Growth in the global advertising market does not necessarily bring agencies an equivalent increase in their biggest clients’ budgets. While investment in digital platforms accelerates, major advertisers are, on average, allocating a shrinking share of revenue to advertising. The distinction matters to everyone working with major brands: total market spending reveals less and less about how willing those particular clients are to increase investment.
This distinction is explored in WARC Media’s new report, Global Ad Trends: The cost of being seen. Across a sample of 25 major advertisers, the combined share of advertising in sales revenue fell from 6.1% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2025. Their total advertising expenditure rose by 56% over that period, but revenue grew faster, by 73%.
Meanwhile, WARC Media forecasts that global advertising expenditure will grow by 11.9% in 2026, reaching $1.34 trillion. Adjusted for inflation, this is 61.3% higher than 25 years ago, with newer channels such as retail media and platform advertising contributing to that growth.
Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media, explains that the market is growing at different speeds. Spending on digital platforms by smaller businesses and sellers operating through cross-border e-commerce is growing significantly faster than major brands’ advertising investment. For agencies and other service providers that rely on large companies, this distribution of growth has direct business implications.
The most pronounced decline in advertising’s share of revenue was recorded among technology companies. Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Netflix collectively allocated 13% of revenue to advertising in 2019, compared with 7.4% in 2025. Over the same period, their combined revenue grew by 146%, from $379 billion to $931 billion.
Had they maintained their 2019 ratio, these four companies would have spent $121 billion on advertising in 2025, or $52 billion more than they actually did. One explanation highlighted in the report is access to their own audiences. Companies such as Alphabet and Meta can grow by drawing on the attention they already attract, reducing the need to buy it elsewhere.
Among consumer goods manufacturers, the ratio is moving in the opposite direction. The six companies covered by the analysis, Coca-Cola, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, Nike, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble, increased their combined advertising expenditure by 36% between 2019 and 2025, while their revenue grew by 29%. Five companies increased advertising’s share of revenue, while PepsiCo’s remained broadly unchanged.
Their combined ratio rose from 11.6% in 2023 to 12.5% in 2025. Slowing sales growth and the reallocation of budgets towards retail media are behind this shift. Money previously accounted for under sales activities and point-of-purchase promotion is now entering advertising budgets, a change that also increases recorded advertising intensity.
Beyond the technology and consumer goods sectors, the analysis covers a further 15 advertisers across automotive, payment services, retail, hospitality, tourism and pharmaceuticals. Ten reduced the share of revenue they allocated to advertising between 2019 and 2025, although the group’s overall ratio, weighted by revenue, remained stable or rose slightly.
This trend connects companies across different industries: Ford and General Motors, Visa and Mastercard, as well as McDonald’s and Target. The decline was particularly pronounced in the automotive industry: Ford’s share fell from 2.3% to 1.6%, while General Motors’ fell from 2.7% to 1.7%. Marriott, Booking Holdings, Eli Lilly and The Home Depot also recorded lower shares. The ratio remained broadly unchanged at Amazon and Yum! Brands, while it increased at Walmart, Starbucks and Expedia.
Differences between companies also stem from how they generate revenue and allocate budgets. Weaker sales can increase advertising’s share even without additional investment, while moving money from sales activities into retail media increases the amount recorded as advertising expenditure. Companies that already have access to their own audiences have different growth opportunities from those that must pay for that access. For agencies and other marketing service providers, this means that global market growth will not be felt equally by everyone: much depends on the sectors and clients they work with.
