Make it 14 consecutive months that U.S. ad spending increased, which is up 4.3% in April 2022. Additionally, April represented a 60% increase over April 2020, which was the low watermark of the pandemic-related ad recession.
Another trend revealed in the U.S. Ad Market Tracker, a collaboration of Standard Media Index (SMI) and MediaPost, is the fact that smaller advertisers and categories continue to lead the expansion, while the Top 10 categories remain flat – rising only 0.5% over year-over-year. However, the Top 10 ad categories are up 48.8% over April 2020. All other categories increased 10.1% over April 2021 and a whopping 78.8% over April 2020.
Digital media is expanding faster than traditional media, according to the Ad Market Tracker. Digital accounted for 56% of the share of total ad spending in the U.S. last month. It is up 51% year-over-year and 43% compared to April 2020.
All other traditional media had declines year-over-year, except out-of-home, which is up 59% in April. Print media is taking the biggest hit, with magazines and newspapers being the only media that was down when compared to April’s 2020 low, dropping 46% and 13%, respectively since April 2020.