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According to the IAB’s latest forecast, digital advertising in the US will see a 7.3% increase over last year’s spending. This growth is significantly lower than the 11.8% projection for 2024.
Retail media networks (up 15.6% year-over-year), CTV (+13.8%) and social media (+11.9%) all expect double-digit growth, according to the study “2025 Outlook: A Snapshot to Ad Spend, Opportunities ” and Growth Strategy.”
Slowdown. The study showed that 2024 accelerated due to advertising-heavy events such as the Paris Olympics and national and state elections.
This year, advertisers will be more selective and focus on emerging fast-growing channels like RMN and CTV.
“This report clearly shows that budgets are focused on the points where consumers, commerce and video converge – where advertisers can harness the power of sight, sound and motion, and consumers can engage and transact,” IAB CEO David Cohen said in the report.
Growth by channel. Indeed, the channels with the highest growth in projections to 2025 provide video and full-funnel capabilities from branding to commerce.
Dig deeper: Social Media and Influencers: Predictions for 2025
Here’s a breakdown of growth by channel.
Dig deeper: Retail media networks continue to grow: predictions for 2025
Priorities for advertisers. According to the Mediaocean 2025 Advertising Outlook Report, performance-oriented media and measurement and attribution capabilities are top priorities for advertisers.
Sixty-two percent of marketers said performance-driven paid media was most important to their plans. In second place, measurement and attribution were critical for 50% of marketers.
Brand advertising came in third at 45%, down from 57% in the previous study conducted in summer 2024. (The most recent study asked marketers the same questions in November 2024.)
Media planning based on GenAI technology. Marketers are embracing genAI tools to help with media planning, IAB study finds. A full 42% currently use this technology for media planning and/or activation. Another 36% are researching the technology.
Mediaocean found that genAI is the most important trend marketers are watching in 2025. Here are the top ways marketers in the study are using genAI:
- Data analysis (47%).
- Market research (38%).
- Copywriting (32%).
- Image generation (22%).
- Customer service (14%).
Why do we care? Understandably, expectations will be lower after the boom year of 2024. Due to huge competition, marketers are eyeing digital advertising channels that are at the forefront of consumer engagement. As a result, traditional media such as linear TV will see lower or negative growth – even though they remain an important part of the complete media plan going forward.
You can find more about the IAB study here. (Membership is required to access the full report.)
