US Ad Spending

We forecast that US ad spending will grow 6.6% this year, reaching $220.96 billion. That growth rate, while respectable, is lower than the 7.3% increase in 2017.

Here are the key numbers:

• TV ad spending will drop 0.5% to $69.87 billion. And it will continue to slip slowly throughout this forecast period (which ends in December 2022) save for a slight bump in 2020, thanks to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the US presidential election.
• Google’s digital ad revenues will reach $39.92 billion in 2018, a 14.5% increase over last year. Facebook will generate $21.00 billion in ad revenues, up 16.9%. Together, the two giants will grab 27.6% of all ad dollars. Their continuing growth is a major factor in leading us to forecast that digital channels will account for more than 50% of total ad spending next year. And by 2019, Google and Facebook will have combined ad revenues greater than that of TV ad spending.
• This year, driven by display ads, mobile will account for 69.9% of all digital advertising. With a 33.9% share of total US ad spend, mobile will pass TV as the leading advertising medium in the world’s largest ad market—and we expect that share will grow to a whopping 47.9% by 2022.