U.S. Ad Market Dips Again In June

by Joe Mandese , July 27, 2023

After rising for the first time in nearly a year in May, the U.S. Ad Market Tracker dipped again in June, falling 1.4% from June 2022.

While U.S. ad spending has been slowing down in recent months, the ad tracker, a composite index of ad spending by big agency holding companies and major independent media agencies compiled by Standard Media Index, should have easier comps starting in July and for next several months, all of which were down in 2022.

June's declines reflects cuts by the top 10 advertising categories, which fell a combined 2.2%, while all others actually increased a marginal 0.3% vs. year ago levels.

Despite advertising sales headwinds among some big digital media companies, digital media continued to take share of total ad spending in June, rising to 66%, five percentage points higher than the share of ad spending going to digital media in June 2022.

ad spending, advertising, agency, digital, holding company

3 comments about "U.S. Ad Market Dips Again In June".

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John Grono from GAP Research, July 27, 2023 at 9:31 p.m.
Joe, do you have any details on how SMI define "June"?

When Sue and Jane started SMI in AU in 2009, the data collected was (in the main) weekly and (for obvious reasons) not daily, which meant that the definition of any month could vary across time.

I can't recall as to whether the opening and ending weeks were interpolated (i.e. average day within the week but only including the days within the week that was being reported) or whether it was a 'dominance' rule (i.e. four months of the year would have five weeks and the other eight months have four weeks).

Further, the DOW varies from year to year, i.e. June 2023 started on a different DOW than it started in June 2022. For example, June 2023 may have had more 'slow' days than in 2022 which could affect the monthly total and thus lead to a decline in the monthly YOY was reported.
Reply

Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., July 27, 2023 at 9:52 p.m.

@Jon Grono: I believe June is defined as the 30 days beginning June 1 and ending June 30th, but I will check.

John Grono from GAP Research, July 27, 2023 at 10:05 p.m.

Thanks Joe. Daily data was sparse back then. Hopefully the basis is now daily data and the reporting pencil is sharper than it was a decade-plus ago. Either way, it is still a useful indicator.

Cheers.