• by Joe Mandese , August 21, 2020

The erosion of U.S. ad spending continues to moderate, falling at its lowest rate of decline in July since the economic effects of the pandemic began manifesting earlier this year.

U.S. ad volume declined 13.9% vs. July 2019, according to the just-updated U.S. Ad Market Tracker, a collaboration of MediaPost and Standard Media Index. 

That compares with a 17% decline in June, a 31% decrease in May, a 35% drop in April and an 11% slide in March, the first month of 2020 to go into an ad recession.

The July data is yet another positive indicator that the U.S. ad recession is indeed bottoming out as many predicted in the third quarter. 

It also follows the release of U.S. economic data showing that ad spending is proving more resilient than the decline in the national economy. According to an exclusive MediaPost analysis of the index data, the U.S. ad industry contracted 14.4% during the first half vs. the U.S. GDP, which fell 19%.

The resilience appears to be coming from the largest U.S. advertisers and from digital media, the latter which actually grew in July rather than declining.

According to the index, digital media ad spending rose 3.6% vs. July 2019.

National TV -- the only other discrete medium delineated in the index -- fell 30.7% vs. July 2019.

In terms of ad categories, the top 10 fell only in the single digits -- dropping 9.9% vs. July 2019 -- while categories 11+ fell 22.9% vs. 2019.