2024 Ad Spending Benchmarks

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, UNITED STATES, May 19, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Schonfeld & Associates, Inc. has just released the latest edition of its annual study, Advertising Ratios & Budgets. The new research report covers ad spending in fiscal 2024 by more than 2,500 individual publicly traded companies within 315 industries.

For each company, the study presents information as reported on the 10-K annual report to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Data includes fiscal 2024 advertising spending, revenue and gross profit, along with advertising-to-sales and advertising-to-gross-profit ratios for 2024 and 2023 as well as annual growth rates for ad spending and sales. For each industry, 2024 and 2023 revenue and advertising spending are reported along with advertising-to-sales and advertising-to-gross-profit ratios for 2024 along with growth rates in ad spending and sales. Each industry requires individualized analysis as consumer response to marketing varies by industry.

Advertising by catalog and mail-order houses, the top spending industry, continued at over $49 billion. The industry saw an increase of over 9% in revenue. Online powerhouse Amazon continued as the top spending company with advertising spending at $43 billion. Online commerce is an integral part of every retailer's operating strategy. Variety stores, led by Wal-Mart, with both online and bricks-and-mortar presences, increased their ad budgets by over 16% to $7.2 billion in 2024, with revenues increased by over 2%.

Technology companies providing services to social media platforms, led by Alphabet and Meta, spent over $18 billion in 2024 an increase of 12% and saw revenue grow by more than 15%.

Companies in the pharmaceutical industry reported ad spending exceeding $15 billion in 2024, up over 6% from 2023. While there is mixed support for pharmaceutical ad spending, it is now the most common form of health information encountered by the public. Pharmaceutical companies are embracing the use of social media, congruent with the continued trend in other industries.

Transportation Services, such as Expedia, reflected the continuing return to pre-Covid travel with an increase in ad spending of over 6% while revenues grew over 9%. Travel related industries also saw significant revenue gains in 2024 as well as increased advertising spending.

While telecomm service providers maintained their ad budgets at over $6.8 billion, growth in advertising by cellular phone service companies, led by T-Mobile, was up over 22% in 2024 with spending of over $3.2 billion worldwide.

Large, diversified food companies spent a total of over $3 billion in 2024 on advertising, showing a 2.5% increase over 2023. The beverage industry spent over $11 billion, a 4% increase, and saw revenues up 4.5%. Beer companies spent over $1.3 billion, up less than 1% from 2023. The 45 separate restaurant chains in the Schonfeld study spent a total of $5.1 billion in 2024, an increase of over 12% from 2023 and saw an 8% increase in sales.

Advertising Ratios & Budgets is widely used for strategic planning by ad agencies, monitoring competitors, planning ad budgets, and identifying new business prospects. It is also used for selling advertising space and time, and for planning by publishers and broadcasters in developing new media vehicles. Information is grouped to show all competitors within an industry. Excel datafiles from the study are also available. Additional information is provided within the datafiles to allow for further analysis.

Copies of the 155-page study are available in PDF format for $395. Data files from Advertising Ratios & Budgets are also available for all companies and industries in Excel format. Five years of revenue, ad spending, gross profit and ratio information is provided within the datafiles to allow for additional analysis. The 2025 edition of the PDF study along with Excel datafiles is $495. Contact Schonfeld & Associates, Inc., 1932 Terramar Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23456. Call for more information or to place an order: 800-205-0030 or visit www.saiBooks.com

Carol J Greenhut
Schonfeld & Associates, Inc.
cgreenhut@saibooks.com