The ad market in the UK suffered during 2020, but the decline in spending was only marginal as digital investment took up much of the slack. Indeed, the resilience of digital formats has been palpable amid the pandemic.

The duopoly of Facebook and Google still dominates digital ad revenues worldwide, but a collective rival from the ecommerce industry is showing momentum.

And with many digital consumer habits anticipated to stick post-pandemic, digital video is set to bolster its position as a key digital ad format for years to come. How did shifts in spend by format affect the duopoly? Digital display advertising, and particularly video, benefited from the pandemic.

US advertisers increased their investments on digital media by almost 15% last year despite a pandemic and recession, looking for flexibility and accountability.

Their platforms are powered by the combination of high-intent keyword searches and shopper data, giving them an even better ability than their duopoly counterparts to target the right customers with ads. More significantly, Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart possess massive troves of online and offline purchase data to demonstrate the full impact of their advertising.

Advertisers continue to spend on digital formats in the UK, to the detriment of some traditional channels. Brexit is accentuating this trend, with the Google-Facebook duopoly proving to be the biggest winner.

eMarketer vice president of forecasting Monica Peart shares our digital ad spend estimates for the Google-Facebook duopoly and the reasons behind our recent forecast adjustments.

The media and entertainment industries have traditionally made up a small fraction of the US digital ad market, and we expect their shares to remain flat or diminish through 2021. This partly has to do with traditional media conglomerates tightening their belts; their own ad revenues will continue to decline as ad dollars shift away from print and TV and toward the digital duopolies.

eMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin hosts a new “Behind the Numbers” show called “The Ad Platform,” a platform to discuss all things advertising. In the first episode, Perrin sits with vice president of forecasting Monica Peart and forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom to discuss US digital advertisers’ budgets. Consolidation is the name of the game as publishers continue to devote dollars to the duopoly and the new behemoth in town.

This CMCRP estimate suggests the duopoly is much stronger in Canada compared with the US, where it will account for 55.5% of the US digital ad market in 2020. Unlike the larger and more diversified digital display market in the US, the presence of the duopoly is greater in Canada. The same is true in most other smaller ad markets where domestic players lack the scale to fend off global ad platforms.

An expected economic recovery in 2021 bodes well for Canada’s advertising market.

The coronavirus pandemic is putting a major dent in US digital ad spending growth. Outlays will increase by just 1.7% this year—read on to learn what that means for major ad channels and platforms.

Argentina’s policy changes could also pave the way for local retail media networks, like Mercado Ads (Mercado Libre’s advertising division), to take some share of the digital ad spending pie away from the Facebook and Google digital ad duopoly, especially since ecommerce has seen a surge of growth across the country during the pandemic.

Amazon’s net US digital ad revenues will rise by 41.0% this year as consumers shift dramatically to more ecommerce shopping and advertisers pay to get in front of shoppers at their leading destination.

eMarketer principal analysts Nicole Perrin and Debra Aho Williamson discuss how COVID-19 has changed engagement and the flow of ad dollars to the digital duopoly of Facebook and Google. They then talk about gamifying social distancing, Mozilla and Scroll's 'Firefox Better Web,' and Instagram 'Co-Watching.'

What it means for marketers: Advertisers will need to rely more than ever on just a handful of giants for paid digital media placements. If marketers are still wondering whether the digital duopoly of Google and Facebook will be disrupted, they should stop holding their breath.

Programmatic advertising will account for 83.5% of all US digital display ad dollars, or $57.30 billion, this year. Growth in social, connected TV and over-the-top (OTT) advertising will drive programmatic display to almost $80 billion by 2021.

This year will be the first time that digital ad spending will account for more than 50% of the total US ad market. The majority of digital ad investments will still go to Google and Facebook, but Amazon is gaining ground.

US advertisers are spending about a third of their nonsocial programmatic display ad dollars on fees this year—aka the “ad tech tax.” Read on to learn more about our inaugural estimates of spending on programmatic fees.

eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Mark Dolliver, Jeremy Goldman, Jillian Ryan, and Debra Aho Williamson discuss their expectations for the media world next year: federal privacy regulation, a retail media trio to challenge the duopoly, the next iteration of virtual events, social entertainment's staying power, and more.

How will advertising on Facebook evolve at a time when regulators are circling, advertisers are getting restless and consumer attitudes are sliding? This report, informed by extensive conversations with dozens of brand and agency executives, details our expectations over the next 24 months.

Social media usage, advertising, and commerce will reach new levels in 2021, presenting big opportunities for brands to engage consumers.

Even with Amazon ramping up its advertising practices, as well as an influx of mobile, over-the-top (OTT) and connected TV ad inventory entering the space in the next 24 months, the duopoly will still dominate. Which areas of programmatic will grow the fastest within the forecast period?

That report stated that RTB may be in violation of GDPR, given the inability for advertisers, publishers and even ad tech providers to properly police the passing of consent flags and identify all parties that are using and sharing consumer data. If parties cannot track this, they cannot entirely validate consumer consent.

Jonathan Adams, executive director and managing partner at Wavemaker, joins eMarketer co-founder and Insider Intelligence chief evangelist Geoff Ramsey in a conversation about the health of the ad ecosystem amid unprecedented disruption. Among the many topics they cover are the balance between subscription- and ad-supported video and the role of walled gardens.