Global advertising spend is forecast to rise 11.9% to $1.34 trillion in 2026, according to WARC Media's Global Ad Spend Forecast Q3 2026, released on October 8, 2026. Social media is the fastest-growing channel in the forecast, up 21.3% to $394.6 billion, while search climbs 14.2% to $295.7 billion and retail media 14.3% to $202.1 billion. Television, by contrast, grows 1.2% to $176.2 billion this year and is forecast to shrink 1.8% in 2027. Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are set to take 59.7% of global ad spend outside China, equivalent to $659.6 billion.

In Short

A research company called WARC Media, which tracks how much money is spent on advertising worldwide, now expects companies to spend $1.34 trillion on ads in 2026, almost 12% more than last year. Most of the new money is going to social media, search engines and shopping sites like Amazon, and most of that ends up with three companies: Alphabet, Amazon and Meta. Traditional channels such as radio, newspapers and magazines keep losing ground, and WARC expects overall growth to slow to 8.4% in 2027.

The headline numbers

WARC Media published the update on October 8, 2026. The source reviewed for this article is a copy of the release carried on the press release section of Podnews, the podcast industry newsletter, which states it may make small edits for editorial reasons. All forecast figures below are attributed to WARC Media.

The total is $1,343.0 billion for 2026. According to WARC Media, that follows "strong 10.0% growth in 2024 and 2025." The release does not specify whether the 10.0% figure applies to each of those years or to a combined period. Working backwards from the 11.9% growth rate, the 2026 forecast implies a 2025 base of roughly $1.2 trillion, a PPC Land calculation rather than a WARC figure.

WARC Media attributes the growth to "significant corporate AI investment" and to major events including the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the US mid-term elections. The forecast comes with a caveat. "While the economy has remained resilient to date, further escalations of global tensions pose potential downside risks," according to WARC Media.

Suzy Young, Head of WARC Media Data, framed the numbers as a contradiction. "These are unusual times for advertising. Investment is accelerating even as many consumers face cost-of-living pressures and become more cautious with spending," Young said. "This apparent contradiction reflects an increasingly uneven economy, where growth - particularly from the AI boom - is benefiting some companies, sectors and consumers more than others."

From 8.9% to 11.9% in one quarter

The number is a sharp upgrade. When WPP Media published its midyear forecast in June, PPC Land noted that WARC's revised global forecast, reported on June 16, 2026, had put 2026 growth at 8.9%. The Q3 update adds 3.0 percentage points to that figure in a single revision.

The distance from WPP Media is wider still. WPP Media's June edition of This Year Next Year projected $1.3 trillion in 2026 global ad revenue, growth of 4.4% excluding US political spending. The two companies use different baselines and definitions, so the dollar totals are not directly comparable, but the gap between a 4.4% and an 11.9% growth rate for the same calendar year is large.

In the United States, a separate survey-based forecast points in the same direction as WARC. The IAB lifted its 2026 US ad spend growth projection to 12.3% on September 10, 2026, up 2.8 points from the 9.5% it projected in January. That forecast also placed social media at the top of its channel growth table, at 16.5%.

Channel by channel

WARC Media's table splits the $1.34 trillion into ten channels, with sub-channels for audio, publishing and video. The figures below are 2026 spend in US dollars, followed by the 2026 and 2027 growth forecasts.

Channel 2026 spend ($bn) 2026 change 2027 change
Social media 394.6 21.3% 14.6%
Search 295.7 14.2% 8.8%
Video 231.4 2.9% 0.7%
- TV 176.2 1.2% -1.8%
- Online video 55.2 8.8% 8.8%
Retail media 202.1 14.3% 10.8%
Out of home 63.3 8.1% 6.3%
Publishing media 44.4 -2.4% -0.9%
- Newsbrands 31.3 -2.7% -0.8%
- Magazine brands 13.2 -1.5% -1.0%
Audio 41.9 2.5% 1.2%
- Radio 25.3 -1.9% -3.0%
- Online audio 16.6 9.9% 7.5%
Online display 35.5 -2.5% -1.5%
Online classified 31.1 4.1% 5.2%
Cinema 3.0 6.0% 5.4%
Total 1,343.0 11.9% 8.4%

Source: WARC Media, Global Ad Spend Forecast Q3 2026.

The ten top-level channels sum exactly to $1,343.0 billion, which indicates WARC Media treats retail media and search as separate, non-overlapping buckets. The two publishing sub-channels add to $44.5 billion against a $44.4 billion parent line, a rounding difference.

Three channels, two-thirds of the market

Social media, search and retail media together account for 66.4% of total global ad spend in 2026, according to WARC Media, a share forecast to rise to 70.0% in 2028. Social media alone is 29.4% of the 2026 total.

The concentration is starker when measured by new money. Comparing each channel's 2026 figure with its implied 2025 base, social media adds about $69 billion this year, search about $37 billion and retail media about $25 billion. Together that is roughly $131 billion of a total market increase of about $143 billion, or around 92% of all incremental ad spend globally. These are PPC Land calculations derived from WARC Media's published growth rates, and they are approximate because the 2025 bases are not stated in the release.

WARC Media expects social media to exceed $500 billion in 2028. Applying the 14.6% growth forecast for 2027 gives roughly $452 billion next year, meaning social would need to grow at least 10.6% again in 2028 to cross that threshold.

Retail media's $202.1 billion is now larger than TV's $176.2 billion in WARC Media's table. That matches the direction PPC Land has tracked elsewhere: WPP Media's December 2025 forecast had commerce media overtaking television for the first time, at $178.2 billion in 2025. Omdia, in September 2025, projected retail media to reach 20% of global ad revenue by 2030, above $300 billion. At WARC Media's 2026 figure, retail media is already 15.0% of the total.

Double-digit growth beyond the big three

Two further channels clear 10% growth in 2026, according to WARC Media. Video on-demand rises 15.1% to $48.4 billion, and digital OOH climbs 13.7% to $21.7 billion. Neither appears as a separate line in the channel table. Digital out-of-home therefore makes up about 34% of the $63.3 billion out-of-home total. Video on-demand's $48.4 billion sits close to, but is not the same figure as, the $55.2 billion online video line, and the release does not explain how the two categories relate.

"Performance channels, which can adapt quickly to changing conditions, continue to benefit as uncertainty becomes the new norm," according to WARC Media.

Where spend is shrinking

Five lines in the table decline in 2026: online display (-2.5%), newsbrands (-2.7%), magazine brands (-1.5%), radio (-1.9%) and the publishing total (-2.4%). All five are forecast to fall again in 2027. Television's 1.2% gain this year, during a calendar that includes the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and US mid-terms, turns into a 1.8% decline in 2027, when none of those events recur.

Online display's decline is notable alongside social media's growth. Both are digital, auction-driven and measurable, yet WARC Media has one shrinking by $0.9 billion this year and the other growing by about $69 billion. The split mirrors the distinction PPC Land examined in May, when Ian Whittaker argued that the ad market is two markets, and most forecasts only see one: a slower-growing, agency-mediated brand market and a faster self-serve performance market dominated by platforms.

Audio is the clearest case of a channel splitting in two. Online audio rises 9.9% to $16.6 billion, while radio falls 1.9% to $25.3 billion. On WARC Media's 2027 rates, radio drops to roughly $24.5 billion and online audio rises to roughly $17.8 billion, narrowing the gap to under $7 billion.

The triopoly at 59.7%

Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are set to take a combined 59.7% of global ad spend excluding China in 2026, equivalent to $659.6 billion, according to WARC Media. The share is forecast to rise to 61.5%, or $804.1 billion, in 2028. WARC Media labels the section "AI fuels ad triopoly."

Those two pairs of numbers imply an ex-China market of about $1,105 billion in 2026 and about $1,307 billion in 2028. The combined revenue of the three companies grows about 22% across those two years, against about 18% for the ex-China market as a whole. By subtraction, China accounts for roughly $238 billion of the 2026 global total. These are PPC Land calculations based on WARC Media's published figures.

The quarterly results of the three companies support the trajectory. In the first quarter of 2026, Big Tech pocketed more than $150 billion in ad revenue, with Meta reporting about $55 billion in advertising and Amazon $17.2 billion. In the UK, the Advertising Association and WARC Expenditure Report published on May 5, 2026 found that 2 in 3 pounds went to Google, Meta and Amazon as the market grew 6.4% to 46.7 billion pounds in 2025. Concentration also extends into programmatic buying, where Guideline data showed Amazon and Google DV360 gaining share among demand-side platforms between 2022 and the first quarter of 2026.

What does a 61.5% share mean for everyone else? Outside China, the remaining 38.5% in 2028 covers every broadcaster, publisher, out-of-home operator, independent ad tech company and retail media network not owned by Amazon. That pool grows too, from about $445 billion to about $503 billion on PPC Land's arithmetic, but more slowly than the three platforms.

AI as buyer and as destination

WARC Media describes AI as a driver of ad growth "from multiple angles." According to the release, new tech businesses are investing to acquire customers and build brands, while established companies "spend heavily to compete in an increasingly crowded market." At the same time, AI tools "are enhancing targeting, asset creation, and campaign optimisation - boosting ROI and fueling further investment."

The category data reflects this. Technology and electronics is forecast to be the fastest-growing product category in 2026, up 20.7% compared with 2025, according to WARC Media. Travel and transport follows at 19.3%, then automotive at 17.8%. Social media is expected to account for 40.2% of all technology and electronics ad spend this year.

WARC Media also points to new inventory. "As generative search and AI assistants become gateways to product discovery and purchasing, ad dollars will follow - fundamentally reshaping where consumers encounter brands and where advertisers invest," according to the release.

The release gives no dollar figure for AI assistant advertising and does not say which of its ten channels such spend falls into. The channel has been growing from a small base. OpenAI's ChatGPT ad pilot started on February 9, 2026, and reached $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks. On May 5, 2026, OpenAI opened its Ads Manager to all US businesses with CPC bidding, with an internal ad revenue target of $2.4 billion for 2026. In August, Similarweb estimated that 26% of ChatGPT replies carry sponsored ads, an estimate based on US desktop chats in July. Even at OpenAI's internal target, ChatGPT's 2026 ad revenue would be less than 1% of WARC Media's $295.7 billion search figure.

2027 and 2028

Growth moderates after 2026, according to WARC Media. Ad spend is forecast to rise 8.4% to $1.46 trillion in 2027, "reflecting tougher comparables and a normalisation from the exceptionally strong growth seen in recent years." In 2028, spend increases a further 7.9% to $1.57 trillion. WARC Media says that would make the market 2.3 times larger than it was in 2019, implying a 2019 base of roughly $680 billion.

The 2027 slowdown is broad. Search growth falls from 14.2% to 8.8%, social media from 21.3% to 14.6% and retail media from 14.3% to 10.8%. Online video holds steady at 8.8% in both years. Among growing channels, only online classified (4.1% to 5.2%) accelerates. Television and radio both contract.

Even after slowing, the three performance channels grow faster than the market. That is how their combined share reaches 70.0% in 2028.

Spend per person

WARC Media's release closes with ad spend per capita. The US is forecast at $1,395 per person in 2026, followed by the UK at $935, Austria at $850 and Switzerland at $825. China is at $170, Brazil at $110 and India at $13. According to WARC Media, the lower-spending markets combine "lower per-capita spending with massive consumer populations - highlighting substantial growth potential as these emerging markets mature."

The gap between the US and India is more than 100 to 1. The release does not publish country totals, so the per capita figures cannot be reconciled to the global number from the release alone.

Why it matters for marketers

The forecast puts a number on a pattern PPC Land has followed throughout 2026: global ad budgets are growing quickly, but the growth is concentrated in a few channels and a few companies. For an advertiser, the 2026 market is one where roughly nine of every ten new dollars go to social, search and retail media. For a publisher, a broadcaster or a radio group, it is a year of flat or falling revenue in a market growing faster than in either of the two previous years.

The figures also complicate the planning cycle for 2027. Budgets set on the basis of 2026 growth will meet a forecast slowdown to 8.4%, driven partly by the absence of the Olympics, the World Cup and mid-term elections. And with Alphabet, Amazon and Meta on course for 61.5% of spend outside China by 2028, buyers face a market where pricing and auction dynamics on three platforms shape most of the outcome.

WARC Media's full Q3 2026 update report is available to its subscribers. The release does not detail methodology, the number of markets covered or how platform revenues were allocated across channels.

Timeline

Summary

Who: WARC Media, the ad spend data division of WARC, with commentary from Suzy Young, Head of WARC Media Data. The forecast covers all advertisers worldwide and singles out Alphabet, Amazon and Meta as the largest beneficiaries.

What: The Global Ad Spend Forecast Q3 2026 puts 2026 global ad spend at $1,343.0 billion, up 11.9%, with social media up 21.3% to $394.6 billion, search up 14.2% to $295.7 billion and retail media up 14.3% to $202.1 billion. Growth slows to 8.4% in 2027 and 7.9% in 2028. Alphabet, Amazon and Meta take 59.7% of spend outside China in 2026, rising to 61.5% in 2028.

When: WARC Media released the forecast on October 8, 2026. It covers 2026, 2027 and 2028, and follows a June 2026 WARC revision that had put 2026 growth at 8.9%.

Where: Global, with per capita figures for the US ($1,395), the UK ($935), Austria ($850), Switzerland ($825), China ($170), Brazil ($110) and India ($13). The triopoly share figures exclude China.

Why: According to WARC Media, corporate AI investment, the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the US mid-term elections are driving spend higher despite consumer cost-of-living pressure, with performance channels benefiting most as uncertainty persists.