Forrester Data Mobile Advertising Forecast, 2016 To 2021 (US)

Advertisers are increasingly shifting their budgets from PCs to mobile devices across all three components of mobile advertising: display, search, and social. Mobile advertising spending is on track to more than double from 2016 to 2021 as it grows from 48% to 70% of online advertising spending. This growth reflects expectations for a continued increase in mobile usage and a shift in advertising dollars to more adequately align with the share of time users spend on mobile (Source: Forrester’s North American Consumer Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey [Part 1 and Part 2], 2015, and Mary Meeker, “Internet Trends 2015 – Code Conference,” KPCB, May 27, 2015 [http://www.kpcb.com/file/kpcb-internet-trends-2015]). Helped by mobile video spending, mobile social and mobile display will be the biggest contributors to growth. However, mobile search will remain resilient and maintain its lead through 2019, after which point it will be eclipsed by mobile display in 2020 and mobile social in 2021. This forecast segregates overall mobile advertising spending by display, search, and social. It also provides historical data going back to 2012.