time after growing 10.7% this year to a total of $1.08 trillion, global marketing firm WARC says in a forecast. This is the the strongest growth rate in six years and the largest absolute rise on record if the post-Covid recovery of 2021 (+27.9% year-on-year) is disregarded. Ad spend growth is also anticipated next year (+7.6%) and in 2026 (+7.0%), culminating in a global advertising market worth $1.24 trillion.
“Global ad investment has more than doubled over the last decade and has grown 2.8x faster than global economic output since 2014.”
“Whether this boom will sustain remains unclear, however, as 2025 presents a sliding doors moment due to heightened regulatory pressures on Google and TikTok – together a quarter of the ad market outside of China. This, alongside an increasingly challenging geopolitical climate, may spell uncertain times ahead for the businesses that rely on advertising trade”, says James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence and Forecasting, WARC,
The new forecast 2024 is a 0.2 percentage point (pp) upgrade on WARC’s last global forecast in August. One in five dollars (22.1%) spent on ads, outside of China, is paid to Google. TikTok’s global ad billings are estimated to have increased by 27.1% to $17.8 billion over the first nine months of 2024.
Advertisers are forecasted to spend $299 billion this holiday season, with online platforms such as Amazon ($16.9 billion in holiday-season ad revenue) set to be the biggest beneficiaries
Globally, retail media is forecast to rise 16.4% in Q4 2024 to a total of $46.2 billion – a new high.
WARC’s latest global projections are based on data aggregated from 100 markets worldwide.
“While the headline growth rate is mostly being driven by online media, a good year for TV has also made a notable contribution. Linear TV spend is expected to end the year 1.9% higher, at $153.6 billion, following two years of decline”, the report says.
“TV has been boosted by political advertising – particularly in the US – during the fourth quarter and both the Paris Olympics and the Euro 2024 football tournament in the third. Linear TV now accounts for just 14.3% of global advertising spend, however, down from a peak of 41.3% in 2013.”
“Building upon a solid performance for legacy media, pure play internet, which encompasses advertising revenue among online-only businesses such as Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, is poised to grow by 14.1% to a total of $741.4 billion – over two thirds (68.8%) of all ad spend.”
Social media is the largest individual sector within pure play internet – and the largest advertising medium of all by extension – with a total of $252.7 billion this year equivalent to 23.5% of the global ad market.
“Prospects for the social market have been revised upwards this year to +19.3%, owing mostly to stronger-than expected results for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok over the first nine months of the year.”
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