U.S. internet advertising revenue reached $258.6 billion in 2024, according to the IAB/PwC Internet Ad Revenue Report, FY 2024. Revenue grew 14.9% year over year, while search, social media, programmatic buying, retail media, and digital video each represented important parts of the market.
Contents
- U.S. internet advertising growth
- Search, display, video, and audio
- Programmatic, social, and retail media
- Video advertising spending
- Market concentration
- Advertiser planning and performance priorities
- Privacy, signal loss, and first-party data
U.S. internet advertising growth
The IAB/PwC Internet Ad Revenue Report, FY 2024 recorded steady quarterly expansion across the year. The first quarter produced $57.965 billion in internet advertising revenue, up 15.7% from the same quarter a year earlier. Second-quarter revenue was $62.085 billion, an increase of 15.2% year over year.
Revenue reached $64.857 billion in the third quarter, up 14.7% year over year. The fourth quarter was the largest of the four, at $73.665 billion, although its annual growth rate was 14.3%. For context, fourth-quarter revenue was $64.5 billion in Q4 2023. The second half of 2024 represented 54% of total annual internet advertising revenue.
| 2024 quarter | Internet ad revenue | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | $57.965 billion | 15.7% |
| Q2 | $62.085 billion | 15.2% |
| Q3 | $64.857 billion | 14.7% |
| Q4 | $73.665 billion | 14.3% |
These quarterly figures show both scale and seasonality. Q4 revenue was higher than Q1, while the reported year-over-year growth rate eased from 15.7% to 14.3% across the four quarters. The annual total and quarterly measurements are reported figures for the United States in FY 2024.
Search, display, video, and audio
Search remained the largest named internet advertising format in the IAB/PwC FY 2024 report. Search advertising revenue reached $102.9 billion, grew 15.9% during 2024, and held a 39.8% share of total internet ad revenue.
Digital video revenue reached $62.1 billion. It grew 19.2% in 2024 and accounted for 24.0% of total internet advertising revenue. That growth rate was higher than the overall internet advertising growth rate of 14.9%, indicating that video expanded faster than the market average during the measured year.
Display advertising revenue reached $74.3 billion and grew 12.4% in 2024. Digital audio advertising revenue reached $7.6 billion, with 8.5% growth. Podcast advertising revenue grew 26.4% in 2024; the report identifies the growth rate but does not provide a separate podcast revenue total in these figures.
Other formats generated $11.7 billion in internet advertising revenue and represented 4.5% of the total in 2024. The categories are not mutually interchangeable measures: some figures describe revenue, some describe growth, and some describe share. The source labels and measurement year should therefore remain attached to each statistic.
Programmatic, social, and retail media
Programmatic advertising revenue reached $134.8 billion in 2024, according to the IAB/PwC Internet Ad Revenue Report, FY 2024. It increased 18.0% during the year. Within programmatic revenue, real-time bidding accounted for 61%, while direct, private marketplace, preferred deal, and automated guaranteed activity together accounted for 39%.
Social media advertising revenue reached $88.8 billion and grew 36.7% in 2024. That growth rate was substantially higher than the 14.9% growth rate for total U.S. internet advertising revenue. Social media revenue was also larger than retail media network revenue, although the two figures describe different advertising environments and should not be treated as interchangeable categories.
Retail media network advertising revenue reached $53.7 billion in 2024 and grew 23.0%. Retail media combines a large revenue base with faster-than-market growth in the reported figures. For advertisers, the statistic is useful as a measure of the scale of media sold through retail-related networks, while the growth rate indicates how quickly that segment expanded during the year.
| Advertising area | 2024 revenue | 2024 growth or share |
|---|---|---|
| Search | $102.9 billion | 15.9% growth; 39.8% share |
| Display | $74.3 billion | 12.4% growth |
| Digital video | $62.1 billion | 19.2% growth; 24.0% share |
| Social media | $88.8 billion | 36.7% growth |
| Retail media networks | $53.7 billion | 23.0% growth |
| Digital audio | $7.6 billion | 8.5% growth |
Video advertising spending
The 2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report projected U.S. digital video ad spend of $63 billion in 2024, with 16% growth. This is a projection, whereas the $62.1 billion digital video figure from the IAB/PwC report is a reported 2024 revenue figure. The two measurements come from different reports and should be read as estimates or reported revenue according to their own labels.
Digital video was projected to capture 52% of TV and video ad spend in 2024. Connected TV, or CTV, ad spend was projected to reach $22.7 billion and grow 12%. The same report stated that CTV ad spend exceeded $20 billion for the first time in 2023.
Social video ad spend was projected to reach $23.4 billion in 2024. Social video was on track for a second straight year of 20% year-over-year growth. The report also projected different spending increases by advertiser category: consumer packaged goods brands were expected to increase digital video ad spend 20%, while retail brands were expected to increase it 30%.
The projections describe expected spending, not final measured outcomes. They are most useful for understanding how buyers and analysts anticipated the video market at the time of the 2024 forecast. They should not be substituted for the separate FY 2024 revenue measurements from the IAB/PwC report.
Market concentration
The IAB/PwC Internet Ad Revenue Report, FY 2024 reported a concentrated U.S. internet advertising market. The top 10 internet advertising companies held 80.8% of market share in 2024. Companies ranked 11 through 25 held another 11.0%.
The top 10 companies’ share increased by 1.0 percentage point from 2023 to 2024. The group ranked 11 through 25 increased its share by 3.1 percentage points over the same period. These are market-share changes, not revenue growth rates, so they describe the distribution of the market rather than the pace of expansion.
The concentration figures also leave a distinction between scale and competition. A market can grow rapidly while its largest companies retain most of the share. In the reported 2024 figures, the leading 10 companies accounted for more than four-fifths of internet advertising activity, while the next 15 companies accounted for a further 11.0%.
Advertiser planning and performance priorities
The IAB 2024 Outlook Survey captured buyer expectations and planning behavior for 2024. Buyers projected total media advertising spending growth of 9.5%. Seventy percent planned to make media buys quarterly or more frequently, and 63% said they were reforecasting more often because of market dynamism.
Performance advertising was another stated priority. Fifty-six percent of buyers said they would increase performance advertising in 2024. This survey result describes respondents’ plans and expectations; it is not a measured share of total ad spending or a final market outcome.
Taken together, the survey statistics point to a planning environment with frequent budget reviews and a stronger stated emphasis on performance. The 70% quarterly-or-more-frequent buying figure and the 63% reforecasting figure measure different behaviors: one concerns purchase cadence, while the other concerns changing forecasts.
Privacy, signal loss, and first-party data
The IAB State of Data 2024 report measured expectations and organizational responses related to privacy legislation and signal loss. Ninety-five percent of advertising and data decision-makers expected continued signal loss and/or privacy legislation in 2024 and beyond. Eighty-two percent said their organizational structure had been impacted by legislation and signal loss.
First-party data was a major response area. Seventy-one percent of brands, agencies, and publishers were currently growing or planning to grow their first-party datasets. Those organizations expected average first-party dataset growth of 35% over the next 12 months. The 35% figure is an expectation over a future 12-month period, not a completed historical increase.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning were already part of some first-party data workflows. Thirty-two percent were currently using AI and machine learning to enhance first-party consumer profiles or records. This statistic measures current use among the surveyed group; it does not establish how effective those systems were or how much revenue they generated.
The 2024 advertising statistics therefore describe a market expanding across several digital channels while buyers and data teams adapt to changing measurement conditions. Revenue reports show the scale of the U.S. market, forecast reports show expected video spending, buyer surveys show planning priorities, and data research shows how privacy and signal loss were affecting organizational decisions.