Global Advertising Forecast: Ad Revenue Set to Reach $1.14 Trillion

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Advertising spending will grow more than predicted in 2025 because tariffs didn’t take as big a bite as expected and AI provided a boost, according to a new forecast from media investment group WPP Media.

Global ad revenue excluding US political advertising will grow 8.8% in 2025 to $1.14 trillion, WPP Media said, raising its forecast from the 6% it predicted in June. Next year is expected to see worldwide advertising grow 7.1%, it stated, revising its June forecast of 6.1%.

Marketers mitigated the impact of tariffs by accelerating imports to avoid their implementation, carefully managing their inventories, and absorbing some of the costs.

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“In June, we were reacting to more recent tariff announcements,” said Kate Scott-Dawkins, President of Business Intelligence at WPP Media and Lead Author of the Report. 

“The summer gave us a chance to see how those played out, to see how resilient consumer spending was off the back of those announcements in markets around the world, to see what sort of negotiations and arrangements were made that lessened the impact of some of those tariffs.”

Some of the sting from tariffs was only delayed, however, and will finally be felt in 2026, the report said.

The surge in AI investment also led to more ad spending than originally expected, according to WPP Media. Some businesses are using the technology to make processes, including marketing and product development, more efficient and directing the savings into new ad buys, Scott-Dawkins said. 

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New companies are also forming in the AI sector itself and, in turn, becoming advertisers of their own.

The forecast also said that global retail media, in which businesses such as grocery and big-box chains offer advertisers ways to reach consumers using customer data, will surpass television advertising revenue in 2025 for the first time, with an increase of 11.3% to $174.2 billion.

TV ad spending across both traditional and streaming viewing will rise 0.6%, WPP Media said. 

The forecast builds on the introduction of “Intelligence” as a new category (replacing “search”) and introduces the “Future of Advertising Intelligence Framework” to assess the capabilities needed for success.

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