Patricio Robles says, “The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) this week released its numbers for ad spend in the US in 2016, and for the first time since the organization began tracking digital ad spend in 2004, spend on digital ads has surprassed spend on television ads.

The milestone is one that industry analysts and observers have been waiting for and 2016 also brought with it another milestone: for the first time, mobile ads produced more revenue than desktop ads.

All told, digital ad revenue in the US hit a record $72.5bn last year, up from $59.6bn in 2015. Mobile ads were responsible for $36.6bn of that, a massive 77% year-over-year gain.

A good portion of mobile’s gains were due to the growing popularity of mobile video ads. Spend on those skyrocketed by 145% year-over-year to reach $4.2bn, which helped fuel a 53% year-over-year jump in digital video ad spend overall. That figure now stands at $9.1bn.

Spend on social ads, which in recent years have become a staple of many advertisers’ digital campaigns, grew 50% to $16.3bn. Even search managed to produce a 19% gain to reach $35bn in spend”.

Driven by mobile, digital overtakes TV in US ad spend for the first time

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