Last year, China was the only market to see overall ad spending growth, although digital ad spending performed well almost everywhere. This year, every country will see growth in almost every category.

The UK’s digital advertising industry weathered the pandemic remarkably well. Among the industry sectors we track, digital ad spending will rise across the board (which was not universal last year), but these patterns of growth will fluctuate wildly across categories.

US spending decreased significantly across out-of-home (OOH) ad formats from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021, but not all categories were affected equally.

Streaming services hit highs and lows at this year’s Emmy Awards: While Netflix and Apple TV+ swept categories and broke records, Paramount+ users struggled to simply watch the event.

Healthcare and pharma ad spending remains the smallest ad-spending category in the US due to restrictive compliance laws that make it difficult to target audiences, but the legalization of cannabis has helped bolster spending.

Notably, the largest ad spending share belongs to the “Other” category. Other leads the pack in aggregate spending, at €3.35 billion ($3.82 billion), which translates to a 35.3% share. This category has been growing in recent years, as several big-spending industries remain a part of this umbrella grouping, including consumer electronics, telecommunications, and information technology.

If the pandemic was a make-or-break event for many industries, the tech industry fell firmly in the "make" category, as employees and students purchased computers and other devices to make working from home possible. Most companies in the industry grew their revenues in 2020, led by Adobe, Oracle, Citrix Systems, and Salesforce.

While our linear addressable and linear programmatic TV estimates are separate forecasts, some of the ad dollars in these categories can overlap because TV ads purchased programmatically can be addressably targeted. (Put another way, it is possible for addressable TV ads to be programmatically purchased.). But TV networks are still moving toward programmatic.

Ad Spending. In a very difficult year for advertising overall, nearly every ad spending metric we track will end up underperforming pre-pandemic expectations. Logically then, the combined category of total media ad spending will see the largest aggregate recalculation.

The digital ad spending category that we now call “nonmobile” was once composed almost entirely of desktop and laptop ad spending. For many years, this kind of nonmobile ad spending heavily lagged behind mobile ad spending in terms of growth.

Nonmobile Ad Spending by Industry. The digital ad spending category that we now call “nonmobile” was once composed almost entirely of desktop/laptop ad spending. For many years, this kind of nonmobile ad spending heavily lagged behind mobile ad spending in terms of growth.

The pandemic has greatly affected the distribution of digital ad spending across industries. The bottom fell out of the travel industry, as will ad spending in the sector, while retail will consolidate its dominant position in digital ad spend this year.

This trend will play out through the rest of our forecast, and by 2024, display will account for a (slight) majority share of all UK digital media spend—50.5%, with classified ad spending and our “other” category each accounting for diminishing or stagnant proportions of the total.

Display ads like banners and graphics, which have historically been less of a priority than search ads for B2B marketers, took up a greater share of US ad spending than ever before in 2020.

Retail ad spend will ramp up this year, aided by the easing of restrictions. Spending in the CPG and computing products categories are rising, as auto and travel fall. Automotive and travel had their proportional spend drop last year, and they will now prop up the rankings going forward.

Athletic apparel seller Vuori is dipping its toes in a new advertising realm with its first-ever TV commercials—an opportunity to spotlight its high-in-demand product category, as many consumers are gravitating toward activewear amid the pandemic.

This trend will play out through the rest of our forecast, and by 2024, display will account for a (slight) majority share of all UK digital media spend—50.5%, with classified ad spending and our “other” category each accounting for diminishing or stagnant proportions of the total.

For brands and retailers in some categories, Amazon is a significant channel for ecommerce sales. And that often means paying for prime placement on Amazon properties, including in search results. We estimate Amazon will have earned 72% of its $9.85 billion in net US digital ad revenues from search ads in 2019.

Advertising on Amazon has been volatile for the past few months as consumers caught on to the approaching coronavirus crisis and began stocking up on supplies. Shopping surged, driving many products out of stock. That in turn dried up advertising competition in certain categories—and Amazon’s de-prioritization of nonnecessities had the same effect on other categories.

As traditional media conglomerates lose more ad revenues because of the pandemic, they are less likely to spend ad dollars of their own. We expect significant declines in ad spending across traditional media in the US this year, including TV (-15.0%), print (-24.7%), and radio (-23.0%). In the entertainment category, it’s the cancellation of live events that has caused advertisers to pull back.