• by Joe Mandese , 3 hours ago

In what proved to be a volatile year of ups and downs complicated by summer month comparisons with the previous year's Olympics, 2025 ended on a flat note, posting a modest 0.2% gain in U.S. ad spending volume, according to just-refreshed data from Guideline's U.S. Ad Market Tracker.

That said, December 2025's tepid growth compares with a more than 15% market expansion in December 2024, and despite a 1.5% decline in July, all the other months showed gains for the year.

The average monthly gain across the 12 months was 5.3%.