At last week’s Interact conference in Brussels, IAB Europe released the latest edition of its AdEx Benchmark report, covering ad spend and trends across Europe in 2024. The report, now in its nineteenth year, has become one of the most reliable resources for charting state of Europe’s digital advertising industry, and the headline figures were strong.
Total ad spend growth, which had previously been predicted to reach 10 percent year-on-year, actually surpassed expectations. The digital ad market grew by 16 percent in constant currency terms, reaching €118.9 billion, passing the €100 billion mark for the first time.
Within this growth, the AdEx report lays out a number of interesting trends and shifts taking place across the continent. Here are some of the key findings from this year’s report:
Video Takes Over
There are many different ways of slicing up the digital ad market, and for its primary stats the AdEx report splits media into social, display, search, classifieds & directories, and retail media. Video isn’t its own category, rather, it sits across these categories.
IAB Europe’s data does however break out video figures across display and social, and for both of these channels, growth continues at a rapid pace.
Within display, total video spend was up 24.5 percent year-on-year, reaching €12.4 billion. While total spend for traditional display formats (i.e. banner ads, native ads, etc) is still higher at €18.8 billion, growth here is slower. Spend for this category was up by 14.1 percent year-on-year, while audio ad spend grew by 18.3 percent. And in nine European markets (Ukraine, Greece, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Slovenia, Ireland, and Italy), video accounted for more than 50 percent of spend within the display category.
A lot of this growth is happening within connected TV. As a number of subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services started rolling out ad-supported tiers, SVOD ad spend grew 222 percent (though presumably off a low base). Broadcaster video on-demand (BVOD) spend was up by 29.5 percent, and ad-funded video on-demand (AVOD) rose by 16.9 percent. ‘Other’ spend, covering video on content sites and service sites, grew by 8.6 percent — a more modest pace than the various streaming categories, but growth nonetheless.
Meanwhile within the social category, video now makes up 56 percent of total spend, having grown 32.8 percent year-on-year. As a result, looking at social and display combined, video now accounts for 53 percent of total spend.
Social Gains Share as Search Falls
Total growth in social media advertising spend last year saw social’s share of the total digital ad market rise from 21.6 percent in 2023 to 23.1 percent last year. This is the largest share gain of any category, beating out retail media and display (which both gained a 0.5 percent share of the market).
This growth came at the expense of search and classifieds & directories. While it’s not clear which media types are gaining most from search’s declining share, it can’t be just retail media (the most obvious contender to replace search) which is benefiting, since search’s share loss is greater than retail media’s share gain.
Programmatic Growth Rebounds
You’ll hear varying takes on programmatic across the industry. Some buyers say they’re pushing bigger budgets through programmatic channels while others say they’re prioritising direct spend. Some sellers say programmatic is delivering the highest growth rates across their advertising channels, while others report that programmatic growth is stalling.
Across the European market as a whole, growth was relatively low last year, at 7.4 percent. But in 2024, programmatic advertising reaccelerated and outperformed the wider digital ad market, up 18.4 percent year-on-year.
Growth was uneven across markets however, and in some countries, programmatic ad spend actually fell. In Ukraine, programmatic ad spend fell by 11 percent, while Finland (down 9 percent), Estonia (down 2 percent), Denmark (down 2 percent) and Norway (down 1 percent) all also reported falls.
Top Heavy Market Continues
The headline figure of €118 billion in total ad spend across the continent is certainly impressive. But this spend is largely concentrated in a few major markets.
The UK’s digital ad market remains the largest by a wide margin, at €41.3 billion. Germany is the next biggest at €17.9 billion, followed by France at €11.2 billion. These three markets combined account for 60 percent of Europe’s total digital ad market. The top ten countries meanwhile make up 87 percent of the total European market.
This suggests there’s plenty of room for markets outside of the UK to generate continued rapid growth. But interestingly for the time being, this doesn’t really seem to be happening.
Turkey saw the fastest growth last year, with ad spend up 87.5 percent. This was driven however primarily by inflation — Turkey’s real underlying growth (using constant prices) was pegged at 18.3 percent. Outside of Turkey, Ukraine (up 27.2 percent), Serbia (up 24.8 percent) and Poland (up 19.6 percent) all delivered particularly high growth rates.
But there wasn’t much to suggest that Europe’s larger economies will catch up with the UK any time soon. The UK’s growth rate reached 13.7 percent last year — lower than France (up 14.4 percent) but higher than Germany (up 11.9 percent), Spain (up 12.2 percent), Italy (up 12.5 percent), and the Netherlands (up 11.1 percent). In real terms, both France and Italy grew slightly quicker than the UK, while Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands all grew slower.
The End of the Rollercoaster?
Since the start of 2020, ad spend growth has varied dramatically from one quarter to the next. In 2022 for example, growth in Q1 reached 31.6 percent, but sat at just 4.8 percent in Q4. In 2023, growth slid into negative territory in Q1 (due in large part to bumper growth the previous year) but reached 18.0 percent in Q3.
Last year however was much more stable. The highest growth rate came in Q1, with 16.9 percent, while Q3 saw the lowest growth rate, at 15.1 percent.
However this isn’t necessarily the end of the rollercoaster. Dr. Daniel Knapp, IAB Europe’s chief economist, says the outlook for 2025 is marked by renewed volatility.
“Rising geopolitical tensions, economic headwinds, and regulatory shifts, including the introduction of new EU tariffs, are already influencing advertiser sentiment,” said Knapp. “As a result, we expect to see more cautious investment strategies emerge, with brands prioritising accountability, ROI, and channel effectiveness over broad experimentation. The digital advertising ecosystem will need to navigate this next phase with agility, innovation, and a steadfast focus on delivering value.”
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