US Time Spent vs. Ad Spending 2023

Where Are the Most Intriguing Imbalances Between Consumer Behavior and Marketer Investments?

Report by Ethan Cramer-Flood  | UPDATED: Dec 22, 2023
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Executive Summary
Marketers have transitioned toward digital and away from TV more intensively than the population has.
Meta’s ad revenue share vastly exceeds its share of consumer time.
US adults spend lots of time with audio, but ad dollars do not follow.
Advertisers have not caught up with the CTV boom and remain heavily skewed toward mobile.
Ad spending per hour of time spent per adult is wildly different across media formats.
Media Gallery
About This Report
This first-of-its-kind report compares and contrasts our US ad spending forecast with our US time spent with media forecast. It identifies unexpected incongruities between how marketers are spending ad dollars and where consumers are spending their time.
Topics
Time Spent with Media
Total Media Ad Spending
US
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Marketers have transitioned toward digital and away from TV more intensively than the population has.
Meta’s ad revenue share vastly exceeds its share of consumer time.
US adults spend lots of time with audio, but ad dollars do not follow.
Advertisers have not caught up with the CTV boom and remain heavily skewed toward mobile.
Ad spending per hour of time spent per adult is wildly different across media formats.
Media Gallery

Marketers will spend over $350 billion on ads in the US this year alone. Most of those billions will go to media and entertainment platforms that are in constant competition for consumers’ time and attention. US adults will spend an average of 12 hours, 11 minutes per day with these platforms. Our analysis reveals significant—and sometimes extreme—imbalances between where consumers spend their media time and where marketers put their ad dollars.

Key Question: What insights can be gleaned by comparing our US time spent with media forecast with our US ad spending forecast? Where is ad spending most misaligned?

Share of Digital Time Spent per Day by US Adults vs. Share of US Digital Ad Spending, by Platform, 2023 (% share of time spent with digital and % share of total digital ad spending)
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KEY STAT: Among the top digital platforms for time spent, Meta takes in a disproportionately huge share of US digital ad spending (19.5%) compared with the amount of time per day US adults spend with its platforms (34 minutes, or 7.6% of daily time with digital media).

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Table of Contents

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Marketers have transitioned toward digital and away from TV more intensively than the population has.
  3. Meta’s ad revenue share vastly exceeds its share of consumer time.
  1. US adults spend lots of time with audio, but ad dollars do not follow.
  2. Advertisers have not caught up with the CTV boom and remain heavily skewed toward mobile.
  3. Ad spending per hour of time spent per adult is wildly different across media formats.
  1. Media Gallery

Charts in This Report

Share of Digital Time Spent per Day by US Adults vs. Share of US Digital Ad Spending, by Platform, 2023 (% share of time spent with digital and % share of total digital ad spending)Digital Media Share of Average Time Spent per Day With Media by US Adults vs. Digital Media Share of Total US Ad Spending, 2018-2025 (% share of time spent and % share of total ad spending)
TV Share of Average Time Spent per Day With Media by US Adults vs. TV Share of Total US Ad Spending, 2018-2025 (% share of time spent and % share of total ad spending)US Share of Time Spent per Day With Media vs. Share of Total US Ad Spending, by Audio Formats, 2023 (% share of time spent and % share of total ad spending)
Share of Time Spent per Day With Digital Media by US Adults vs. Share of Total US Digital Ad Spending, by Device, 2023 (% of time spent and % of total digital ad spending)US Ad Spending per Hour Spent by US Adults With Select Media Formats, 2023, 2023

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First Published on Jul 17, 2023

authors

Ethan Cramer-Flood

Contributors

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf
Senior Analyst, Digital Advertising & Media
Peter Newman
Director, Forecasting
Oscar Orozco
Director, Forecasting
Debra Aho Williamson
Principal Analyst