• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 28, 2023

After dipping slightly in June, the U.S. Ad Market Tracker posted its biggest gain in monthly U.S. ad spending since April 2022.

July ad spending by the major U.S. ad agencies pooling their data in the index rose 6.2% over July 2022, which was down 8.2% from July 2021.

Given better comparisons with year-ago levels that were experiencing a mini ad industry recession, the remainder of 2023 should see gains or at least less severe declines -- even as many agencies and some media companies have been reporting a weak start to this year, citing macroeconomic volatility.

Smaller ad categories (+6.6%) outperformed the top 10 ad categories (+5.9%) by a modest margin.