Digital accounts for 70% of advertising spend

Posted on Tuesday 18 May 2021 | IAB UK

Get a snapshot of the UK advertising market by media sector, using IAB UK/PwC Adspend and WARC data

Released last month, our 2020 Digital Adspend report shows that the digital ad market grew by 5% in 2020, despite the impact of the pandemic. The report, produced with PwC, found that spend hit a total of £16.5 billion in 2020, fuelled by growth in social display, video and search. 

To help give a broader picture of spend across the industry, we have now drawn on Digital Adspend results and data from WARC to chart spend across media sectors. This shows that: 

  • The total UK advertising market was worth £23.46bn in 2020, with digital accounting for £16.5bn of spend, followed by TV 
  • Total UK ad spend fell by 7.2% in 2020. Digital advertising was the only area of growth, up 5.2%
  • Digital advertising’s share of the total ad market now stands at 70%, with paid search making up the majority of this (36%), followed by digital display (27%)

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IAB UK

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Digital Adspend

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