go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

The 100 largest business-to-business advertisers last year spent an estimated $4.9 billion on U.S. b-to-b ads, up 3.4% over 2012, according to Ad Age DataCenter’s analysis of measured-media spending data from Kantar Media.

Estimated 2013 U.S. measured-media spending for the universe of b-to-b advertisers — the BtoB 100 and everyone else — declined 0.5% to $10.2 billion. The top 100 accounted for nearly half of that spending.

B-to-b spending for advertisers smaller than the BtoB 100 fell 3.8% last year.

Figures include estimated b-to-b ad spending across TV, internet (display ads only), magazines (including business publications), newspapers, radio and outdoor.

The divergence in spending of big vs. small b-to-b marketers tracks with overall (business-to-consumer and b-to-b) ad spending. Overall measured-media spending last year rose 3.2% for Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers and 3.3% for midsize advertisers (Nos. 101-1,000) but dropped 6.6% for small spenders (Nos. 1,000-plus), according to data from WPP’s Kantar Media. Total U.S. measured-media spending last year grew by 0.9%.

The fastest-growing b-to-b measured medium last year was internet display advertising, where spending for the BtoB 100 surged 25.3% over 2012. The BtoB 100’s spending on internet display ads last year passed spending in magazines.

See expanded BtoB 100 ranking (Ad Age DataCenter subscription required).
The top 100 boosted TV ad spending by 3.0%. Spending on outdoor ads among the BtoB 100 increased 2.4%.