The reports in this collection look at ad spending in the retail, financial services, computing products and consumer electronics, automotive, telecom, travel, health and pharma, media and entertainment, and CPG industries. Countries covered in this report series include the US, UK, and Germany.

In a difficult year for digital advertising overall, US travel industry spending will decline faster than any other vertical. It will bring up the rear in total spending and claim the smallest market share of all industries we cover.

The pandemic has caused the US automotive industry to reduce its digital ad spending by 18.2% in 2020. As car sales plummeted, dealerships closed, and manufacturing slowed, marketers backed off from performance initiatives and focused on branding efforts.

The coronavirus has upended the US travel industry. Fears of infection, governmental measures restricting travel and access to public places, and the economic downturn will depress bookings, sales and ad spending in 2020 and beyond.

No industry has been as devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and its effects as travel. Airlines, car rental agencies, hotels and resorts, online booking services, cruises and destination marketing organizations, and business travel support services found their operations ground to a near-halt for much of Q2 2020, and the situation has barely improved in H2.

We forecast that US travel digital ad spending will drop by 41.0% this year to just $3.24 billion. No other industry will decline as fast or spend as little.

US travelers want COVID-19 vaccine passports

Respondents who did cancel cited numerous reasons: uncertainty about the legality of larger gatherings (74%); corporate policies prohibiting travel (69%); participants’ need for air travel (52%); and potential fear being a deterrent to attendance (51%). Without in-person events to engage audiences, B2B marketers were left with a gaping hole in their go-to-market strategy.