Global ad growth forecasts upgraded on social media windfall

Global advertising spend is growing rapidly with digital-first platforms capturing almost all the new money, WARC’s Global Ad Forecast Q3 2025 indicates – the growth upgrade is the first in more than a year, but that growth won’t be evenly distributed with three major technology firms capturing almost two thirds of that growth this year.

WARC’s latest global projections are based on data aggregated from 100 markets worldwide and leverage a proprietary neural network which projects advertising investment patterns based on over two million data points.

WARC Media members can read the full forecast here.

In short

Though ad spend growth is strong, 90% of that growth goes to online platforms. This means that legacy media owners – even those with online properties in their portfolios – are competing over the course of the year for the equivalent of what Facebook makes in an average month.

Meta, Alphabet and Amazon now attract over half (55.8%) of total advertising spend outside of China, a share which is on track to top 60% by 2030.

Growth forecasts

• Global advertising spend is now on course to grow 7.4% this year to $1.17trn, a marked upgrade of 1.2 percentage points (pp) from WARC’s June forecast.
• Looking further ahead, the ad market is expected to accelerate growth to 8.1% in 2026, to reach a total of $1.27trn.

Where it’s going

Nine in every ten incremental marketing dollars now go to online-only platforms.

Of all new ad dollars entering the market this year, two in five (40.6%) are going to a social media platform, one in five (22.2%) is going towards search advertising, and one in five (21.5%) is being paid to retail media platforms.

Social media ad spend is projected to rise 14.9% this year to a total of $306.4bn, equivalent to over a quarter (26.2%) of all advertising spend in 2025 – Meta is expected to enjoy 14.8% growth this year which would mean that 60% of all social ad spend is going to the Menlo Park-based company.

From the editor

“The global market is set to nearly double in value since the pandemic, underscoring the resilience of advertising in a tougher economic climate,” explains James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence & Forecasting, WARC.

“Despite economic headwinds, including disruption to global trade and reduced purchasing power among consumers, brands are doubling down on Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, while emerging players like TikTok are growing fast but from smaller bases.”