Digital nets 80% of spend yet ad-free WhatsApp is top

UK digital adspend has now reached £38.07bn – up 9.4% year-on-year – and accounts for more than 80% of the country’s total ad budgets, although ironically Brits’ favourite digital platform, WhatsApp, which also happens to be the most used, still does not carry any advertising.

That is according to the Digital 2025: The United Kingdom report, from agency We Are Social and media, social and consumer intelligence specialist Meltwater, which covers the entire digital ecosystem; from social media to ecommerce, mobile to smart devices, and more. It follows the release of the global report earlier this month.

The report shows that annual social media advertising spend is now £9.02bn, an increase of 13.8% year-on-year (+£1.09bn). Meanwhile, influencer investment has hit £930m a year-on-year increase of 13.6% (+£111mn).

There are 67.8 million individuals using the Internet and 54.8 million social media user identities in the UK. On average, adult Internet users spend 5 hours 36 minutes browsing online each day, and 1 hour 37 minutes using social media.

WhatsApp is having a strong year in the UK, and tops the charts not only for the country’s most used social platform, but also when it comes to the nation’s ‘favourite’.

The report also shows that the nation is beginning to embrace AI tools, with ChatGPT coming in at number two on the app download charts between September and November last year, following Threads in first place.

But the AI tool is yet to break into the UK’s top 10 most visited websites – ChatGPT.com is ranked at 13th; while social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, X and Instagram, remain in the top 10.

However, there has been a decrease in daily time spent streaming TV content – down by 11.7% to 1 hour 15 minutes, while daily time spent on the Internet and social media has fallen year-on-year, by 7.1% to 5 hours 36 minutes and 11% to 1 hour 37 minutes respectively.

Even so, spend on gaming related activities (subscriptions and downloads) was up 11.8% y-o-y to £6.97bn and there has been strong growth in ad reach reported by TikTok, Facebook, Instagram in the UK, even though X saw a 10.7% ad reach decline year-on-year.

When it comes to the UK’s most used social platforms WhatsApp is out in front, followed by Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and X while the favourite social platforms are WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,and X.

We Are Social UK chief executive Jim Coleman said: “It’s clear from this year’s report that our time is more precious than ever, and people are increasingly discerning about how and where they spend it. While it’s encouraging to see healthy growth in digital, social and influencer ad spend, the underlying message from this data is that marketers can’t afford to cut corners.

“People who consume any type of media – from TV to online – are looking for quality over quantity. On social, this means that brands need to add value – if they can’t, they will lose ground to others who can.”