• by Colin Kirkland , February 23, 2024

Advertisers in the media and entertainment sector invested over $1 billion on TikTok in Q4 2023, according to new data from ad-sales intelligence platform MediaRadar.

The billion dollars spent by brands on TikTok involved video games, online games and subscription streaming services, which accounted for nearly 30% of the ad spend.

MediaRadar found that other top categories included retailers -- which spent over $500 million on TikTok -- as well as technology advertisers covering electronics, software and telecommunication companies, which spent $314 million.

The overall ad spend on TikTok in Q4 2023 was 43% higher than the total of $805 million spent during the first quarter of 2023.

In its report -- which tracked in-feed image, carousel and video ads captured from a panel of over two million U.S. users in 2023 -- MediaRadar says that there was an average of 11,800 companies advertising on TikTok during 2023, with more than 13,000 advertisers on the video-sharing platform each month between May and August.

The top advertisers in 2023 were Amazon.com, Apple, Comcast, DoorDash and Disney. Together, these companies spent $284 million over the course of the year.

After failing to reach a new agreement on usage rights, Universal Music Group withdrew its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, stripping the platform of popular music by such artists as Taylor Swift, Drake and Billie Eilish, and a plethora of viral videos that those songs accompany. The decision was widely considered to be a major blow for TikTok, which has become a leader in music discovery.

While MediaRadar’s findings show that brands have continued to increase their spending on TikTok, these numbers were collected before the disagreement between the app and Universal.