U.S. advertising spending has continued shifting toward digital, social, video, commerce media, and creator partnerships. Internet advertising revenue reached $225 billion in 2023, $258.6 billion in 2024, and $294.6 billion in 2025, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The figures below distinguish reported revenue from forecasts and identify the measurement year or survey period for each statistic.
Contents
- U.S. digital advertising revenue
- Search, display, and video
- Social, retail, and commerce media
- Advertising forecasts by channel
- Creator-economy advertising
- Advertiser priorities and pressures
U.S. digital advertising revenue
The IAB’s annual revenue reports show a large U.S. digital advertising market and stronger growth in the latest reported years. Internet advertising revenue was $225 billion in 2023, up 7.3% from 2022. Fourth-quarter revenue alone reached $64.5 billion in Q4 2023. These are U.S. internet advertising revenue figures for the stated periods, not forecasts. (IAB, “2023 U.S. Digital Advertising Industry Hits New Record”)
| Measurement year | U.S. internet or digital advertising revenue | Year-over-year growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $225.0 billion | 7.3% |
| 2024 | $258.6 billion | 14.9% |
| 2025 | $294.6 billion | 13.9% |
The 2024 total was $258.6 billion, with 14.9% year-over-year growth. The 2025 total reached $294.6 billion, up 13.9% from 2024. The IAB reports these figures as annual U.S. digital advertising revenue for the corresponding calendar years. (IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Surges 15% YoY in 2024”; IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B”)
These totals help frame the scale of annual advertiser investment.
Programmatic advertising was a substantial part of the 2025 market. Programmatic advertising revenue reached $162.4 billion in 2025, a 20.5% year-over-year increase. The IAB also reported a $27.6 billion increase in programmatic advertising revenue in 2025. This programmatic measure is a component of the broader digital advertising market, so it should not be added to the total as a separate market. (IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B”)
Search, display, and video
Search remained the largest of the specifically reported 2023 channel figures in this dataset. Search advertising revenue reached $88.8 billion in 2023 and grew 5.2% from the previous year. Display advertising revenue reached $66.1 billion, up 4.0%, while video advertising revenue reached $52.1 billion, up 10.6%. These figures are U.S. advertising revenue for 2023 and the year-over-year comparisons reported by the IAB. (IAB, “2023 U.S. Digital Advertising Industry Hits New Record”)
The 2024 figures show faster growth across all three categories:
- Search advertising revenue reached $102.9 billion, growing 15.9% year over year.
- Display advertising revenue reached $74.3 billion, growing 12.4%.
- Digital video advertising revenue reached $62.1 billion, growing 19.2%.
The 2024 video figure is labeled digital video, while the 2023 figure is labeled video in the reported claims. The categories should therefore be read using the source terminology rather than treated as a perfectly identical series. (IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Surges 15% YoY in 2024”)
The comparison also shows why growth rates matter alongside dollar totals. Search had the highest reported revenue among these categories in both years, but digital video had the fastest reported growth in 2024 at 19.2%. In 2023, video also grew faster than search and display, at 10.6% compared with 5.2% and 4.0%, respectively.
Social, retail, and commerce media
Social media advertising revenue reached $64.9 billion in 2023, increasing 8.7% from the previous year. Retail media revenue reached $43.7 billion and grew 16.3%. Audio advertising revenue reached $7.0 billion in 2023. The retail-media growth rate was therefore higher than the reported social-media growth rate for that year, even though the retail-media revenue total was smaller. (IAB, “2023 U.S. Digital Advertising Industry Hits New Record”)
In 2024, social media advertising revenue reached $88.8 billion, up 36.7% year over year. Retail media revenue reached $53.7 billion, up 23.0%. Podcast advertising revenue reached $2.43 billion in 2024. Podcast advertising and audio advertising are presented with different labels and periods in the reported figures, so they should not be combined without a consistent definition. (IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Surges 15% YoY in 2024”)
The 2025 reported figures use the term commerce media for a broader category: social media advertising revenue reached $117.7 billion, growing 32.6%, while commerce media advertising revenue reached $63.4 billion, growing 18.0%. Because the source labels change from retail media in 2023 and 2024 to commerce media in 2025, the figures are best used as reported category snapshots rather than a single uninterrupted retail-media time series. (IAB, “Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B”)
Advertising forecasts by channel
Forecasts describe expected growth and are not the same as realized revenue. In its revised 2025 U.S. advertising outlook, the IAB forecast 5.7% year-over-year full-year growth, with 7.0% growth in the first half and 5.0% in the second half. The outlook also forecast 14.3% growth for social media, 13.2% for retail media, and 11.4% for connected TV. (IAB, “IAB Adjusts 2025 Outlook Amid Ad Buyers’ Macroeconomic Concerns”)
The same 2025 outlook forecast declines for some traditional categories: linear television was forecast to decline 14.4% year over year, while other traditional media was forecast to decline 3.4%. These are outlook figures for 2025, not a claim that every advertiser or market segment followed the same path.
The IAB later forecast 12.3% year-over-year growth for overall U.S. advertising spending in 2026. Its 2026 channel forecasts included 16.5% growth for social media, 15.6% for connected TV, and 13.6% for commerce media. These estimates are explicitly forecasts for 2026. (IAB, “IAB Raises 2026 U.S. Ad Spend Forecast”)
Creator-economy advertising
Creator advertising spending increased each year from 2021 through the 2026 figure reported by the IAB:
| Year | U.S. creator advertising spending |
|---|---|
| 2021 | $13.9 billion |
| 2022 | $18.4 billion |
| 2023 | $22.1 billion |
| 2024 | $29.5 billion |
| 2025 | $37.0 billion |
| 2026 | $44.0 billion |
The 2025 creator-economy report projected 26% year-over-year growth in creator advertising spending for 2025. The same report found that 48% of U.S. creator ad buyers considered creators a must-buy in 2025. (IAB, “2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report”)
The creator figures cover a different market definition from the channel revenue figures above. They should not be added to social, video, or total digital revenue because creator advertising can operate across multiple platforms and formats. The report also found that three in four U.S. brands were using or planning to use artificial intelligence for creator-marketing tasks in 2025.
Advertiser priorities and pressures
An IAB September 2026 outlook survey of U.S. advertisers identified customer acquisition as a media investment goal for 63% of surveyed advertisers. Brand equity was a goal for 43%, and repeat purchases were a goal for 24%. These are survey shares, not shares of total advertising budgets. (IAB, “IAB Raises 2026 U.S. Ad Spend Forecast”)
The same September 2026 outlook identified adapting to AI-driven search as the top media investment challenge, cited by 44% of surveyed U.S. advertisers. Concern about low-quality AI-generated content was cited by 38%. The survey results describe respondent views during that outlook period and should not be interpreted as an estimate of the whole advertising industry.
Earlier, in September 2025, 91% of surveyed U.S. ad buyers expressed concern about tariff effects on media spending. Macroeconomic headwinds were cited as a top challenge by 41%, while changing consumer habits were cited by 40%. These September 2025 survey findings provide context for the revised 2025 forecast, but they do not quantify the dollar effect of tariffs, macroeconomic conditions, or consumer behavior on spending. (IAB, “IAB Adjusts 2025 Outlook Amid Ad Buyers’ Macroeconomic Concerns”)