IAB: US digital ad revenue grew 12.2% in 2020

Recently, IAB released the 2020 digital advertising revenue report . Last year , digital advertising revenue in the United States reached US$139.8 billion, an increase of 12.2 % .

Among them, digital video advertising revenue grew the fastest (20.6% year-on-year), reaching $26.2 billion in revenue in 2020. Digital video's share of total digital advertising revenue increased by 1.3% year-on-year to 18.7%.

Social media advertising revenue grew 16 % to $41.5 billion in 2020. Social media accounted for 29.6% of total digital advertising revenue , up 16.3% year-over-year.

As more marketers buy ads through automated transactions, programmatic ad revenue grew nearly 25% to $14.2 billion in 2020. However, the deprecation of third-party cookies and identifiers has led many to question the sustainability of this level of growth .

In terms of quarterly breakdown, advertising revenue in the second quarter fell 5.2% year-on-year, but advertising revenue in the third and fourth quarters achieved year -on-year positive growth of 11.7% and 28.7%, respectively. Moreover, advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020 was the peak of revenue in 20 years .

"The message is clear: the industry as a whole is growing ," said CJ Bangah, principal at PwC, in an online presentation of the report. "While the top 10 companies by revenue continue to gain market share, players across the industry appear to be benefiting from this growth. "

Looking at the top ten companies by revenue , Google's advertising revenue fell for the first time in the second quarter, but revenue grew at a record high at the end of last year, with YouTube's revenue up 46 %; Facebook said its advertising revenue grew 21% to $84.2 billion from the same period in 2019 ; and Amazon's share of the U.S. digital advertising market exceeded 10% for the first time.

In addition, PwC's Bangah also mentioned that although digital advertising revenue on desktop computers exceeded $40 billion for the first time last year, mobile platforms are performing even stronger.

"There's no doubt that mobile is eating into a percentage of ad spend," Bangah said. "With the innovation we're seeing in 5G, mobile's share is likely to go up."

Earlier this month, Magna described an optimistic outlook for the advertising industry in a forecast that U.S. advertising revenue is expected to grow 6.4% to $240 billion by 2021. Of that, digital advertising revenue is expected to grow 13% to $161 billion, exceeding two-thirds of total advertising revenue for the first time.

Digital Advertising

Digital Video

Social Media