Cross-media investment dipped again in October, but Standard Media Index says this is largely due to the market normalizing after increases last year – as well as some of the highest spending advertisers scaling back.

According to SMI’s data pool, pulled from spending data at Canadian agencies, investment across platforms was down 7% year-over-year in October.

While recession fears and spending may be partially to blame, SMI’s analysis points to a normalization from a hot 2021 as a bigger factor. This is backed up by the fact that this October was up 8% compared to 2020 and 3% compared to 2019.

Also, total investment was also roughly $575 million, outperforming every month in Q3 as holiday spending began. It is also less stark of a decline as seen in July and August, when investment first began to cool off.

Looking just at digital, investment was down 4% year-over-year, though there was still growth in search (3%), pure-play video (9%) and TV networks’ digital properties (a massive 64% as more ad-supported VOD and FAST options enter the market). Digital also held 54% share of spending, which is up one point from a year prior.

Linear TV ad spend was down 13% in October, with declines in both specialty (8%) and conventional (17%), though spending was still up 14% compared to 2020. Linear TV had a 36% share of total cross-media spend, a two-point decline year-over-year.

Out-of-home spending was also up 4% year-over-year. Radio spending was flat compared to 2021, but down 20% compared to 2020. Print ad investment was down 14% year-over-year.

CPG (20% share), automotive (15% share) and financial services (14% share) were the top spending advertiser sectors in October. However, CPG spending was down 9% and financial services was down 19%, while automotive was up 12% (its first month of year-over-year growth in 2022). In fact, automotive advertisers were one of only four product categories that increased their spending year-over-year in October, with the others being general business, pharma and wellness.

The same three product categories had also the biggest share of digital ad spending, but CPG spending fell 2% and automotive spending grew 27%, with both holding a 19% share. Financial services had a 17% share, though its total spending fell 16%.

On Linear TV, CPG advertisers reduced spending by 18%, but still had the largest share at 24%. General business spending grew by 21% year-over-year to hit a 12% share, while retail fell to an 11% share after cutting spending by 24%.