Automotive ad spend accelerates as May bookings point to market rebound

Australia’s media agency market fell in April, but fresh Guideline SMI data points to growing momentum in automotive advertising and a stronger May rebound once last year’s federal election distortion drops out of the numbers.

Automotive brand advertising emerged as the standout growth category in April, with bookings up 34% as spend across EVs, SUVs and light commercial vehicle subcategories doubled.

Guideline SMI APAC managing director Jane Ractliffe said automotive brand spend was already positive for May, despite the data being collected with a week of trading still to come.

“We can already see double digit growth in traditional media ad spend in May from the key government, gambling and alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic beverage categories so there’s clearly growing demand in the Australian ad market,” Ractliffe said.

The broader market was down 11.6% in April compared with the record-setting pre-federal election month of April 2025.

The decline was driven largely by the near absence of political party and union advertising, which was down 97%, removing almost $45 million from the market compared with last year.

With government and political advertising removed, the underlying market decline was 5.5%, and Guideline SMI expects that figure to improve once late programmatic bookings are added.

Ractliffe said April 2026 was always going to face an abnormal comparison because of last year’s election spend.

“In any pre-election month we see large increases in political party ad spend and it was no different last year when a surge in ad spend by the political party product category drove total ad spend in April last year to a record April level,” she said.

“And the sheer volume of ad spend is almost impossible to replace under normal circumstances so of course all major media are going to be reporting lower ad bookings this April.”

Forward bookings suggest the market is picking up. For May, Guideline SMI said 93% of last May’s total bookings, excluding digital, had already been confirmed and paid, the highest level of forward bookings recorded since Covid 19.

Cinema was the only major media category to grow in April, up 17.6%. Outdoor was almost flat, down 1.3%, with street furniture and transit reporting higher ad revenue.

Digital total bookings fell 7.4%, while video was down 19.2%, audio fell 21.7%, news publishing declined 21.5% and magazines dropped 19.9%.

Within video, television was down 24.8%, while digital video grew 19.6%. In digital, streaming and retail online lifted revenue.