Despite continued economic uncertainty here and abroad, global ad spend is on track to grow 10.5% this year, to a total of $1.07 trillion USD, according to WARC. That will be the highest growth in six years, not counting the post-COVID bump in 2021.

In 2025, ad spend is expected to increase another 7.2%, and another 7.0% in 2026, resulting in a global ad market worth $1.23 trillion USD. Global ad investment has more-than-doubled over the last decade and has grown 2.8 times faster than global economic output since 2014. WARC’s latest projections are based on data aggregated from 100 markets.

The incremental spend is attributed to just three companies: Meta, Amazon and Alphabet account for more than 70% of the increased spend and they are expected to attract 43.6% of all ad spend this year, rising to a share over 46% by 2026.

North America is on track to be the fastest-growing region this year – inflated by the U.S. presidential elections – with ad spend rising 8.6% to a total of $347.5 billion USD. The Canadian ad market is due to grow 7.5% to $23.3 billion CND ($16.8 billion USD) this year. The U.S. ad spend is expected to grow 8.9% this year, up 4.0% excluding political spend, more than double the 1.4% growth rate recorded in 2023.

WARC projections show that pure play internet companies are expected to record a 14.0% rise in ad revenue this year, reaching a total of $735.7 billion USD. Nearly nine in every ten (88.5%) incremental dollars spent on advertising this year will go to online-only businesses, with half (52.9%) going to Alphabet, Amazon and Meta.

Retail media (up 21.3%), social media (up 14.2%) and search (up 12.1%) are set to lead digital growth this year to account for over 85% of online spend and almost three in five (58.7%) incremental dollars spent worldwide.

Social media is the largest ad channel measured in WARC’s study and is predicted to reach $241.8 billion USD this year. Social overtook search, behind retail media, for the first time last year – it accounts for 22.6% of all global ad spend this year and is forecasted to rise to a share of 23.6% by the end of 2026.

The major social platforms benefited from new, AI-enabled services during the first half of 2024, a trend that is set to underpin the advertising industry at large over the coming years. Over half of all AI-enabled spend – defined as involving some form of recommendation algorithm, natural language processing or search optimisation – today occurs in the social media sector.

Meta, the largest social platform, is capturing 62.6% of the market this year, although its share is being eroded, most notably by Douyin and TikTok owner Bytedance, which now attracts 20.1% of all social spend, up from 9.3% five years ago. TikTok is on course to account for over half of Bytedance’s revenue for the first time next year, with estimated ad billings over $28 billion USD. There still remains uncertainty around TikTok’s future in the U.S., where it has 170 million monthly active users.

Search advertising, excluding retail media, accounts for 21.8% of global advertising spend is forecasted to reach a total of $223.8 billion USD this year. Its share has consistently grown since 2013 but it is set to plateau in 2026 as more purchase journeys begin in retail media environments and social commerce begins to realize its potential outside of Asia. Google accounts for more than 84% of the global search market, with its paid search revenue set to top $200 billion USD for the first time next year.

Excluding Twitch and Prime Video, Amazon anticipates an ad revenue of $55.9 billion USD, or more than 36.6% of all retail media spend. Competition is building, with Walmart projected to net $4 billion USD this year, while Uber’s ad business is expected to reach $1 billion USD in 2024. In addition, Amazon ad revenue is due to surpass Alibaba for the first time this year.

Connected TV (CTV) is on track to be worth $35.3 billion USD this year, roughly a quarter of the size of the linear TV market. CTV ad spend is expected to rise 19.6% and account for two-thirds of all growth in the video (linear and CTV) market this year, and all growth in 2025. By 2026, CTV is projected to account for almost a quarter (23.9%) of all video ad spend, reaching $46.3 billion USD.