E-commerce advertising growth to overtake search and social

An overview of the growth in advertising spend by medium in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Excluding cinema, which was forced to shutter in 2020 but rebounded strongly, it was the largest online formats – search and social media – which saw the strongest advertising growth in 2021.

This in turn drove the total ad market to its strongest rise (+23.8%) in WARC’s four decades of monitoring, according to WARC Data's latest Global Advertising Trends report.

Further growth, of 12.5% and 8.3%, is forecast for 2022 and 2023 respectively, and the advertising market is on course to top a value of $1trn in 2025.

E-commerce is set to lead growth in the next two...

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