OMD and Omnicom were once again the top-performing media agency and holding company in Canada last year, according to COMvergence’s ranking of 2022 media spending.

COMvergence comes to its annual rankings by examining spending from clients with a media budget over $1 million, representing a total of $5.2 billion in spending from 23 agencies. All client lists are reviewed and validated by the agencies themselves.

OMD was once again the leading agency by billings with $609 million from 58 clients, with year-over-year growth of 4.2%.

Cossette Media was once again in second, despite its billings slipping by 16.4% to $475 million. UM hopped up the rankings to third, thanks to 15.8% growth to $428 million in billings, while Carat slipped to fourth after a 15.5% decline to $422 million. Initiative managed to crack the top five this year with 23.6% growth in billings to $382 million.

Mediacom and Essence, which merged at the beginning of this year, were kept separate in the 2022 edition of COMvergence’s rankings, but will be combined for the 2023 edition.

Some of the biggest account decisions impacting billings in 2022 were the result of global reviews, such as Coca-Cola going from Carat to WPP, Audible picking Wavemaker, Dyson moving from Mindshare to UM and Google moving from PHD to what is now EssenceMediacom.

But many of them were also specific to Canada, such Unilever moving from Mindshare to PHD, WestJet moving from Media Experts to Touche!, Pokerstars going from Cossette Media to UM, BCLC going from EssenceMediacom to Cossette Media and Loto Quebec picking Touche!

At the holding company level, Omnicom topped the list at $1.53 billion in billings last year and 18.8% market share. GroupM and IPG Mediabrands were effectively tied at $1 billion and just under 17% market share, with Dentsu in third at $613 million in billings and 9.8% market share.

COMvergence also found that digital now accounts for 56% of the billings at the 23 agencies.