While social claims a sizable portion of most advertisers’ budgets, two advertising categories—retail and CPG—are responsible for an outsized share of social ad spending in the US.

Retail and CPG will account for nearly half of all US social ad spending in 2024

• Retail advertisers will account for 30.8% of social ad spending, per our forecast. Social’s share of the retail industry’s ad spending has not changed much. But the substantial increase in retailers’ overall ad spending has sent significant revenues into social platforms’ coffers. In 2024, retailers will spend $25.51 billion on social ads, up from $9.04 billion in 2019.
• Retail media is driving a spate of partnerships between retailers and social platforms. The surge in retail industry ad spending is being driven partly by many retailers’ budding retail media ambitions. Social ads that drive traffic to retailer properties have the added effect of increasing the ad revenues retailers get from their media operations. That’s compelled retailers to forge a number of partnerships: In 2023, Amazon struck deals with Meta and Pinterest that allowed its advertisers to target users of the two social companies’ services. And in 2024, Walmart Connect gave its advertisers the ability to use its custom audiences to target TikTok users with video and display ads.

Read the full report, Paid Social Forecast Report H1 2024.