BIA’s 2020 forecast puts total local ad spending (any geotargeted paid media ads) at $161 billion dollars. A new element to our forecast is breaking out Over-The-Top (OTT) ad spending targeting local audiences, along with separating Political into it’s own category. Let’s look at what our forecast reveals for each.
For 2020, total OTT local ad spending will be just over $1 billion. OTT spending will double by 2024. The biggest OTT ad spending business verticals is Automotive with 20 percent of the total OTT spend. Other significant verticals committing to local OTT include General Services (13.1 percent), and Restaurants (11.4 percent).
The Automotive vertical has become more data-driven and digital with its media strategy. We addressed some of these trends in one of our on-demand webinars. BIA’s forecast shows that Automotive will allocate all of its increased paid media spending in digital categories, and most of that will go to digital video. This trend continues throughout our 2020-2024 forecast period. OTT offers a great combination of data-driven audience targeting, attribution metrics, and a premium video environment. It’s not really a surprise to see Automotive move so heavily into the OTT space.
Political is another vertical that relies heavily on audience targeting and premium video environments. BIA forecasts $6.55 billion overall in local political ad spending for the 2020 cycle. We estimate $51 million, or about 5 percent of overall OTT ad spending will be for locally targeted political ads.
BIA’s focus on OTT centers on the Connected TV (CTV) inventory where much of the audience and ad spend occurs, and certainly where the growth is. OTT ad budgets responsibilities are evolving between digital and linear video buying and selling teams. As video audiences fragment and younger demos migrate away from traditional video platforms, OTT will increase in significance as a way for buyers to find and reach strategic audience segments. The Advanced TV space is one of BIA’s coverage areas, we’ll keep you up to date.
Our 2020 U.S. Local Ad Forecast covering OTT and other top media is available for purchase here.
BIA ADVantage clients can login to access the 2020 U.S. Local Ad Forecast, along with nationwide individual media ad estimates and local market estimates.
