Key stat: Big Tech (Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft) will attract nearly two-thirds of US digital ad dollars this year, according to our October 2023 forecast. That’s more than double its share since we began tracking it in 2008.

Beyond the chart:

• Big Tech’s dominance is largely thanks to strategic mergers and acquisitions. Big buys such as Facebook’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 and Google’s purchase of YouTube in 2006 have accelerated its power, but smaller, undeclared deals have added up too.
• Google, Meta, and Amazon—and soon, Apple—are facing US antitrust lawsuits that could reshape the digital ad market and redistribute ad dollars.

Use this chart:

• Monitor your ad reliance on Big Tech.

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Note: Digital ad revenues include banner ads and other (static display and ads such as Facebook's News Feed Ads and X's Promoted Posts), classified ads, email (embedded ads only), lead generation (referrals), mobile messaging (SMS, MMS and P2P messaging), rich media (including instream and outstream video ads), search ads (including contextual text links, paid inclusion, and paid listings) and sponsorships. All numbers are eMarketer estimates.

Methodology: Estimates are based on the analysis of various elements related to the ad spending market, including macro-level economic conditions; historical trends of the advertising market; historical trends of each medium in relation to other media; reported revenues from major ad publishers; estimates from other research firms; data from benchmark sources; consumer media consumption trends; consumer device usage trends; and eMarketer interviews with executives at ad agencies, brands, media publishers and other industry leaders.