Content advertising is projected to grow into a $50 billion market by 2021 -- up from $12.8 billion in 2016, according to projections from Polar, a content marketing platform for publishers. That’s a growth rate of 32% year-over-year, and more than 2x the growth rate of digital advertising as a whole.
Polar described content advertising as the amount of digital ad dollars spent by brands on content programs. Further, it said that content will comprise 14% of all digital based on the estimates. Polar estimated that the global ad market will grow from $590 billion this year to $775 billion in 2021, at a rate of 7% year-over-year growth. Digital advertising is expected to be 48% of the market, while mobile represents 78% of that total.
With a complex and ever-changing advertising ecosystem, Polar offered suggestions as to how marketers might allocate their digital dollars to implement content advertising programs: