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US Time Spent vs. Ad Spending 2025

What Are the Most Intriguing Imbalances Between Consumer Behavior and Marketer Investments This Year?

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About This Report
This report compares our 2025 US ad spending and time spent with media forecasts. It identifies incongruities between how marketers are spending ad dollars and where consumers are spending their time.
Table of Contents

Marketers will spend over half of their $413.55 billion US ad total on media and entertainment platforms this year. US adults will spend an average of 12 hours, 44 minutes (12:44) per day with those platforms. But our analysis reveals significant—and sometimes extreme—imbalances between where marketers put their ad dollars and where consumers spend their media time.

Key Question: What insights can be gleaned by comparing our US time spent with media forecast with our US ad spending forecast—and where is ad spending most misaligned?

Key Stat: Facebook and Instagram will claim over 20% of US digital ad revenues this year, but only about 7% of US adults’ daily time with media.

Here’s what’s in the full report

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11charts

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Table of Contents

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Ad dollars and consumer time spent are not aligned, and the skew mostly benefits social networks
  1. YouTube and TikTok show unique, and opposite, trend lines
  2. Sub OTT’s unusual path to advertising has created major misalignments
  1. Advertisers may be overinvested in mobile and underinvested in other media access points
  2. Media Gallery

Charts in This Report

authors

Ethan Cramer-Flood

Contributors

Vivian Dong
Forecasting Analyst
Jasmin Ellis
Forecasting Analyst
Zach Goldner
Senior Forecasting Analyst
Penelope Lin
Director, Data Visualization
Oscar Orozco
Senior Director, Forecasting
Naomi Rebuelta
Copy Editor
Shelleen Shum
VP, Forecasting
Andrew Spink
Senior Forecasting Analyst
Matt Torpey
Senior Chart Editor
Julia Woolever
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