The pandemic-propelled industry boom has waned. Amid macroeconomic uncertainty, less than a quarter of marketers think their 2023 budgets will increase from the previous 12 months.WARC Media forecasts pureplay internet ad growth in 2023 at just 5.5%, down from 42% in 2021, reaching a worldwide total of $523bn.

It seems the digital ad market is arriving at the top of an ‘S’ curve, where growth is slow to begin with, then accelerates over a period of time, before flattening. Only 68% of advertisers surveyed by WARC forThe Marketer’s Toolkit plan to increase spend on online video in 2023, down from 80% last year.

In the future, digital media owners are likely to fight harder for ad revenue growth – and, increasingly, will compete with one another for ad dollars.

However, increases are still expected across most channels.Few product sectors will cut back advertising in 2023 – with a few notable exceptions including financial services (-4.5%) and automotive (-12.4%), the latter impacted by supply chain disruptions. While audio spend is forecasted to increase a mere 0.2%, podcasts will grow at 8%, according to WARC Media data.

Credit: WARC