• U.S. measured ad spend by category 2020

Between 2019 and 2020, measured media spending in the U.S. retail sector decreased from 15.5 to 12.4 billion U.S. dollars. All of the top five spending categories invested more than 10 billion U.S. dollars each on U.S. media that year.

Advertising in the retail industry

Spending almost 6.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, Amazon was by far the leading retailer in the United States, in terms of ad spend. That year, other major retailers, such as Walmart and Macy’s, spent roughly 2.4 billion and 907 million U.S. dollars, respectively.

Macy’s: one of America’s leading retail companies

Macy’s Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1858, with its headquarters in Ohio, United States. The company’s net sales worldwide amounted to roughly 17.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, an amount quite a bit lower than one year earlier, due to the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on the entire industry. As of 2020, Macy's employed around 75.7 thousand people. The company's employee peak, however, was in 2012 when the company had roughly 176 thousand people working for them.

Measured media advertising spending in the United States from 2014 to 2020, by category (in billion U.S. dollars)

Characteristic	Retail	Automotive	Telecommunications, internet services and ISP	General services	Medicine and remedies
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Release date

July 2021

More information

Region

United States

Survey time period

2014 to 2020

Special properties

measured media only

Supplementary notes

Measured media is based on spending in 19 media: consumer magazines, Sunday magazines, local magazines, business-to-business magazines, local newspapers, national newspapers, free-standing inserts, broadcast network TV, broadcast spot TV, national syndicated TV, network cable TV, network radio, national spot radio, local radio, Spanish-language media (magazines, newspapers, TV networks), outdoor and internet (display advertising; excludes paid search, video and other forms of internet advertising).
The figures do not include unmeasured spending, such as direct marketing, promotion, internet paid search, social media and other forms of spending not included in the 19 measured media.