North America, Advertising expenditure by medium

Overview of advertising expenditurein North America, 2007-2016.

Advertising expenditure in North America stood at US$ 193.3bn in 2016, according to data from WARC. This represents year-on-year growth of 8.0% from 2015, when total spend amounted to US$ 179.0bn. North America has only just overtaken the level of advertising expenditure recorded before the global financial crash. It finally overtook its 2007 high of US$ 180.7bn in 2016.

When considering advertising expenditure in North America by media channel, data show that TV has consistently accounted for the majority share of spend since 2007. In 2016, TV accounted for US$ 70.2bn, equivalent to a 36.3% share. The next biggest channel...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands