Going up, and quicker than previously thought.

That’s the message on global advertising spending from GroupM, a media investment organization that’s a holding of Britain-based advertising/communications giant WPP.

GroupM forecasts that worldwide ad spend will accelerate 22.5% year over year in 2021 to $763.2 billion. The new prediction is an upwardly revised forecast from one GroupM issued in June. At that time, the organization was calling for 19.2% year-over-year growth in 2021. The forecast excludes U.S. political ad spending, which can cause significant fluctuation.

The growth trajectory of 2021 is expected to continue in 2022, albeit at a slower rate. GroupM predicts that global ad spend will accelerate 9.7% next year to $836.9 million – another upward revision from a previous forecast that called for 8.8% growth. Global media revenue will hit a landmark in 2025, when it surpasses $1 trillion, just a year after reaching $999.9 billion, according to GroupM.

“We recognize the rates of growth observed in 2021 appear to be historical anomalies in an industry more accustomed to mid-single-digit levels,” GroupM wrote in its forecast. “However, a heightened pace of expansion for the advertising industry could very well persist as long as economies around the world are producing companies that are more reliant on advertising than those they replace.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, digital advertising is expected to dominate the market and to continue to gain share. In 2021, digital advertising will account for 64.4% of total advertising, a four percentage point rise from 2020 and up from 52.1% in 2019.

Our #TYNY Global EOY Forecast is here & we're bullish: 30.5% expected growth for #digitaladvertising for 2021, nearly 5% higher than June's estimate. As digital's share grows, CMOs are excited about what it means in 2022 & beyond. Get the full forecast: https://t.co/kVHShRi72E

— GroupM (@GroupMWorldwide) December 6, 2021

A report from GroupM says the increases are due, in part, to small businesses and digital economy companies (such as app developers) spending more on digital ads. Also driving the rise are marketers based in China, who are increasingly leveraging global digital platforms to reach potential customers outside their domestic borders.

GroupM estimates that between 80% and 90% of digital ad spend outside China will go to Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., Facebook parent firm Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com.

Interestingly, a separate report from Zenith, which is part of French multinational advertising and public relations company Publicis Groupe, found that an increasing percentage of digital advertising is occurring through display and search advertising on the e-commerce platforms of retailers.

Amazon, along with various China-based e-commerce platforms, is dominant when it comes to media advertising with retailers, which Zenith expects will grow 47% globally in 2021 to reach $77 billion. The category increased revenue by 24% year over year in 2019 and 53% in 2020.  

In another sign of the evolving advertising landscape, Zenith forecasts that social media advertising ($177 billion) will outpace television advertising ($174 billion) in 2022. The fact that COVID-19 accelerated e-commerce spending/transactions is playing a role in pushing social past TV.

As global ad spending increases more broadly, the North American promotional products industry has returned to growth in recent quarters following five straight quarters of year-over-year declines due to the pandemic. Promo products distributor sales increased, on average, by 27.3% in Q2 2021 and 18.4% in Q3. At the midway point of Q4, leading suppliers reported that sales were surging.