Digital’s share grows to 74% of UK advertising spend

Released in April, our 2021 Digital Adspend full year results show that the digital advertising market in the UK grew by 41% last year to a total of £23.5 billion. The report, produced with PwC, found that digital ad spend grew across the board with the total market up 33% excluding the industry’s five largest companies.

To put Adspend results in context and deliver a broader picture of spend across the industry, we have now drawn on Digital Adspend results in conjunction with AA /WARC Ad Expenditure data to chart spend across media sectors. The key takeaways are:

• The total UK advertising market was worth £31.92bn in 2021, with digital accounting for £23.5bn of spend
• Total UK ad spend grew by 34.3%, with digital growing by 40.5%, second only to cinema.
• Digital advertising’s share of the total ad market now stands at 74% , with paid search making up the majority of this (37%), followed by digital display (31%).