Last year, total U.S. ad spend was $195 billion, 37% from digital. Digital spend continues to grow exponentially, reaching $83 billion this year. Reinforced by improving ad tech, granular targeting and expanding ad capacity, digital media expenditures will see double-digit growth each year.
Important to note – 63% of $83 billion digital revenue is controlled by two media giants:
• Google/YouTube will garner 42% share
• Facebook/Instagram captures 21% share
What makes up digital?
The majority will be spent on mobile and display (think programmatic).
Mobile ad spending will total $58 billion in 2017, accounting for 70% of digital and 28.5% of all media ad investment.
Advertisers have focused more dollars on mobile, as customers continue to spend more time on mobile devices. By 2021, mobile’s share of digital advertising will rise to 79%.
Display will pull in 50% of digital ad spend this year, powered by programmatic, video and rich media advertising placements, particularly on social media platforms.
Search will account for 44% of digital ad expenditures. Search spend will increase 13% in 2017, spurred by growing interest in mobile search advertising.
TV will see slight ad spend growth of 0.5% in 2017, the format will still account for nearly $72 billion this year, or more than one-third of total media ad spending.
The remaining spend is in print, radio, outdoor and directories – they round out estimated 27% balance.
The digital trend for total U.S. advertising spend is clear – growth:
• 2016 – 37%
• 2017 – 40%
• 2021 – 50%
Digital is on trajectory to pull in 50% of all U.S. dollars spent on advertising by the end of 2021.
Digital marketing and other current media trends will be the focus of the Greenlee Summit on Friday, April 6, 2018. Please consider registering for this interactive event: https://alumni.greenlee.iastate.edu/summit/.
Source: eMarketer, September 2017
Nancy Padberg, MBA leads digital marketing and restructuring go to market strategy focused on Higher Education for Hearst in San Francisco. Former Advisory Board Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business & Management, current Advisory Board to ISU Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication @NancyPadberg npadberg@hearst.com