• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 5, 2024

Media buyers expect to spend 11.8% more on ads in 2024 -- up 2.3 percentage points from the 9.5% they projected last November.

Paid search is forecast to rank third in terms of percentage of growth behind connected television (CTV) and social media.

The Internet Advertising Bureau on Thursday released an ad-spending trends report forecasting increases in annual ad spend.

The 2024 Outlook Study updated estimates from media buyers, mostly at brands and agencies. The emailed survey was fielded between June 14 and August 12, 2024. 

Nearly all media channels are expected to post higher growth rates year-over-year (YoY), but ad spend for CTV is estimated to rise the most --18.4% in 2024, up from 14.5% in 2023.

Social media ad spend is estimated to rise 16.3% in 2024 -- up from 11.4% in 2023 -- while paid search should reach 13.1% in 2024, compared with 10.1% in 2023.

Digital video claims the largest share of ad spend, while traditional media's share is expected to decline. Despite a temporary boost from special events, linear TV's share of ad spend continues to decline alongside other traditional media.

Retail media, however, continues to grow, with buyers revising YoY projections from 21.8% in November 2023 to 25.1% in August 2024. 

The study also found that media buyers continue to focus on cross-funnel key performance indicators (KPIs). The top three goals for media investments include acquiring new customers, at 50%, increasing brand equity such as awareness, consideration, intent, at 40%, and improving media efficiencies,  at 34%. 

The decline in focus on new ad KPIs suggests a renewed interest in refining and leveraging established metrics to achieve cross-funnel goals, according to the report. 

Media buyers showed the most interest in optimizing reach and frequency KPIs, which rose the most -- by 27% -- compared with 22% in November 2023.

From their responses, the buyers seemed less interested in exploring new ad KPIs such as attention metrics. This category fell the most -- at 16% -- compared with 22% in 2023.