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When the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) polled marketers in February, it reported that the biggest ad spend cuts due to tariffs would come from social media, gaming, and linear TV. CTV and digital audio were at the bottom of the list, but that doesn鈥檛 prevent these areas from losing budget should this upheaval continue. The impact of tariffs on advertising could become systemic.

While growing, spending on the medium is still lower than other channels: We forecast podcast ad spending to reach $2.53 billion in 2025, a small fraction of the $82.4 billion spend on social video ads. Okay to pause: Like gamers, podcast listeners aren鈥檛 bothered by ads, especially if ads mean they can access podcasts for free.

In both categories, 鈥渨e鈥檙e seeing big growth in comparison to all the other ad spending metrics and the rest of the digital world where the growth numbers are not so big anymore,鈥� Cramer-Flood said. 2. Content is becoming increasingly shoppable.

The revised policies take effect March 19 and align with Google鈥檚 recent push to tackle child safety, but they could also reflect the decline in sports betting ad spend. That category peaked at $1 billion in 2022 but plummeted 21% YoY to less than $800 million in 2023, per The American Gaming Association.

As sports wagering grows its digital footprint, ad spending by the gambling industry levels off.

It is debuting linear TV content, launching a BBC Studios podcast partnership, a new personalized interface to ease content discovery, and refining its gaming strategy, all while debuting experiential Netflix House locations. These initiatives show Netflix is no longer just a streamer鈥攊t鈥檚 positioning itself as a full-funnel marketing environment.

Mobile game advertising will account for only 3.9% of mobile ad spending in 2024, far less than the 10.9% of mobile time spent on gaming. Brand advertisers remain cautious, which is keeping the digital ad growth rate steady. Consumers are lingering longer in their favorite apps. Nine of 10 (91.4%) mobile minutes are spent in apps.

Gaming and linear TV (each cited by 24% of respondents) round out the top four most affected channels. Here are two examples of how tariffs could ultimately impact ad spending:. Advertisers could reassess streaming budgets as costs rise and ROI becomes harder to justify.

PayPal and Discord both debuted ad offerings last year, with the former boasting its ability to reach customers throughout the entire shopping journey and the latter capitalizing on its diverse gaming audience.

Social network ad spending is still high relative to time spent on them, a disconnect primarily driven by Meta. As time spent with social networks plateaus, platforms are trying to break into CTV to capture the time spent (and ad dollars) in streaming.

Why advertisers need to keep up with consumer changes in streaming, social search, and gaming. Retail media will make up one-fifth of worldwide digital ad spend this year. Guide to retail media: Rapid growth, expanding formats, and emerging opportunities.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss why gaming is a digital advertising hotbed, how consumers are embracing shoppable media, and what happens now that the ride-sharing industry has bounced back. Tune in to the discussion with our forecasting writer Ethan Cramer-Flood.

Trump鈥檚 tariffs fuel ad industry pullback: Marketers are cutting budgets and ad growth projections fall sharply as inflation and trade uncertainty rise.

BeReal hired Ben Moore as its US managing director to support ad growth. Moore previously led global media buying partnerships for TikTok. The app claims to have 40 million monthly users worldwide, with 5 million located in the US. What ads will be like: BeReal has two ad formats鈥攊n-feed ads that look like organic content, and homepage takeover ads when users open the app.

US ad spending faces a slowdown: Economic uncertainty, tariffs, and inflation are prompting advertisers to cut budgets, with 2025 ad growth forecasts declining.

Discord expands ad offerings: The company is launching Video Quests for mobile in June 2025, incentivizing ad engagement with in-game rewards as it broadens its advertiser appeal beyond gaming.

The most popular category of subscriptions among all consumers is digital media, followed by delivery services, gaming, and food and groceries, according to SurveyMonkey. Subscription OTT connected TV platform ad spending will grow 40.5% this year to reach $7.54 billion, per our March forecast.

In addition to linear TV and video streaming services, podcasts, video games, out-of-home (OOH), and retail media networks (RMNs) all sell inventory upfront now. Upfront buying still offers advantages.

Yet digital audio will claim only 1.9% of US ad spending this year, compared with social鈥檚 19.3% take. Similarly, 214.0 million radio listeners will tune in for an average of 1:41 per day this year鈥攜et radio will only take 3.0% of all ad dollars. We have broken out digital gaming for the first time.

Connected TV (CTV) has emerged as the fastest-growing ad channel tracked by 蘑菇AV. Its ad spend outpaced other digital ads, search, social media, and retail media in 2024.

Total upfront ad spending will grow this year, even though upfront TV commitments will decline.