Let’s see what this week’s numbers say about online advertising, shall we?

• Online media spend in the US totaled $320 billion last year, up by 11.3% from 2022, according to the latest annual data from Winterberry Group. This growth is below the 13.6% growth rate recorded for 2022 and trails the 2020-2023 compound annual growth rate of 20.2%, indicating that the rate of digital media spending growth is slowing as the sector matures. Nonetheless, online marketing spend grew by faster than what had been predicted  and accounted for about 62.1% of last year’s total spend of $515.1 billion, up from about 58.6% share in 2022.
• Last year looked like it would be the year of social video, according to both agencies and marketers who looked ahead and forecast important trends. Of course, generative artificial intelligence (AI) took over as all the rage, and the latest annual report from RSW/US indicates that a leading 70% pointing to AI-powered personalization as the trend that will be most impactful this year. This marks a big rise in interest in the use of AI from last year, when only a quarter of respondents said that using AI to predict consumer behavior would be a top trend. While AI and personalization are top of mind, short-form video isn’t going away.
• More than 4 in 10 consumers in the US have used TikTok as a search engine, according to recent survey data from Adobe. Not surprisingly, the research finds that the likelihood of using TikTok as a search engine is much higher among younger than older adults. Specifically, almost two-thirds (64%) of Gen Z respondents have used TikTok for search, as have around half (49%) of Millennials. Use of TikTok for search drops to 29% among Gen Xers and to 14% among Baby Boomers.