• by Sarah Mahoney , July 8, 2024

Brands are clamoring for ad space on Pinterest 

Wedbush just unveiled its second-quarter survey of digital advertising, revealing widespread strengths among all channels and platforms, with Meta and Pinterest among the best performing. Still, demand is a few degrees cooler. “Our survey results still indicate broadly healthy advertiser demand, though results were less incrementally positive relative to our first quarter survey in early April,” writes analyst Scott Devitt in the report.

Based on responses from more than 200 U.S. advertisers, the investment research company finds demand for ads in search and CTV/video still gaining. In contrast, plans to buy ads on social media sites and retail media networks moderated.

Overall, Wedbush finds plenty of evidence to be bullish on digital, with 45% of advertisers saying they spent 10% more, year over year, in the second quarter. “Advertiser sentiment is significantly better than it was to start the year,” he says. Still, that’s a slight decrease from 48% in the first quarter report, and Wedbush says this may signal that “growth is likely to decelerate as the year progresses.”

For the full year, 57% of advertisers expect 2024 digital ad spending to increase by at least 10%, down from 61% in the first quarter.

The percentage of advertisers expecting to increase 2024 budgets improved to 90% from 82% in the prior survey. Just 9% of advertisers plan to hold spending steady, versus 16% in the previous study. And only 1% expect to decrease digital ad spending.

Social media still gets the most ad buys, but those platforms also had the largest decrease in advertisers planning to dial up 2024 spending by 10% or more. Retail media also saw a slight reduction in intent. Conversely, search and CTV/streaming video are getting more love, with about 26% of respondents planning to raise those budgets by 10% or more.

Growth at Meta increased, especially at Reels, which means revenue from U.S.-based brands has now accelerated for five consecutive quarters. Spending intent for the third quarter is also positive, with about 44% of advertisers saying they’ll increase spending on Meta’s sites by more than 10%.

Wedbush also sees good things ahead for Pinterest and notes that it had a strong concentration of advertisers upping spending on that channel by 20% or more. And 88% of all Pinterest advertisers plan to increase spending there.

Wedbush also found strength at The Trade Desk, which was included in the survey for the first time. While just 25% of surveyed brands use the Trade Desk, 79% are ramping up budgets there.

Wedbush reviews the results at Alphabet as mixed, with search outperforming YouTube. And feedback on Amazon “implies strong but decelerating growth,” with 87% of respondents saying they will increase spending, compared to 95% a year ago.