2024 global ad spend will surpass $1 trillion: report

Global ad spending is predicted to exceed $1 trillion in 2024, according to a report from marketing research firm WARC.

Spend is expected to increase 8.2% next year, the report estimates, while this year it’s set to jump 4.4% to $963 billion.

Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Alibaba, and TikTok parent ByteDance will pull in 51.9% of all ad spend next year, per WARC’s analysis. Nitin Sinha, head of paid media at ad agency Laundry Service, told Marketing Brew he isn’t surprised that advertising spend could hit $1 trillion next year, especially considering the many advertising options these tech companies offer.

“As you would expect, some of these companies rely so heavily on advertising as their sources of revenue, so they’ve done a good job of optimizing that and giving advertisers a lot of options,” he said, pointing to YouTube’s move into short-form video as an example.

Besides examining total growth, the report broke down expected global ad spend growth by channel. It predicted that social media will experience the fastest growth next year, accounting for a fifth of global ad spend and reaching $227 billion. Meta will likely account for the lion’s share (64%) of spending in this category. Retail media will also boom, rising an expected 10.2% this year and 10.5% in 2024 to reach ~$142 billion, with Amazon accounting for 37% of that category’s spend.

The report also examined global ad spend data by sector, finding that financial services, tech and electronics, and pharmaceutical and health industries will likely experience the fastest growth. In terms of spend by country, the US will bring in about a third of global ad spend by next year, the report estimates, though South Asia and the Middle East will see the most growth, jumping 12% and 6% respectively.

WARC predicts India will see double-digit ad revenue growth over the next 18 months, reaching nearly $14 billion next year. “Not only is the advertising industry there maturing at a really fast pace, but you also have this massive audience of people equipped with mobile phones and moving slowly into the middle class and having this increased spending power,” Sinha told us.

Though some advertisers have pulled back on marketing spend over the past few years due to concerns over a potential recession, recent signs have shown that the industry could be bouncing back: Meta and Google reported better-than-expected Q2 earnings, while companies like Kraft Heinz and Nestle have increased marketing spend this year.

“There isn’t really one blanket way in which the whole market is responding to pressures like inflation or a slowing economy,” Sinha said.