Global Adspend to Top $1 Trillion

Global advertising expenditure is expected to top $1 trillion this year, rising by 10.7 percent, according to WARC.

The study indicates that adspend will hit $1.08 trillion, reflecting the strongest growth rate in six years. It is a 0.2 percentage point upgrade on WARC’s global forecast from August.

WARC is also projecting a 7.6 percent gain next year, moderating to 7 percent in 2026, to reach $1.24 trillion.

Online continues to drive gains but it’s been a good year for television, WARC says; linear TV spend is expected to end the year 1.9 percent higher, at $153.6 billion, following two years of decline. Political spend, especially in the U.S., as well as the Paris Olympics and the Euro 2024 football tournament, helped to boost linear TV’s fortunes. Linear’s share of adspend, however, continues to fall, dropping to 14.3 percent from a peak of 41.3 percent in 2013.

Pure play internet—including Alphabet, Amazon and Meta—will see adpsend rise by 14.1 percent to reach $741.4 billion, almost 70 percent of all advertising expenditure globally. Social media dominates with a total of $252.7 billion, a 23.5 percent share.

James McDonald, director of data, intelligence and forecasting at WARC and author of the research, said: “Our latest forecast anticipates $104 billion in incremental advertising spend worldwide this year, the largest rise in history if the post-pandemic recovery year of 2021 were discounted. 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.”