UK Digital Ad Spending by Industry 2018

Executive Summary

We forecast UK digital spending by the five largest-spending industries—automotive, consumer packaged goods (CPG), financial services, retail and travel—will grow nearly 10% in 2019. This report breaks out spending by display, search, desktop and mobile for each category.

What is the forecast for digital ad spending in the UK for 2019?

The UK is the largest market for digital ad spending in Europe, with more than double the amount of spending in digital channels than Germany, the next biggest market. We forecast overall digital ad spending for 2018 will total £12.98 billion ($16.72 US billion), accounting for 63.6% of total media ad spending. Spending will increase 9.9% in 2019, to £14.27 billion ($18.37 billion).

Which industries will spend the most on digital ad channels in the UK?

Of the industries we measured in the UK, retail leads digital ad spending, where it will reach £1.88 billion ($2.42 billion) in 2018.

How much of the growth in digital ad spending in the UK will be mobile?

We expect much of the growth in UK ad spending in digital channels through 2019 to come from mobile, up 20.3% in 2018, followed by a 15.5% increase in 2019.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? We update our forecast of cross-industry digital ad spending in the UK, including projections for the automotive, CPG, financial services, retail and travel industries for 2018 and 2019. Ad spending is also broken out by device and format.