Growth in digital ad spending in the CEE region 2021, by country

In 2021, two Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries achieved an over 30-percent growth rate in digital advertising spending. These were Ukraine and Slovakia. Bulgaria saw the lowest increase compared to the previous year, at 13 percent.

How does digital advertising in CEE perform compared to other channels?

The internet was the leading advertising channel across the CEE region, with a spending of over 9.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. It was followed by television, which had the largest expenditure until 2019. Spending on digital advertising was approximately eight times higher than that of out-of-home (OOH) ads. Over the course of 2021, online ads saw a 35-percent increase in spending year-over-year, which was the highest growth rate among other channels. To compare, out-of-home (OOH) advertising budgets rose by 16 percent.

Digital advertising growth around the world

On average worldwide, expenditure on online advertising grew by 30.5 percent in 2021, up from 12.5 percent in the previous year. The internet was the only channel that saw an increase in spending in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Media budgets on traditional formats, such as TV, outdoor, cinema, and press advertising, declined that year. Globally, the fastest-growing digital advertising market was the United States, with an expenditure growth of over 38 percent in 2021.