After become dark for a few hours this weekend, TikTok is back following President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to delay a ban on the app in the United States on his first day back in office.
It’s not yet clear whether the popular social platform can find a permanent way to stay online in the United States. If this is not the case, billions of advertising dollars will be destined to migrate to alternative channels.
The data shows what companies’ TikTok ad budgets could potentially be available in 2025 and what their value is.
Last year, the 10 largest U.S. app advertisers each spent at least $45 million on paid media, according to marketing intelligence platform MediaRadar. The list includes The Coca-Cola Company, which increased its advertising spending by 206% in 2024 compared to 2023, Target (up 173%), Walmart (168%), and Procter & Gamble (159%).
Together, these companies contributed $690 million to advertising on TikTok. This sum represents approximately 14% of the platform’s total advertising revenue in 2024, which MediaRadar estimates at $4.8 billion, an increase of 27% compared to 2023.
Despite the increase in advertising dollars, MediaRadar estimates that the raw number of companies advertising on TikTok has increased from 29,800 in 2023 to 24,300 in 2024.
In terms of ad categories, none grew more on TikTok last year than pharmaceuticals and supplements, which grew 78%. Restaurants and bars (61%), followed by financial services and insurance (54%), have also increased their presence in paid media over the past 12 months.
The only major category that has given up advertising is clothing and accessories.
If TikTok fails to find a long-term solution, beating the competition to attract lost advertising revenue can be lucrative.
Additional results from MediaRadar show that among companies that advertised on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or X last year, the vast majority of companies limited their ad spending to just one of those four sites. Only about one in five companies distribute paid media on at least two of the aforementioned social platforms.
Part of the reason US lawmakers view TikTok as a national security threat and therefore decided to ban it is due in part to the app’s enormous popularity.
In December, 20% of American adults reported using TikTok several times a dayaccording to figures from data intelligence firm Morning Consult. This is up from just 4% who said the same in January 2020.
Meanwhile, about half the country logged into the app at least sometimes just before it shut down.
