U.S. ad spending's steadily-increasing year-over-year gains continued in February 2024, with a growth rate doubling that of January, moving from 5.2% to a 10.4% lift, according to Guideline's Ad Market Tracker, powered by Standard Media Index.
The steady rise began in September 2023, when the ad market's slight 0.7% increase vs. 12 months prior gradually grew over the next five months (2.0%-3.6%-4.9%-5.2%-10.4%), although it has shown year-over-year uptrends since April 2023, making this the 11th straight month of growth.
February's 10.4% rise vs. a year earlier marks the first month of double-digit growth for ad spend since an 11.3% gain in March 2022. That boost was followed shortly after by a downward trend that ran from July 2022 to March 2023, according to an analysis by MediaPost.
The growth during February was primarily driven by product categories below the top 10, where spend was up 14.7% vs. the top 10's 7.4%. Compared to February 2023, digital media's share of ad spend grow from 59% to 65%, while traditional slipped from 41% to 35%.
The trend pushes the U.S. ad economy's recession further in the rear-view mirror while suggesting continued ad spend growth for 2024, boosted by political advertising and major events such as the Paris Summer Olympics.
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.