U.S. digital advertising industry - statistics & facts

Overview of the U.S. market

The United States is the largest digital advertising market in the world, boasting the highest revenue in 2021. About six out of ten dollars invested in ads in the country were devoted to digital advertising. Internet advertising spending in the U.S. was projected to grow in the next few years, with sources expecting it to reach 200 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. Retail was the industry that invested the most in digital advertising in the country, accounting for 26 percent of the nation’s digital ad spending, while pharma and healthcare followed with around 19 percent of all digital ad spending. The United States’ prime position in digital advertising also accompanied the less than rosy result of it being the country suffering the largest losses due to digital ad fraud worldwide.

Digital ad formats

Search advertising is the most profitable and most promising digital ad format in the U.S., accounting for almost half of all digital advertising revenue generated in the country. Considering that search advertising is one of the major income streams for digital advertisers, it is no surprise that Google, the leading search engine in the world, had by far the highest net digital ad revenue amongst digital publishers in the U.S., holding 30 percent of the pie. Heavy hitters Facebook and Amazon followed, with the latter’s share of national digital ad revenue being projected to gradually increase over the next few years.

Mobile advertising

Smartphones became the chosen devices for digital advertisers in the United States in 2018, when mobile advertising spending for the outperformed desktop for the first time. Since then, the focus of advertisers on mobile has only increased. In 2022, mobile advertising was projected to account for 66 percent of total digital ad spend in the United States. The two most invested-in mobile ad formats were search advertising and video advertising, with the former attracting an ad spend of over 78 billion U.S. dollars and the latter accruing a spend of more than 63 billion. Advertisers have numerous reasons to prefer mobile devices to regular PCs, one of them being the lower penetration rate of ad blockers on smartphones and tablets.

Consumer attitudes

More than four out of 10 Americans said they were often annoyed by advertising on the internet, while seven out of 10 TV viewers said they were either indifferent or not comfortable with having ads aimed at them based on their personal preferences. The attitude towards ads appeared to be more lenient among U.S. podcast listeners, with almost seven out of 10 saying they would not mind a couple of minutes of extra ads per show - if it allowed the show to continue. When it came to the influence of social media advertising on the purchasing decisions of different age groups, Millennials were found to be the most receptive, followed by Gen Z.

Ad blocking

Ad blocker usage is on the rise in the United States. Despite ad blockers enjoying a larger presence on American computers, their usage on the nation's smartphones is increasing. More than half of U.S. internet users stated they used an ad blocker on their computers and three out of 10 stated they used one on their smartphones. Americans aged 18 to 24 were more likely to use an ad blocker on their PCs compared to their older counterparts, with six out of 10 stating they used one, while Americans aged 35 to 54 were more likely to use an ad blocker on their smartphones. The most popular ad blocking software in the U.S. was AdBlock, followed by AdBlock Plus. A surge in ad blocker usage is hardly surprising, when we consider that more than five out of 10 Americans consider targeted ads to be an inappropriate utilization of personal data.

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