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Trim up the tree—the advertising economy is growing faster than anticipated, just in time for the holidays.
Global advertising revenue is expected to grow 9.5% in 2024, 1.7% higher than previously projected, according to a rosy forecast from GroupM published Monday. That puts advertising industry revenue at $1.04 trillion, surpassing the $1 trillion mark for the first time. Next year, ad revenue is expected to grow 7.7%, reaching roughly $1.1 trillion, GroupM said.
In the US alone, advertising revenue is expected to grow 9% to $379 billion in 2024, with 7% of growth expected in 2025.
Where’d that revenue go? Mostly to digital platforms, as one might expect.
Digital advertising, which includes everything from programmatic to streaming inventory to digital OOH, accounted for 81.7% of ad spend, GroupM found. The triopoly of Google, Meta, and Amazon accounted for 41% of all global advertising revenue. (So maybe don’t expect such a blowout holiday party?)
Retail media, which GroupM previously forecast would surpass linear and CTV ad spend by 2028, is now expected to get there by next year, growing to $176.9 billion by 2025 and representing 15.9% of total advertising.
+1: Also helping to power the surge, according to the report, is a handful of well-funded tech companies looking to get their AI technology in the hands of consumers via advertising campaigns, as well as a recovery of the Chinese economy. An impending threat to growth in the sector could be any economic fallout from tariffs proposed by President-elect Donald Trump.
The results are in: Political advertising, which GroupM excludes from its forecasts, ultimately accounted for $15.1 billion in US ad spend, more than 30% higher than 2020.