IAB’s digital ad-spend report does not disclose a games cut
IAB/PwC FY2025 totals break by social, search, video and related categories—not by games or app-install media.
The IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report for full year 2025 puts US digital advertising at $294.6 billion. The public category table breaks that total into social, search, digital video, commerce media, podcast and display—not into games or app-install media. IAB release.
Taxonomy is the claim
A planner who needs “games digital spend” cannot read that grain from this release. Social or video rows can include gaming advertisers, but the published taxonomy does not isolate them. IAB’s separate Gaming Measurement Framework addresses how to measure ads in gaming environments; it does not fill the missing spend cut in the revenue report.
Methodology on the release states that PwC compiles seller-reported and public data and publishes aggregates only, without an audit opinion. That supports treating the totals as an industry revenue benchmark for US digital advertising—not as a gaming UA budget map.
Mark games spend missing
Our recommendation is to label games/app-install spend as not disclosed in this IAB cut. Do not allocate a share of social or video using an estimated industry average to invent a games number.
Inspect the evidence
Download the source-population and comparability card. The extraction separates documented facts from our analysis and unknowns.
| Field | Evidence or limit |
|---|---|
| Report / publisher | IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report FY2025 / IAB |
| Period | Full year 2025 |
| Population | US internet/online/mobile advertising revenues compiled by PwC from sellers and public data |
| Metric under review | Whether games/app-install spend is a disclosed category; public table shows Social/Search/Video/Commerce/Podcast/Display only |
| Aggregation | Category revenue aggregates; no games cut in the published table |
| Critical limit | Games and app-install media are not disclosed categories in the FY2025 public category table; do not invent a games share from social/video totals. |
| Comparable with | Other IARR category totals using the same IAB/PwC taxonomy |
| Not comparable with | A gaming UA spend estimate or an in-game advertising revenue figure |
Further reading in the existing archive: The UA reading list: reports and benchmarks that matter; The benchmark report is selling you something. These links provide background; this check does not independently verify their full contents.
