A study from WARC has found that global advertising spend is now on course to close out 2025 with growth of 8.9 per cent to $1.19 trillion (€1.6tn), an upgrade of 1.5 percentage points (pp) from WARC’s September forecast due to strong results from Big Tech platforms and a muted impact on global trade from trade tariffs.

A further rise of 9.1 per cent (+1pp since September) to $1.30 trillion is forecast next year, while growth of 7.9 per cent (+0.8pp) in 2027 would push the market’s value to $1.40 trillion – a doubling in size since the pandemic and equivalent to $150 spent for every person alive today.

The new projections are included as part of WARC Media’s latest Global Ad Trends: Media’s New Normal report, which finds that the advertising market in 2025 is fundamentally different from the ad ecosystem of the past.

Alex Brownsell, Head of Content, WARC Media, and author of the report, said: “Advertising has broken away from the economic cycle, and behaves in a way that doesn’t feel reflective of the real economy. New money has arrived from digital-native categories, while commerce has redrawn the measured media map, and Big Tech’s self-reinforcing flywheel is harvesting almost all incremental dollars.”

WARC’s latest global projections are based on data aggregated from 100 markets worldwide and leverage a proprietary neural network which projects advertising investment patterns based on over two million data points.

Ad spend continues to consolidate among three media owners 

• Alphabet, Amazon and Meta take a combined market share of 56.1 per cent excluding China this year – equivalent to $556.6 billion – rising to 58 per cent in 2026.

The latest forecasts show that the benefits of strong global growth prospects will not be evenly distributed. Alphabet, Meta and Amazon will collectively absorb the vast majority of incremental global ad spend between 2025 and 2027, increasing their share of the global ad market excluding China to 58.8 per cent by the end of the forecast period.

A handful of emerging online platforms, such as TikTok and Reddit, are an exception, growing faster than the incumbents to gain share but from a far lower base. TikTok is on course to net $45.2 billion in ad revenue by 2027, but this is less than a fifth of Meta’s expected ad revenue at that time. An executive order signed in September 2025 stands to remove the uncertainty around TikTok’s future in the US, by far its largest trading market at approximately $12 billion this year.

Beyond these outliers, the concentration of incremental growth is self-reinforcing. Big Tech’s scale gives it an unparalleled ability to invest in research and development, especially AI-driven optimisation, creative automation and first-party data infrastructure.

Meta alone now reinvests roughly 30 per cent of quarterly earnings into Research & Development, fuelling products like Reels and Advantage+, which in turn attract even more advertiser demand. The same flywheel is visible at Amazon, where the growth of its ad (and retail media) business feeds directly into improved data signals and higher margins.

The impact of these closed ecosystems is being seen on the open web, where advertising spend on display formats has declined in recent years. Google’s Display Network – the world’s largest – is set to record its third consecutive year of declining ad revenue in 2025, a trend projected to continue over the coming two years.

Further, fee layers in advertising are shrinking, so more of each ad dollar now goes straight to the large platforms, as noted by Brian Weiser, Principal, Madison & Wall. This boosts Big Tech revenue even when total spending is flat. Lower creative costs (due to the wider availability of AI tools), tighter agency margins, and cheaper ad-tech services are also contributing to the ongoing prosperity of Big Tech platforms in the coming years.

Digital-native budgets and pricing power are driving category ad growth ahead of consumer spend 

• Fast-growing sectors like cross-border e-commerce now pour billions into search, social and retail media.
• Trade marketing budgets have migrated into measurable digital environments. Retail media is now approaching 14.7 per cent of global ad spend, accelerating the shift to bottom-of-the-funnel channels.
• Growth is coming more from price than volume. Over half (51 per cent) of practitioners overseeing larger budgets next year expect to invest more in brand-building formats.

While ad spend races ahead, most other indicators of economic health look fragile. Real wages have stagnated in many developed markets, inflation has eroded purchasing power, and higher interest rates have made borrowing costlier for brands. 

For many large advertisers, growth is coming more from price than volume, which has increased the strategic value of brand-building even as consumer demand stays weak. Data from WARC’s Voice of the Marketer, a survey of 1,093 practitioners, shows that of those expecting their marketing budgets to grow next year, more than half (51 per cent) intend to increase brand investment.

Inflation isn’t the only force bending the curve. A new wave of digital-native budgets has flowed into platforms, creating a second engine of growth that had little connection to household spending power. Small and medium-sized businesses, trade-marketing funds and retail media networks have brought billions into digital ecosystems that promise accountability and speed.

At a category level, Clothing & Accessories provides a clear example: more than 80 per cent of spend in the sector now flows straight into retail media, paid search, and social platforms. In other words, almost all the incremental growth is being captured by platforms, not traditional channels.

This platform pattern is not isolated. Technology & Electronics is another fast-growing vertical whose investment is highly measurable and is structurally predisposed to spend at the bottom of the funnel.

For the wider market, this creates a two-speed system: legacy categories whose spend is broadly stable, and new categories whose explosive growth flows disproportionately to the major platforms, further accelerating the structural shift of ad dollars into digital ecosystems.

Global Ad Forecast Q4 2025 update: Key market overview 

• The US is the largest advertising market globally, accounting for 35.3 per cent of the global total, equating to $421.1 billion in spend and a rise of 8.9 per cent this year.
• Canada and Mexico are also set to benefit from hosting games during the men’s FIFA World Cup next year, with ad spend set to rise 4.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively next year.
• Top 10 ad markets account for 69 per cent of global ad spend in 2025, with the US alone accounting for more than a third (35.3 per cent) of all spend.

In 2025, the top 10 advertising markets are expected to account for 70.4 per cent of total global advertising expenditure, and all are projected to record growth over the forecast period.  

The US, as the largest advertising market globally, accounts for 35.3 per cent of the global total, equating to $421.1 billion in spend and a rise of 8.9 per cent this year. The US ad market is set to grow by a further 7 per cent next year, buoyed by the men’s FIFA World Cup and midterms, while a rise of 6.4 per cent is forecast for 2027, pushing the market total to $479.4 billion.

China, the second-largest advertising market, is forecast growth of 6.9 per cent in ad spend to $200.1 billion this year – 16.8 per cent of the global total. Growth is expected to accelerate to 8.9 per cent next year before easing back to 8.3 per cent in 2027 as economic prospects improve.

The UK overtook Japan in 2022 to become the third-largest ad market globally and remains the largest European market. It is now valued at $58.1 billion with anticipated growth of 9.3 per cent in 2025, and a rise of 8.5 per cent forecast next year.

Elsewhere in Europe, Germany (+9.3 per cent to $34.4 billion in 2025, +8.3 per cent in 2026, +4.7 per cent in 2027), France (+8.9 per cent to $21.9 billion in 2025, +7.2 per cent in 2026, +4.3 per cent in 2027), Italy (+7.4 per cent to $12.4 billion in 2025, +6.8 per cent in 2026, +4.1 per cent in 2027), and Spain (+9.8 per cent to $10.7 billion in 2025, +8.7 per cent in 2026, +5.4 per cent in 2027) are all poised to sustain ad market growth throughout the forecast period.

Canada and Mexico are also set to benefit from hosting games during the men’s FIFA World Cup next year. The Canadian ad market is set to end 2025 with growth of 2.3 per cent to $17.9 billion, with rises of 4.6 per cent and 6.4 per cent forecast for 2026 and 2027, respectively. Mexico’s ad market is expected to contract by 8.8 per cent this year (to $7.5 billion), before returning to growth next year (6.6 per cent) and into 2027 (7.2 per cent).

Elsewhere, India is on course see a 4.6 per cent rise in ad spend this year, to $13.8 billion, before growth accelerates to 8 per cent in 2026 and 9.7 per cent in 2027. Brazil is also poised to record fast growth over the forecast period, rising 10.7 per cent in 2026 due in part to the FIFA World Cup being broadcast in a favourable time zone. Growth is then set to ease back slightly – to 6.7 per cent – in 2027. Japan’s ad market is expanding less quickly, with a rise of 4.6 per cent (to $39 billion) seen this year. Further growth, of 3.8 per cent and 6.7 per cent, is forecast over the next two years.

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Categories: Advertising, Articles, Markets, Research

Tags: advertising, china, india, UK, WARC