US Total Political Ad Spending

Timeframe20162017201820192020
Total political ad spending (billions)Maximum of two rows can be charted.
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– % changeMaximum of two rows can be charted.
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– % of total media ad spendingMaximum of two rows can be charted.
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Source: eMarketer

Note: includes advertising related to federal, state or local politics, including elections and lobbying activities; includes advertising directly related to legislative and regulatory issues

Additional Note: Digital ad includes banner ads and other (static display and ads such as Facebook's News Feed Ads and Twitter's Promoted Tweets), classified ads, email (embedded ads only), mobile messaging (SMS, MMS and P2P messaging), rich media (including instream and outstream video ads), search ads (including contextual text links, paid inclusion, paid listings and SEO), sponsorships, lead generation (referrals); rich media data for 2017-2022 includes instream and outstream video ads; data prior to 2017 includes only outstream video ads. Directories spending includes yellow pages and other. Magazine spending includes B2B, consumer, local and Sunday. eMarketer benchmarks its US newspaper ad spending projections against the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) data, for which the last full year measured was 2013. Newspaper spending includes classified, national and retail. eMarketer benchmarks its US out-of-home ad spending projections against Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) data, for which the last full year measured was 2017. Out-of-home spending includes alternative, billboards, cinema, street furniture and transit. TV spending includes broadcast TV (network, syndication and spot) and cable TV.

Methodology: Estimates are based on the analysis of various elements related to the ad spending market, including macro-level economic conditions; historical trends of the advertising market; historical trends of each medium in relation to other media; reported revenues from major ad publishers; estimates from other research firms; data from benchmark sources; consumer media consumption trends; consumer device usage trends; and eMarketer interviews with executives at ad agencies, brands, media publishers and other industry leaders.

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