It was calculated that the digital advertising spending worldwide amounted to 549.51 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. The source projected that by 2027, the spending would reach 870.85 billion dollars.

Advertising spending - additional information

Advertising can utilize almost any form of media to meet its needs. Media including print, television, radio, cinema, outdoor, mobile and digital have all been targeted by advertisers. Global advertising spending has been constantly increasing (with the exception of 2020) since 2010, and is forecast to round up to nearly 856 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Due to advances in technology and consumer preferences, not all media are as heavily invested in as others. As of 2022, the internet was considered the most important medium for advertisers, accounting for 62 percent of total media ad spend in 2022. Internet expenditures are projected to record a growth of 8.4 percent in 2023.

Digital advertising spending worldwide – which includes both desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile devices – stood at an estimated 522.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. This figure is forecast to constantly increase in the coming years, reaching a total of 835.82 billion U.S. dollars by 2026. Mobile internet advertising is a heavily invested sub-sector of the digital advertising industry. Mobile internet advertising spending is forecast to increase from 276 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 to nearly 495 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Following this pattern, mobile advertising spending in the U.S. is also forecast to grow in the coming years. Mobile ad spending in the U.S. is projected to gain nearly 25 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

In 2021, global social media advertising spending stood at around 116 billion U.S. dollars. The source projected that this figure would more than double and exceed an all-time high of 262 billion by 2028.

Where to advertise in a sea of social media platforms?

While there are many regional differences when it comes to social media usage and accessibility, some platforms reign supreme among users and advertisers alike. As of 2022, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram were the most popular social networks worldwide. Thanks to their massive audiences, these Meta-owned properties also ranked among the leading social media platforms for marketers. What makes advertising via these channels so appealing is not only the prospect of boosting brand awareness and generating leads but also the possibility to strengthen brands’ relationships with consumers via direct communication.

Spotlight on influencer marketing

In addition to posting photos and videos on their social media accounts and interacting with followers, companies can also enlist the help of content creators to drive visibility and potentially unlock new audiences. Over the past few years, the global influencer marketing market value has expanded rapidly and is now sized at an estimated 16.4 billion U.S. dollars. Instagram remains the primary playground for this creator-driven form of online marketing, though apps like TikTok are also becoming more appealing to brands from around the world.

It is projected that digital advertising expenditures in the United States will increase by 50 percent between 2024 and 2028. In that five years period U.S. digital ad spend will grow from 303 to 452 billion dollars. These figures will represent roughly 45 percent of global digital ad spending, which is expected to reach some 871 billion U.S. dollars in 2027, up from the 506 billion recorded in 2021.

Mobile advertising in the U.S.

With mobile growing in strength, sources predict that it will account for the lion’s share of total digital spending in the United States. In 2023, roughly 195 billion U.S. dollars is forecast to be spent on mobile ads in the country. Sometime in early 2017 a clear change was seen in allocation of marketing dollars, when U.S. industry professionals started increasing the share of their budgets devoted to mobile marketing. Since then, a growing focus on this medium is evident. While mobile advertising is becoming more popular, marketers still have some concerns with its execution, mainly when it comes to data quality and sourcing, as well as measurement issues. All in all, those who decided to spend on mobile have been shifting away from display ads and towards video advertising since early 2018.

It was calculated that the total advertising expenditure in North America in 2021 amounted to about 297.5 billion U.S. dollars. However, the spending increased by nearly 19 percent that year, after decreasing by just above one percent in the previous year due to the impact of the coronavirus. Advertising spending in the United States The United States is the largest advertising market in the world, with ad spending amounting to 250 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Looking at breakdowns of expenditures by medium, in 2021 and 2025, approximately 153 billion U.S. dollars were directed towards internet ads in 2021, which is estimated to increase even further in 2025. This was followed by over 72 billion U.S. dollars spent on ads on TV in 2021 and is expected to increase by roughly 10 billion in 2025. Advertising spending in Canada The advertising market in Canada is also following the global growth trend. Media spending in Canada has been steadily growing since 2012, reaching 11.8 billion U.S. dollars in net ad spend in 2019. Unsurprisingly, in 2020, when the global advertising market was affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Canadain market also suffered. That year ad spend in the country fell to 10 billion U.S. dollars. Nonetheless, once the industry returns to normal, data on specific media expenditures in Canada suggest that the rise of the digital channels is evident in the country, as the advertising dollars are being directed towards the internet, while traditional media such as magazines and newspapers will be seeing less and less investments in the near future.

In 2025, advertising and marketing spending worldwide will reach an estimated 1.87 trillion U.S. dollars, up from almost 1.78 trillion dollars a year earlier. For comparison, Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to approximately 1.8 trillion dollars in 2024, setting it as the world's 14th largest economy that year.

The source forecast that, in 2024, advertising revenues in Mexico will reach approximately 132.75 billion Mexican pesos, up from less than 120 billion pesos a year earlier – an annual growth of about 11 percent.

Brands and where to find them in Mexico The Mexican market is home to multiple domestic and foreign brands. As of late 2023, Bimbo – a multinational food manufacturer – and Modelo – the brewery behind beer labels such as Corona – ranked among the most reputable brands in Mexico, followed Google. When offline, the Mexican consumer will most likely come across companies' names on TV and out-of-home (OOH) displays. Those were the traditional ad media with the highest reach in the North American country as of September 2023.

A place and a purpose for Mexican online ads While TV sets and billboards dominate offline consumers' attention, video portals (such as YouTube) and social media were Mexico's leading digital ad touchpoints as of September 2023. Video streaming services rounded up the top three. Mexican internet users know what they expect from commercials and displays within those environments. According to the same study, almost half of consumers in Mexico did not mind online ads if they received free content in return. Furthermore, only 16 percent of respondents reported using ad blockers while browsing the internet.

The leading global market in terms of advertising spending is, and has been so far, the United States. The country invested roughly 285 billion U.S. dollars in promotional activities in 2021. This figure is more than three times higher than that of its closest competitor, China, which in comparison only spent about 97 billion dollars that year. Japan was third in line for the crown, with advertising expenditures amounting to nearly 52 billion dollars. In Europe, the UK and Germany are leading the pack and in Latin America Brazil is the frontrunner. A closer look at the ad market in the United States    Television was the largest medium based on spending share in 2018, accounting for 36 percent of total ad expenditures in the country. However, its strong position is being challenged by digital media. Already in 2021, internet ad spend surpassed TV spending in the country. This may be in response to trends in general consumption of advertising in the U.S., where more than half of surveyed adults admit to not paying attention to commercials. Digital media, in contrast to TV, offers the opportunity for better targeting and personalization of ads. The only exception to this rule is addressable TV, which combines the best of both worlds. Addressable TV advertising is constantly growing and seems to be the future solution to diminishing TV investments.

Every year billions of dollars are spent on advertising on social media in the United States. In 2022, the amount reached 66 billion U.S. dollars, and included paid advertising on social networks as well as games and applications on social media. By 2025, advertisers are expected to spend over 82 billion dollars on promoting their products on social networks. Facebook commands the lion’s share of these expenditures (more than 80 percent), followed by LinkedIn and Pinterest with four and two percent respectively. Social network advertising – a closer look   Studies show that a little over 90 percent of U.S. companies are and will be using social media for marketing purposes. In 2017, social messaging and video were thought to be the trends of the future in relation to social media advertising and believed to have the biggest effect on marketing strategies. Lo and behold, advertising spending on social video has been growing ever since, and is expected to amount to nearly 15 billion U.S dollars in 2021. Even in this respect, Facebook has the lead, especially when it comes to influencer marketing. In fact, all tiers of influencers - from microinfluencers to celebrities - post the majority of their videos on Facebook. The second choice of platform to share their videos is YouTube, which despite being 'the' video sharing platform is not as popular yet among influencers most probably due to smaller user reach.

Significant fluctuations are estimated for all segments over the forecast period for the (non-) programmatic share. Only for the segment Programmatic, a significant increase can be observed over the forecast period. Here, the (non-) programmatic share exhibits a difference of 7.0100 percent between 2021 and 2030. Find further statistics on other topics such as a comparison of the ad spending in Japan and a comparison of the ad spending in the United States. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

Digital ads dominated China's media ad market with a total spending of around 121 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. The current driving force from mobile was expected to increase by more than 50 percent by 2025 while print ads would slowly contract.

Internet advertising was projected to be the medium with the largest share of advertising revenue in the United States in 2022, with 61 percent. Newspapers and magazines were projected to account for roughly 2.7 and 3.3 percent respectively

Advertising spending in the United States – additional information

The U.S. is the largest advertising market worldwide. In 2021, advertising spending in the U.S. amounted to 285 billion U.S. dollars. Second-ranked China spent roughly 90 billion U.S. dollars in advertising that year, a significantly smaller share in comparison to the U.S.

Television remains the leading traditional medium in the U.S. About 68 billion U.S. dollars were invested in television advertising in the U.S. in 2021. In 2022, TV was expected to account for 21 percent of all advertising revenue in the country. Up until recently TV was the main medium overall, however, digital has seen unprecedented growth in the last few years and took the lead ahead of television. Digital advertising spending in the U.S. is estimated to increase from about 199 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 to just over 341 billion by 2026. Digital search is one of the main formats of digital advertising in the U.S., accounting for roughly 40 percent of the U.S. ad expenditure in 2021. Another key trend is the rise of mobile platforms in the advertising industry in the U.S. Mobile investments are projected to increase in the coming years while desktop will see declines at the same time.

In the most recent financial year, X (formerly Twitter) invested 167.1 million U.S. dollars in advertising, up from 56.1 million U.S. dollars in the previous year. Overall, 2021 saw the most that the social networking company has spent on advertising expenditure. In 2021, X/Twitter's worldwide revenue amounted to over five billion U.S. dollars.

In 2021, digital advertising accounted for the highest spending among other forms of advertising in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Total advertising spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was around five billion U.S. dollars.

The ad spending in the 'Social Media Advertising' segment of the advertising market in Israel was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2030 by in total 383.8 million U.S. dollars (+83.8 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the ad spending is estimated to reach 841.75 million U.S. dollars and therefore a new peak in 2030. Notably, the ad spending of the 'Social Media Advertising' segment of the advertising market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find more key insights for the ad spending in countries and regions like the average ad spending per capita in the 'Social Media Advertising' segment of the advertising market in Denmark and the ad spending in the 'Search Advertising' segment of the advertising market in the world. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

In 2021, global banner advertising spending stood at roughly 64 billion U.S. dollars. The source projected that the figure would increase annually at a growth rate of 4.6 percent until 2028, when it is expected to exceed 87 billion.

Outdoor advertising spending reached 18 million U.S. dollars in 2021 in Jordan. This is a 50 percent growth from 2020’s figure for outdoor advertising spending in Qatar. It is also the largest spending on traditional advertising in Jordan in 2021.

In 2018, kids advertising spending amounted to 4.2 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. Expenditure is forecast to reach 4.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2021, out of which an estimated 1.7 billion is projected to stem from digital advertising formats.

Advertising to children
With the widespread adoption of television, advertising to children has become commonplace around the world. Children represent a huge market to advertisers, and while many youngsters have no money to spend themselves, their preferences largely influence their parents’ shopping decisions. In a 2019 survey, 72 percent of parents to kids aged three to 13 from Mexico stated that advertising was the main reason their child picked a specific brand or product, indicating the immense impact of commercial appeals to children.

Kids advertising is moving online – but at what cost?
Ad spend targeted towards children continues to grow, and while traditional advertising still accounts for the lion’s share of expenditure, there has been a noticeable trend towards digital in recent years. This relocation reflects the changing consumer behavior of kids who are gradually shifting their screen time from TVs to digital devices. However, without parental supervision, children are at risk of being exposed to inappropriate digital media and advertising content such as alcohol promotion. This particular problem has been visible in the television industry for years, and in 2018, over 300 million non-compliant alcohol advertising impressions were registered on U.S. cable TV programs alone. As young audiences are more impressionable and cannot always identify ads as such, the rise of advertising platforms calls for stricter regulations in terms of the language and images used. Just as in traditional media formats, digital advertising to children should be legal, decent, and truthful, while also ensuring data protection and privacy relating to children’s personal information.

The ad spending in the advertising market in Hungary was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2030 by in total 345.2 million U.S. dollars (+27.54 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the ad spending is estimated to reach 1.6 billion U.S. dollars and therefore a new peak in 2030. Notably, the ad spending of the advertising market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find more in-depth information regarding the ad spending concerning the search advertising segment of the advertising market in Russia and the revenue concerning the digital banner advertising segment of the advertising market in Israel. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

Digital ad spending in China was projected to reach around 176 billion U.S. dollars by 2026, over half of which would come from e-commerce and social advertising. Digital advertising would very likely maintain a major share of the total media ad revenue in the coming few years.

In 2024, digital retail media advertising spending in Europe stood at 13.83 billion euros. The source projected that the value would more than double by 2028, reaching an estimated 31 billion. Retailers are adjusting to consumer trends Consumers are shopping for products online more frequently than ever, especially since the onset of the pandemic. This rapid boost in e-commerce activity simultaneously pushes brands to advertise their products on e-retail platforms. One of the markets in which this trend is particularly advanced is the United States. In 2021, the U.S. was expected to account for roughly 32 percent of digital retail media advertising spending worldwide, whereas Europe contributed an estimated eight percent. Companies across both markets are projected to ramp up digital retail media investments in the future, but which platforms do they prefer? Amazon remains in a league of its own Amazon remains the number one promotional platform among European and international brands. The U.S.-based retail giant draws millions of users to its platform every day, mainly thanks to its expansive product portfolio and quick delivery formula. In 2023, Amazon’s advertising revenue surpassed 46 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. The online retail powerhouse is expected to single-handedly attract more than three-quarters of U.S. digital retail media advertising investments in 2025.