Signals of strong growth
Global ad investment has more than doubled over the last decade and has grown 2.8x faster than global economic output since 2014. Growth is also anticipated next year (+7.6%) and in 2026 (+7.0%).
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"Our latest forecast anticipates $104bn in incremental advertising spend worldwide this year, the largest rise in history if the post-pandemic recovery year of 2021 were discounted,”
explains James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence and Forecasting, WARC.
“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.”
What’s going on
This is based on data from a Q4 update to WARC’s Global Ad Spend Outlook 2024/25, based on data aggregated form 100 markets worldwide. New for this edition, it leverages a proprietary neural network which projects advertising investment patterns based on over two million data points, spanning macroeconomic data, media owner revenue, marketing expenses from the world's largest advertisers, media consumption trends and media cost inflation.
Key points in brief
- Projected 10.7% rise in global spend this year equivalent to an additional $104bn in advertiser investment, the second-highest absolute rise on record
- One in five dollars (22.1%) spent on ads outside of China is paid to Google; DOJ ruling now threatens $32.9bn of potential growth over the next two years
- Advertisers are due to spend $299bn this holiday season, with online platforms such as Amazon ($16.9bn in holiday-season ad revenue) set to be the biggest beneficiaries.
Source: warc.com
