Digital Ad Spend Expected to Overtake Print and TV Ad Spend for First Time

The advertising tides are changing. According to forecasts from eMarketer, and reported by The Washington Post, for the first time, more money will be spent this year on digital advertising in the U.S. than on print and TV ads. According to The Post's report, expenditures on digital advertising are expected to approach $130 billion compared to the approximately $110 billion expected to be spent on traditional advertising platforms.

Expanding on what's driving the shift to digital, AdExchanger notes that eMarketer indicated advertising on mobile platforms, combined with the rise of streaming and online video, are key elements drawing advertising dollars into this expanding realm.

But as digital platforms continue their expansion, a decline in print products have made for the perfect storm for this shift in advertising spend. The Post reports:

The increase in digital ad dollars will come, in part, from sharp declines in key print ad formats including directories such as the Yellow Pages, whose ad spending will fall by 19 percent, and the print versions of newspapers and magazines where ad spending is expected to decrease by about 18 percent, eMarketer said. Ad spending on TV will decline 2.2 percent this year, to about $71 billion, eMarketer said, owing largely to the absence of elections and big sports events, such as the Olympics.

“The steady shift of consumer attention to digital platforms has hit an inflection point with advertisers, forcing them to now turn to digital to seek the incremental gains in reach and revenue which are disappearing in traditional media advertising,” eMarketer’s forecasting director Monica Peart said in a statement.

Amazon, Facebook and Google account for 68% of all digital advertising, AdExchanger reports. However, in previous years it was just Facebook and Google dominating in the digital space. In 2018, AdExchanger wrote that the two platforms accounted for 90% of digital advertising growth in 2017, which marked a 21% growth to a staggering $88 billion at the time.

Now, however, Amazon has joined the top two as a contributor to the massive growth expected in 2019.

“Advertisers are still happy with Amazon as a way to diversify from Google and Facebook,” said Monica Peart, eMarketer’s senior forecasting director, as reported by AdExchanger.

It's no surprise that Amazon has worked its way up to the third spot. According to The Post, Amazon's advertising business is No. 3 in the U.S. and is forecast to see more than 50% growth this year, with nearly 9% in digital.