Growth in digital advertising will be the main driver behind an overall forecasted increase in ad revenue of 4.2% in Canada this year, according to a new report from Magna.

That growth is slowed compared with 2016, when ad revenues in the country went up 4.4%. However, the Canadian 2017 projections are higher than the global projections, where ad revenues are only expected to grow 3.7%.

That global forecast is down significantly from the 5.9% growth in 2016, which Magna says is largely due to the lack of cyclical events like the Olympics or elections this year. When those events are excluded from both years’ calculations, the drop is much more minimal, coming in at 4.9% for 2016 and 4.7% for 2017.

Canada continues to punch above its weight on mobile, with 62% of its digital ad sales to be generated by clicks or impressions on mobile devices. That’s much higher than the 50% estimate for next year’s global average.

Social media ad sales in Canada are expected to jump by 35%, video ad sales by 20% and search ad sales by 13%. Overall, digital ad sales are projected to grow by 16% in 2017 to $7 billion.

Out-of-home advertising is expected to see sales growth of 3% for 2017, largely due to a jump of 13% in digital OOH for the year.

The potential impact of pick-and-pay TV bundling remains a question mark over TV as a whole, though Magna reports that the introduction of a-la-carte pricing didn’t have a negative impact on ad sales in 2016, with ad revenue remaining essentially flat for the year at 0.4%.

A major influencing factor for 2016 was additional spending on TV generated by the Olympics, the NHL and NBA playoffs. With no Olympics in 2017, Magna is forecasting Canadian ad sales on TV to drop by 1% to $3 billion.

Print ad sales in Canada are forecasted to drop by 14% to $2 billion for the year and broadcast radio ad sales are expected to see a decline of 4%.

Looking ahead to 2018, Magna expects the Canadian market to slow down slightly with ad sales growth forecasted at 3.8%. All traditional media categories aside from OOH (which is forecast to grow by 2%) are forecasted to decline that year, but digital ad sales are expected to rise a further 13%.

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