The U.S. ad market remained in growth mode in November, although gains were not quite as big as earlier in the year. Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker says the ad market expanded 0.8% compared to a year earlier, marking 19 consecutive months of year-over-year growth.
A month-to-month comparison shows how robust the fourth-quarter ad market was. Guideline says the ad market grew 18.4% between October and November as the usual flood of holiday retail ad spending filled the airwaves.
What has been working in radio’s favor during the past few years, according to Guideline, is that the growth in spending has come from smaller advertising categories. Those categories could be more open to spending on something other than the preferred go-to of network television of major ad categories like automotive, CPG, and retail. The latest data shows the top 10 ad categories declined 1.7% year-to-year, while categories beyond the top 10 increased 4.2% in November vs. a year earlier.
Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker is a composite monthly index from Standard Media Index, designed to provide a real-world measure of U.S. ad spending, based on actual invoiced media buys — including on radio — from the major agencies and their clients. As such, it is mostly representative of spending by larger national advertisers.
The data is powered by Standard Media Index (SMI) and covers radio, television, digital, print, and out-of-home media types. It is based on actual spending data from the SMI pool partners at major holding companies and large ad agencies, representing 95% of all U.S. national brand ad spending.
The report shows digital ad growth led the way in November across the total ad market, increasing 4.6% year-to-year while overall traditional spending declined 5.9%. Guideline also says digital advertising accounted for 66% of marketer spending during November, with a 34% share of dollars spent on traditional media channels. That compares to a 64% to 36% split a year earlier.
See Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker HERE.
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