Ad Market Growth In December Was Among Best Of 2024.

The ad market closed out 2024 with some spending fireworks with December showing some of the biggest monthly gains for all of last year. Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker says the ad market expanded 13.2% vs. a year earlier, marking 20 consecutive months of year-over-year growth. There was also a 1.2% increase month-to-month as the usual flood of holiday ad spending filled the airwaves.

The December numbers brought the average monthly gain during the fourth quarter to 6.9%. Looking back across all of last year, December’s year-to-year increase is tied with August results. Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker only recorded bigger monthly gains last year during July, when the ad market expanded 15.3% vs. a year earlier.

The report shows digital ad growth led the way in December across the total ad market, increasing 15.5% year-to-year. But overall traditional spending also posted gains as it grew 8.3% — making it one of the best months of the year for offline media. Guideline also says digital advertising accounted for 69% of marketer spending during December, with a 31% share of dollars spent on traditional media channels. That compares to a 68% to 32% split a year earlier.

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 category spending increased 10% year-to-year last month, while categories beyond the top 10 increased total ad spending by 18% in December 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.

See Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker HERE.