Study: Digital leads 2022 ad spend
June 1, 2023
To understand the state of TV and video advertising entering the Upfront and NewFront season, advertising intelligence and sales enablement platform MediaRadar analysed a data sample of ad spend from national broadcasts and cable TV ads. Data pertains to January – December 2022. Key findings include:
- Digital advertising is outranking TV. In 2022, nearly $144 billion (€135bn) was invested in digital, print and TV advertising. While TV still makes up 41 per cent of total ad spend, digital was the top ranking format making up 47 per cent of all buys. Over $68 billion was allocated to digital formats. These formats include display, online video, native, and paid social among other formats. This marks an opportunity for continued growth in digital media sales.
- Four out of the top five categories buying TV ads are top digital buyers as well. Not surprisingly big spenders from finance, media & entertainment, retail, and tech brands drive digital ad sales. TV investment for these, with the exception of media and entertainment, is down YoY. However, each of these categories are up YoY in digital ad sales representing a shift in the market towards digital advertising among top segments.
- Only 1 per cent of advertisers entering the market bought national TV spots. Despite looming recession concerns, MediaRadar observed 52k new advertisers (nearly 80k brands) entered the market in the second half of 2022. Not all of these advertisers purchased TV spots (530), but over 36k invested in digital display, video advertising and other digital formats.
- Online video advertising is up and increasingly more important to advertisers as it rose 86 per cent YoY. MediaRadar observed 31.1k advertisers spend an estimated $28.2 billion in video advertising during 2022. Top three categories advertised via online video during 2022: software ($1.9 billion), pharma ($1.4 billion), and film promotion ($1.4 billion). Combined spend nearly reached $4.8 billion, this is only 17 per cent of total online video spend.
- OTT investments increased despite the challenges of matching 2021 growth. Around 5.7k brands increased their investment in streaming platforms YoY during 2022. Together their buys were nearly $1.3 billion. Most notably LinkedIn, eHarmony, Kohl’s, and Febreeze contributed to this YoY increase.
- Short spots increase market share. TV ads 15 seconds or less accounted for $5.2 billion (35 per cent of $14.8 billion) in Q1 2023. That’s a 6 per cent YoY increase from Q1 2022. Ads 16 to 30 seconds decreased 10 per cent YoY to $7 billion. In Q1 2023, 17 per cent of TV ad spend was dedicated to ads longer than 46 seconds.