Digital video continues to be one of the fastest growing advertising channels in the US, up 50.8% in 2021 compared to last year, with total revenues of USD 39.5 billion. However, digital audio grew even more and captured the highest YoY growth, up 57.9% to $4.9 billion, IAB´s full year analysis shows.

“US digital advertising experienced tremendous growth in 2021. During the past year, the industry was able to capitalize on the resurgence of marketing budgets throughout the year (following a decline in Q2 of 2020) and the influx of isolated consumers who relied on digital media as their primary connection during the pandemic. Overall, digital ad revenue increased 35.4% year-over-year—the highest growth since 2006.”

Social media advertising was up 39.3% to $57.7 billion. Search revenue grew 32.8% in 2021, but it did not grow as strong as other areas, leading to a slight decrease in total revenue share (reduction of 0.8 percentage points).

”Although the industry continues to face uncertainty surrounding privacy regulation, the deprecation of third-party cookies and identifiers, measurement challenges and supply-chain transparency, brands have spoken and digital is where they are putting their dollar”, IAB said.

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For 2022, IAB stresses that it and PwC both forecast continued digital ad growth, driven by significant innovation in retail media, connected TV/internet TV, gaming, and digital audio.

”The continued rise of AR/VR, the metaverse, and Web3 technologies is expected to spark innovation — and continue to drive ad revenue in the years ahead.”

IAB said that the 2021 growth is consistent with a recent study from Harvard Business School, commissioned by IAB, which showed the internet economy has grown seven times faster than the U.S. economy over the past four years and now accounts for 12% of the U.S. GDP.

“We fully expected 2021 to be an exceptional year for digital ad growth, but even we were surprised at the degree of acceleration. Not only was every single digital channel up, but some were up more than 50% year on year,” said Libby Morgan, the company´s SVP and Chief Strategy Officer. “This year’s increase is 3x what it was last year.”

“Increased consumer usage coupled with extraordinary growth of small and mid-sized businesses during the pandemic has fuelled growth across all digital — but especially digital audio and video. We expect this digital migration to drive the continued growth of a healthy and competitive digital marketplace driven by innovation and entrepreneurship”, said David Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, IAB.