Which Companies Spend the Most on Digital Advertising? [Study]

Without data to support you, planning and budgeting your ad campaigns can leave you feeling rudderless. How do you know if the scope and scale of your campaign is enough? How does your ad spend stack up against the competition?

We partnered with AdClarity to answer questions like these in a four part study.

Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

Now, in part four, we’ll take a look at exactly who the biggest advertising spenders are across 12 industries.

Our goal was to paint a more detailed picture of the online advertising landscape.

Why?

By identifying the leaders in each industry, you can benchmark your own campaigns more competitively, and learn from their creatives and strategies.

Biggest Digital Advertisers by Industry

In this article, we identify the top-spenders across 12 industries.

We gathered the data from the AdClarity — Advertising Intelligence app, available from the Semrush App Center. Then, using Semrush data we categorized the domains by their industry so we could identify the top 10 spenders in each major category.

The data includes US-based advertising activity between January 2021 and May 2023, from 956 domains across 12 industries.

Let’s get started.

Top Digital Advertisers in Retail

Unsurprisingly, the top advertiser in the retail industry was Amazon, followed closely by Target and Walmart.

However, there’s an important detail here: Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy each have a sizable third-party seller marketplace. As a result, their ad spending includes all...