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.

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.

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.

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, entertainment and CPG industries. Countries covered in this report series include the US, UK and Germany.

Digital ad spending in the US healthcare and pharmaceutical industry will grow by 14.2% to reach $9.53 billion in 2020. Growth is being fueled by ads related to COVID-19, including public service announcements, medical supplies and telemedicine.

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 consumption of at-home media and entertainment thrived amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the total shutdown of live events and the pause on film and TV production will cause digital ad spending to decline in 2020.

Digital ad spend by telecom and by computing products and consumer electronics companies will outperform industry averages in 2020. In a difficult year for digital ad spending, they will be two of only three industries to maintain double-digit growth.

According to our July 2021 forecast, 2023 will be a pivotal year for the US B2B digital ad market: Display will overtake search, mobile will surpass nonmobile, and the split between digital and traditional will near a tipping point just beyond our forecast period.

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