After years of worrying about the country’s economy and its effect on advertising spending, there’s finally some good news. We can expect growth next year!

U.S. Advertising Spending Positioned for Strong Growth

Ad Spending in 2024

According to a report from Madison and Wall, total advertising revenue for 2023 is expected to amount to $363 billion. That’s an increase of 2% over 2022. Which is good, but nothing compared to what 2024 holds in store. Madison and Wall anticipates total advertising revenue to increase by 8.1%! This growth will be led by political and digital advertising.

Political Advertising

According to a report by AdAge, political advertising spending alone is expected to reach $17 billion in 2024. That’s $3 billion more than the total spending in 2020.

Another AdAge article predicts that 2024 political advertising spending will be divided as such:

Broadcast TV (local/network): $5 billion (an increase of $0.5 billion over 2020)
CTV/Streaming TV: $1.8 billion (an increase of $0.8 billion over 2020)
Google/Facebook: $1.6 billion (an increase of $0.4 billion over 2020)
Cable/Satellite TV (local/network): $1.5 billion (equal to 2020 spending)
Radio: $400 million

Digital Advertising

As always, digital advertising spending will also continue to rise in 2024. AdAge predicts that digital advertising will account for about 67% of all advertising spend in 2024, primarily:

Search
Social media
Commerce
Retail media
Other digital platforms, such as YouTube, Yahoo and Apple

Social media and digital video ads in particular are poised for growth, says AdAge. Social media ad spending is set to increase by 10.9% in 2024 after growth of 13.4% in 2023. And short-form digital video (including YouTube and Twitch) is estimated to grow by 9.1% in 2024 after an increase of 5.9% in 2023.

And it’s not just 2024 that will benefit from increasing digital advertising spending. Madison and Wall predicts that digital advertising will continue to dominate the media ecosystem as time goes on.

Outdoor Advertising

Although traditional advertising spending is predicted to drop in 2024, there is one traditional ad medium that’s expected to grow. AdAge says it’s outdoor advertising since “people are increasingly getting out and about following the height of the pandemic.”

Local Ad Spending

It’s not just national advertising spending that’s poised for growth in 2024. A recent MediaPost report says that local U.S. ad revenue will increase by 8.6% between 2023 and 2024. Again, this growth is thanks in large part to political ads. In addition, traditional media will trump digital in 2024.

MediaPost says that 52% of local advertising spending will go toward traditional ads. Digital ads aren’t far behind at 48%. But that’s a 1% decrease from 2023.

Overall, the top local ad media types are:

CTV: This ad medium has the fastest growth rate (39.5% for 2024)
OTA TV: The largest local video category by dollar spend
Digital TV: 24.3% growth
Cable TV: 19.7% growth
Out-of-Home: 9.4% growth

Overall, according to AdAge, political ads will help local TV advertising revenue increase by 28% next year.

What Your Client Will Spend Their Ad Dollars On

Of course, generalizations of advertising spending don’t usually fit the plans of individual brands. Want to know what your client will likely and should be spending their ad dollars on in 2024? Take a look at their target audience’s profile on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel.

There, you’ll be able to review the influence of ad media types, both digital and traditional. Specifically, you learn what inspired what percentages of that audience to take action within the last year. Your client wants to make the most of their advertising spending in 2024. To do so, they should pay attention to and take action based on AudienceSCAN data.

Photo by Alexander Grey