In 2018, search advertising spending stood at nearly 98 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. This amount is projected to grow to about 123 billion U.S. dollars by 2021. Display advertising, which reached 140 billion U.S. dollars, accounted for the largest ad spend share in 2018.

Digital ads in selected countries worldwide

In 2018, the United States spent just over 100 billion U.S. dollars on digital ads, which was more than what China, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany spent combined. The United Kingdom was the leading European country in terms of digital ad expenditure. In the first half of 2019, the country spent roughly 3.7 billion GBP (4.8 billion U.S. dollars) on search advertising, specifically.

Digital ads in the United States

In 2019, retail-related products and services made up about 22 percent of all digital ads in the United States, meaning the retail industry accounted for the largest share of the total digital ad spend that year. Other significant industries on the list included automotive, financial services, and computing products & consumer electronics.