How much did digital ads hit in 2025?

Digital ad market keeps expanding

Industry estimates from IAB and PwC place 2025 global digital advertising revenue at $294.6B, a 13.9% year-over-year increase.

The growth isn’t evenly distributed across formats:

• Social media advertising: $117.7B in 2025, up 32.6% YoY
• Digital video: $78B in 2025, up 25.4% YoY

These figures matter because they show advertisers continuing to shift budgets toward platforms where audiences spend time and where targeting and measurement are relatively mature. Social media’s faster growth rate suggests marketers are leaning more heavily into formats that combine reach with detailed user data.

At the same time, the report’s headline number ($294.6B) indicates the market remains resilient even as privacy rules, ad-tech changes, and measurement disputes keep forcing advertisers to adapt. A double-digit overall increase suggests the ecosystem is finding ways to monetize despite those constraints.

For businesses and ad platforms, the mix also signals where future competitive pressure will likely intensify: social platforms and digital video providers are benefiting disproportionately from the faster growth rates.

If you’re planning campaigns, budgeting based on overall market expansion alone could be misleading—format-level trends point to different expectations for spend growth depending on where your audience is and how your ads are distributed.