Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its ‘Measuring the Digital Economy’ report. It’s commissioned every four years to assess the status of the digital economy.
One of the most significant findings is that creators are the fastest-growing part of the 28.4 million jobs considered “internet-dependent.” As a result of this stark increase in creators, the report also found that these types of jobs now account for 18% of the US GDP. Previously, back in 2020, this number stood at 11%.
This isn’t the only striking figure from the report. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of people working as digital creators jumped from 200,000 to 1.5 million.
The report also found that creator revenue is growing five times faster than traditional media, with the digital economy valued at 4.9 trillion.
Meanwhile, the annual growth rate for the digital economy is 2.7 times larger than the total economy. Moreover, the digital economy’s job growth stands at 70%.
According to the report, this increase can be attributed to the rise in e-commerce, which was “accelerated by the pandemic.” This rise, the report added, has “intersected with retailers seeking to diversify into high-margin opportunities and advertisers aiming to leverage advanced metrics like closed-loop reporting and incrementality to target, attract, and personalize messaging for previously unreachable audiences.”
So, it makes sense that commerce media now accounts for 13% of total ad spend by brands. The report also notes that lucrative deals by brands like Amazon and Spotter greatly contributed to the creator economy’s massive growth.
