Where The Digital Ad Dollars Roam

Just five countries account for 74 percent of online advertising revenue: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany. The U.S. leads the pack with 36.8 percent of the world’s online ad dollars, even though it has just 4.4 percent of its population — companies will buy an estimated $213.88 worth of digital advertising for each American this year. At the other extreme, India has more people than online ad dollars — 17.8 percent of the global population, but only half of a percent of its digital ad market.

Only the U.K., which has both a digital ad market and a population about one-fifth the size of America’s, rivals the United States’ level of ad saturation. China, which accounts for the second-highest amount of digital ad revenue on an absolute basis, ranks just 17th on a per-person basis. The fact that so much advertising vies for the attention of residents of a few countries drives up ad rates there. So most internet sites with large global audiences still usually make most of their money in the developed world.

INFOGRAPHIC SOURCES: EMARKETER, UNITED NATIONS “WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS: THE 2015 REVISION”

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