The global advertising market is growing faster than expected this year, but anyone who thinks that’s good news for the entire ecosystem is mistaken.
Alphabet, Meta and Amazon together account for 56.1% of all ad spend outside China, and that share will rise to 58% next year. Of every extra advertising dollar that comes into the market, the vast majority goes to these three players.
The rest of the market has to make do with the crumbs, new figures confirm a trend that has been under way for years.
Market researcher WARC has revised its 2025 forecast upwards to growth of 8.9%, amounting to a total of $1.19 trillion. That is 1.5 percentage points more than the research agency predicted in September. The increase is mainly due to strong results from the major tech platforms and to trade tariffs having less impact than feared. Next year, the market could even grow by 9.1% to $1.3 trillion.
Behind those booming figures, however, lie fundamentally altered power dynamics. “The advertising world has detached itself from the economic cycle and is behaving in a way that no longer aligns with the real economy,” says Alex Brownsell. IAB Europe made exactly the same observation in its own annual review, which it shared with the market last week.
Players such as Google, Facebook and Amazon have things like AI-driven optimisation, creative automation and a first-party data infrastructure at their disposal. No one else in the world has such a sophisticated machine, meaning local players are effectively always on the back foot.
Other developments are also playing into the hands of the giants. Cost layers in the advertising world are shrinking, so more of every advertising euro flows directly to the major platforms. Lower creative costs thanks to AI tools, tighter margins at agencies and cheaper ad-tech services all contribute to big tech’s continuing prosperity.
Strikingly, while ad spend is racing ahead, most other economic indicators look fragile. Real wages are barely growing in many developed markets, inflation is eroding purchasing power and higher interest rates are making borrowing more expensive for brands. The researchers note: “For many large advertisers, growth is coming mainly from price increases rather than volume, which increases the strategic value of brand building despite weak consumer demand.”
Of the marketers who expect a higher budget next year, more than half plan to invest more in brand.
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