Social media ad revenues will grow to $15 billion by 2018, a 24% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) increase from 2013’s $5.1 billion, according to local media and advertising consulting company BIA/Kelsey.
At $8.4 billion, 2014 will represent the greatest year-over-year growth in social media ad revenues; growth driven largely by mobile and native advertising, according to BIA/Kelsey.
Social display ad revenues will grow from $3.3 billion in 2013 to $5.6 billion in 2018, a CAGR of 11.3%. Social native advertising revenues will increase by $7.6 billion between 2013 and 2018, due in large part to Facebook News Feed ads and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets.
BIA/Kelsey predicts that social native advertising will eclipse social display ads by 2015. Social ad revenues on mobile will surpass their desktop counterparts by 2018. BIA/Kelsey expects locally targeted social advertising to grow at 31.6% CAGR from $1.3 billion in 2013 to $5.2 billion in 2018.
“We were initially skeptical about the social-mobile market’s ability to capture optimal wallet share because of mobile’s limitations, such as smaller screen size, limited ad inventory and static creative,” Jed Williams, BIA/Kelsey’s VP of consulting, said in a release. “Over the past year, however, Facebook, Twitter and other networks have generated dramatic revenue growth. We expect this growth to continue throughout the forecast period.”
