After an inconsistent year for digital ad spending in 2020, every industry in the US will increase their outlays in 2021. The retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and entertainment industries will provide the biggest boosts, driving up overall digital ad spending by 25.5%.

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.

Growth in programmatic display ad spending was resilient in 2020, thanks in large part to the shift from brick-and-mortar to digital retail. Rajeev Goel, co-founder and CEO at supply-side platform PubMatic, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin for the last episode of The Ad Platform to discuss which industries are increasing ad spending fastest, how advertisers are reacting to less Identifier for Advertisers availability, and why momentum in connected TV is exciting.

Even before the pandemic, ecommerce channel advertising was attracting a lot of attention from advertisers—especially in verticals like consumer packaged goods (CPG)—as well as retailers, which hoped to add new higher-margin revenue streams to their businesses after seeing Amazon’s success in the area. Amazon had become the No. 3 digital ad seller in the US thanks primarily to placements on its ecommerce property, and companies including Walmart, Target, and eBay had been growing similar businesses.

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.

Travel is the sixth-largest industry in terms of ad spending in the US this year, according to our newest estimates. Rising competition and a strong economy are prompting travel companies to increase their ad budgets to capture a larger market share.

In a difficult year for retail sales overall, the US retail industry will remain the largest spender on digital advertising among all verticals, despite a huge deceleration in growth.