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Global events over the past three years drastically changed how consumers and businesses around the world discover, buy, and sell products and services. As brick-and-mortar shops and offices closed their doors, online shopping, food delivery, streaming services, and remote work quickly skyrocketed–becoming the new norm.
In this article, we share 75+ eye-opening marketing spend statistics across different advertising platforms and mediums. These numbers highlight changes and trends brought on by the pandemic, as well as companies’ plans to ride out the ensuing economic repercussions.
Let’s kick it off with numbers that illustrate current attitudes towards marketing in general.
Company marketing spend
How do businesses spend on marketing in general?
Companies spend 9.1% of revenue on marketing, on average. (Gartner)
Consumers across the globe spent $900 billion more at online retailers in 2020 versus the prior two-year trend. (Mastercard Economics Institute)
63% of American consumers say that they shop more online now than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. (Enterpriseapptoday)
90% of brands say they'll have budgets dedicated to AI marketing technology in 2024. (Invoca)
Consequently, many marketers across all industries exponentially increased their spend on digital transformation and online campaigns, in an effort to quickly adjust to growing consumer demands for digital experiences in the global marketplace. That increase in spend will likely slow in 2023.
eCommerce sites account for more than 18% of all retail sales worldwide. (Digivate)
From paid ads and software fees, to agency services and contracted labor–teams can quickly rack up a range of marketing expenses.
The current state of marketing budgets
A general overview of marketing spend activity around the world shows that it’s constantly changing–whether that’s steady or rapid growth and decline.
Despite the dips in ad budgets and revenue for many sectors since the onset of the pandemic, research shows that these same industries will likely recover over time. Sadly, marketing budgets are often the first to get slashed in times of trouble.
Marketers reported a 10.4% growth in marketing spending from 2022-23. (The CMO Survey)
In one study, 49% of B2B marketers in the US said they're facing budget or resource constraints in 2024. (Marketing Charts)
At the same time, ad spending is expected to increase by 4.4% in the US and 5.7% in the UK in 2024. (Digiday)
Globally, ad spend is expected to grow by almost 10% in 2024. (Digiday)
Travel ad spend reached $6.28 billion in 2023 - a return to pre-pandemic levels. This is expected to increase to $7.24 billion in 2024. (Statista)
Digital advertising spend
Even as certain industries have struggled during the last couple years, others have thrived under the current circumstances. As the world continues to move towards an increasingly online-connected lifestyle, companies have adjusted their strategies and refocused their ad spend priorities to market to consumers’ changing needs.
Global digital ad spending went above $600 billion for the first time. (Oberlo)
Digital advertising spending worldwide is valued at $667.6 billion. (Oberlo)
Google and Meta still dominate the advertising market at 50.5% combined, but their dominance is forecasted to wane. (Insider Intelligence)
Amazon is one reason for Google and Meta's decline in the advertising space; Amazon accounted for 11% of all digital ads purchased. (Washington Post)
Amazon's ad revenue reached $14.65 billion in the fourth quarter 2023. (SearchEngineLand)
Alibaba generated the third-highest amount of ad revenue in 2022, behind Google and Meta, with $40.01 billion. (Digiday)
Digital ad fraud committed by hackers and bots caused US advertisers $15.9 billion in losses in 2022. (Wordstream)
Mobile advertising is more important than ever with increased smartphone use worldwide and marketing spend is reflecting that:
90.7% of internet users today use their smartphones to access the web. (DataReportal)
Nearly 25% of companies invest in mobile optimization as a top SEO tactic. (HubSpot)
Mobile programmatic ad spend was projected to reach $93.84 billion in the US in 2024. (eMarketer)
Mobile advertising spending worldwide reached $327 billion in 2022, and is expected to be near $400 million in 2024. (Statista)
Paid search ads are changing the game for advertisers, small to medium businesses and global enterprises alike:
Mobile search ads can increase brand awareness by 46%, while more than 50% of smartphone users have discovered a new product or company when performing a search on their mobile device. (SEO Tribunal)
In 2023, marketers will spend over $90 billion on paid search ads in the US–$31 billion on desktop/laptops and $59 billion on mobile placements. (eMarketer)
The average CPA in Google Ads across all industries is $56.11 for search and $90.80 for display network. (Instapage)
55% of marketing professionals rated paid search advertising as a top priority for 2022. (ROI Revolution)
Content marketing spend
Although many may associate advertising spend with traditional “blast” messaging, content marketing is on the rise–and fast. This marketing strategy increases ROI and efficacy of marketing spend by providing valuable, engaging, and relevant content to targeted audiences.
82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (HubSpot)
This is not limited to creating new content. 42% of marketers said that refreshing existing content increased its value. (SEMrush)
53% of professionals say that blogging is their top priority for content marketing. (OptinMonster)
85% of content marketers expect AI to change the way they create content. (HubSpot)
Video content
Video content in particular is one of the most popular formats for digital ad campaigns, leading to an investment in sales videos:
87% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales. (Wyzowl)
CTV (connected television) ad spend is growing faster than traditional television spend. (Dentsu)
91% of businesses use video in their marketing strategy. (Wyzowl)
Marketing departments use video the most, followed by sales and then HR. (Animoto)
92% of marketers are happy with the ROI that video provides. (Wyzowl)
Social media spend statistics
From Facebook and Instagram, to TikTok and Snapchat–marketers across the globe are increasing their ad spend on a diverse array of social network platforms to achieve their business objectives and reach target audiences.
Interested in this topic? Read more social media ad spending statistics here!
CMOs report that digital channels used 56% of their marketing budgets in 2022, with social media the top channel for spend. (PFL)
In 2023, total social media advertising spending by US companies is expected to exceed $94 billion, a 17% increase from 2022. (Oberlo)
There are 4.89 billion social media users around the world–and growing. (Oberlo)
93% of businesses say they’ve landed a new customer because of a video on social media. (Animoto)
96% of marketers have confidence in social media to deliver a positive ROI. (Hootsuite)
The "creator economy" (another name for influencer marketing) is estimated to be $21 billion. (AdWeek)
Marketing teams are expected to spend $32 billion on influencer marketing in 2024. (AdWeek)
93% of social media marketers use Facebook ads. (Lyfe Marketing)
Facebook generated $131.94 billion in ad revenue in 2023. This was up 16.2% compared with 2022. (Yaguara)
Facebook ads and Google ads have the highest ROI of paid channels, according to Ranktracker.
54% of marketers consider Facebook the top advertising platform for B2B marketing. (Techjury)
Mobile ads outperform desktop ads by 34% on Facebook. (Lyfe Marketing)
In the US, Instagram reached $50.58 billion in annual ad sales in 2023. (AnswerIQ)
Instagram has 2.4 billion monthly active users, 61% of whom are between 18 and 34 years old. (Demandsage)
4 million businesses use Instagram Stories ads monthly and 58% of Instagram users say they’re more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories. (Instagram)
TikTok
Millennials and Gen Z have a combined global spending power of $4.4 trillion and growing. (Campaign)
TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and more than 60% of them are Gen Z. (Vogue Business)
The majority of TikTok content creators are between 18 and 24 years old. (Search Logistics)
As of January 2024, the United States was the country with the largest TikTok audience by far (150 million users), followed by Indonesia (126 million) and Brazil (99 million). (Search Logistics)
It's the fastest-growing social media platform, and 40% of businesses plan to incorporate it into their social media strategy. (Wordstream)
67% of users say that TikTok inspired them to find out more about a product or brand, 74% of users say it helped them decide what to buy, and 66% of users say the app has inspired them to shop even when they weren’t planning to do so. (TikTok)
TikTok brought in an estimated $14.3 billion revenue in 2023, a 52% increase from 2022. (Business of Apps)
TikTok brand takeover ads cost marketers anywhere between $20,000 — $200,000 in ad spend. (Digiday)
Snapchat
15-to-25-year-olds make up 48% of Snapchat's user base. (Forbes)
Snapchat reaches more than 70% of 13-34 year olds in countries comprising over half the world's digital ad spend. (Snapchat)
82% of American teenagers use Snapchat at least monthly. (SocialPilot)
Snapchat had 406 million daily active users in Q3 2023. (Social Shepherd)
In February 2024, monthly active users were over 800 million. (Hootsuite)
Over 4.75 billion Snaps are created every day. (Backlinko)
Traditional advertising spend statistics
Consumer behaviors have changed dramatically even before COVID. As digital transformation and internet accessibility have become more widespread, there’s been a gradual drop in traditional ad spend across all industries–although these formats aren’t going to disappear overnight.
Traditional advertising in the US continues to show negative expected growth. (The CMO Survey)
Globally, traditional ad spend across formats including newspaper, television, and outdoor advertising are predicted to fall by 20.7%. (Finances Online)
Despite an overall decline in traditional ad spend, newspaper ad spend grew in Q4 2022 by 22% YoY. (Marketing Dive)
Television ad spend
The television advertising market is expected to grow 6.4% from 2023 to 2024, from $130 billion to $138 billion. (The Business Research Company)
In France, television advertising revenue is projected to grow 5% to €3.8 billion in 2024, thanks in part to the Paris Olympics and Euro football competition. (Mediametrie)
UK television advertising revenue decreased by 12.5% from 2022 to 2023. Digital advertising now makes up 80% of the £43bn ad market in the UK. (The Guardian)
National TV ad spending in the US was estimated to fall 12.5% in 2023, and experts predict a further 9.4% percent drop in 2024. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Thanks to digital innovation in smart TVs (also known as connected TVs), CTV advertising spend increased by 23.7% in 2022. (Dentsu)
Like television ads, some traditional marketing platforms have persevered through the digital revolution by adapting to their digital counterparts. As resolutions such as The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) arise from the fight for internet user privacy, marketers are looking for alternative ways to reach and collect data from their customers to provide more relevant experiences.
Print advertising
Worldwide print advertising spending has decreased every year since 2017. (Statista)
Newspaper advertising accounts for $33.35 billion of the total $46.23 billion print ad spend volume in 2024. (Statista)
The US newspaper industry is expected to lose $2.4 billion in advertising revenue from 2021 to 2026. (Redline)
Headcounts in US newspaper newsrooms fell by as much as 90% between 2008 and 2023. (Redline)
Traffic to newspaper websites peaked in 2020, but then dropped by 20% in 2021 and a further 20% in 2022. (Pew Research)
Print newspaper consumption decreased by 20% in France in 2023, and 30% in Denmark. (Fastprint)
Despite this decline, French newspapers expect 18.4% growth in 2024 due to the Paris Olympics and high profile elections in key countries.
Marketing spend going forward
Despite the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, the good news is that e-commerce and digital-savvy consumer behaviors are likely to stick in the long-run, even as market trends continue to evolve over time. In order to succeed, marketers must continue to adapt at a moment’s notice to unexpected circumstances and marketing trends while maintaining consumer confidence.
No matter the size or industry of the company, managing marketing budgets is no easy feat. Juggling ad spend, subscriptions, and reimbursements for your team can be overwhelming, but you can simplify and streamline those processes with our all-in-one spend management solution at Spendesk.
We're here to help.
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