Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How advertising and marketing agencies make, buy and outsource video: our own count of video on the homepages of the advertising companies that file annual reports with the SEC; how many U.S. agencies there are, what they earn and how many video editors they employ, from Census and BLS data; the holding companies and their production units, from their filings; how many brands run in-house agencies and make their own video, from ANA, WFA and ISBA surveys; AI in video creative; ad spend and how agencies are paid; the UK picture; and where six popular agency statistics came from.
In our reading of 27 homepages of advertising companies that file with the SEC, 44.4% carried a video player on November 1, 2026, but only 15.4% of the agencies among them named a video service in their homepage text. (Our count)See details
Only 950 film and video editors worked on payroll in U.S. advertising, PR and related services in May 2025, 3.7% of all payroll editors. (BLS; our calculation)See details
Census counted 15,512 U.S. advertising agency offices with employees in 2023; 68.2% had fewer than five. (U.S. Census Bureau)See details
Creative services made up 35.6% of U.S. advertising agency revenue in 2022; Census publishes no separate line for agency video work. (U.S. Census Bureau; our calculation)See details
U.S. advertising agency employment was 2.8% lower in August 2026 than in August 2019. (BLS; our calculation)See details
82 percent of ANA members who answered its 2023 survey have an in-house agency, but 92 percent of them still use outside agencies. (ANA)See details
79 percent of ANA's 2018 respondents had in-house video production, yet only 22 percent produced commercials in-house. (ANA)See details
62% of U.S. video ad buyers used generative AI on video creative in early 2026; they expect it in 43% of their video ad creative by 2027. (IAB)See details
The popular '73% of agencies use white-label services' traces to an agency's list that names no survey. (Amra & Elma)See details
How many advertising companies put video on their homepage?
Fewer than half of the publicly reporting ones. On November 1, 2026, 44.4% of the readable homepages of advertising and marketing companies that file annual reports with the SEC carried a video player, by our count: 12 of 27 pages. We built the list from EDGAR's industry codes for advertising (SIC 7310, 7311 and 7331), kept the 34 companies that filed a 10-K, 20-F or 40-F between January 2025 and November 2026 and printed a website in their filings, and read each homepage once in a headless browser. 27 of the 34 were readable; the rest were blocked, broken, or now redirect elsewhere after an acquisition (Interpublic's site now forwards to Omnicom's).
These counts are small, so each homepage moves a share by almost four points. Treat them as a snapshot of 27 listed companies, not of the roughly 15,500 U.S. agency offices Census counts below. EDGAR's advertising codes also hold coupon, review and ad-tech firms such as Groupon, Angi and Criteo; we kept EDGAR's assignments rather than pick companies by hand.
Among the 13 readable homepages of companies coded as advertising agencies proper (SIC 7311), 53.8% had a video player, 38.5% played a self-hosted file, 23.1% embedded YouTube or Vimeo and 30.8% linked to a YouTube channel. Only 15.4%, two pages, named a video service such as video production or editing in their visible text; none of the holding companies' homepages did. Agencies show video more than they sell it by name.
When an advertising company shows video, it usually hosts the file itself. Of the 12 pages with a player, 10 used a self-hosted <video> file, two used Vimeo and one YouTube. Full method, exclusions and the per-company file: homepages.csv and crawl-summary.json.
How many advertising agencies are there in the U.S.?
About 15,500 agency offices with employees, most of them very small. The U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 15,512 advertising agency establishments (NAICS 541810) with paid employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau), employing 200,465 people in March (U.S. Census Bureau) and paying $21.4 billion in annual payroll (U.S. Census Bureau), or about $106,844 per employee by our calculation. 10,572 of those offices had fewer than five employees (U.S. Census Bureau), which is 68.2% of them; with the 1,859 offices of five to nine people (U.S. Census Bureau), 80.1% had fewer than ten. Only 4 had 1,000 or more (U.S. Census Bureau). The 2022 Economic Census counted 13,404 firms running those offices (U.S. Census Bureau).
The wider group, advertising, public relations and related services (NAICS 5418, which adds PR, media buying, display, direct mail and similar firms), had 38,864 establishments with employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau), 465,231 employees (U.S. Census Bureau) and $43.3 billion in payroll (U.S. Census Bureau). Media buying agencies alone (NAICS 541830) had 767 establishments (U.S. Census Bureau). Far more businesses in the group have no employees at all: Census counted 221,163 nonemployer businesses in NAICS 5418 in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau), mostly freelancers and sole proprietors, with $13.7 billion in receipts (U.S. Census Bureau).
How much do agencies earn, and from what?
U.S. advertising agencies with employees took in $69.4 billion in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau), up from $65.3 billion in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau), a 6.3% rise in current dollars. All of NAICS 5418 had $149.9 billion (U.S. Census Bureau). Both figures come from the Census Annual Integrated Economic Survey, which replaced the Service Annual Survey from 2023.
The 2022 Economic Census, the latest with a breakdown by product, shows what agencies sell. Of $62.4 billion in agency revenue that year (U.S. Census Bureau), advertising creative services, including graphic design, brought in $22.2 billion (U.S. Census Bureau), or 35.6%, and media planning and buying $8.0 billion (U.S. Census Bureau), or 12.9%. Census does not publish a separate line for video work by agencies; the closest is in film production, where U.S. motion picture and video production companies (NAICS 512110) earned $4.8 billion from contract production of commercials in 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau). The whole of NAICS 5418 took in $134.8 billion that year (U.S. Census Bureau).
Agencies also buy in work. In 2024 NAICS 5418 firms spent $1.6 billion on contract labor, including temporary help (U.S. Census Bureau), $3.9 billion on purchased professional and technical services (U.S. Census Bureau) and $5.5 billion on purchased advertising and promotion (U.S. Census Bureau). Census does not split these by kind of work, so no public figure says how much of it is outsourced video editing or production.
Is agency employment growing?
No. Payroll employment at U.S. advertising agencies (NAICS 54181) was 200,500 in August 2026, preliminary (BLS), against 206,200 in August 2019 (BLS), a change of -2.8%. The wider NAICS 5418 group employed 478,200 in September 2026 (BLS), below 486,600 in September 2019 (BLS) and -4.9% from its peak of 502,600 in October 2022 (BLS). These are not seasonally adjusted, so we compare like months. BLS's annual QCEW count averaged 478,109 jobs in NAICS 5418 in 2025 (BLS) at average pay of $110,916 (BLS); advertising agencies averaged 207,990 jobs (BLS) and $132,313 in pay (BLS). BLS projects NAICS 5418 employment to grow just 1.1 percent from 2025 to 2035 (BLS).
How many video editors work at agencies?
Fewer than a thousand on payroll. BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics counted 950 film and video editors in advertising, public relations and related services (NAICS 5418) in May 2025 (BLS), out of 481,600 jobs in the industry (BLS). That is 3.7% of the 25,610 film and video editors with wage and salary jobs nationwide (BLS). BLS's Employment Projections, which also count the self-employed, put 2.4 percent of all editors in the industry (BLS), against 30.7 percent in motion picture and video industries (BLS). Most agency video editing is done somewhere other than an agency payroll: by production companies, post houses, freelancers or in-house teams at brands.
Agency editors earned a median $69,800 in May 2025 (BLS). The same survey counted 340 camera operators (BLS) and 1,010 special effects artists and animators (BLS) in the industry. Together with editors, these video roles held 0.48% of its jobs. Design and direction roles are far larger: 19,600 graphic designers (BLS), paid a median $61,200 (BLS), 16,040 art directors (BLS), 8,240 producers and directors (BLS), 14,450 marketing managers (BLS) and 8,940 advertising and promotions managers (BLS). Nationally there were 197,830 graphic designers on payroll (BLS).
Agencies are a big employer for some of these roles. BLS says NAICS 5418 employs 27.1 percent of all U.S. advertising and promotions managers (BLS) and 11.5 percent of art directors (BLS). For 2025 to 2035 it projects producer and director jobs in the industry to grow 8.5 percent (BLS) and advertising and promotions manager jobs there to change by -4.1 percent (BLS); across all industries, it projects film and video editor employment to grow 3.7 percent (BLS) and advertising and promotions managers to change by -3.7 percent (BLS). The Occupational Outlook Handbook groups editors with camera operators; these projections are for editors alone.
How big are the agency holding companies, and where does production sit?
Seven listed agency groups, Omnicom, Publicis, WPP, Dentsu, Havas, Stagwell and S4 Capital, reported about 440,489 employees between them at the end of 2025, by our sum of their own year-end counts (definitions differ, so treat it as an order of magnitude). Omnicom completed its merger with Interpublic on November 26, 2025 (Omnicom 10-K).
Omnicom's pre-merger headcount was about 74,900 at the end of 2024 (Omnicom 10-K), and Interpublic reported about 53,300 at the same date in its last 10-K (Interpublic 10-K). After the merger the United States is Omnicom's largest base, with about 37,700 employees (Omnicom 10-K), and North America produced 9,592.2 million dollars of its revenue (Omnicom 10-K). Omnicom identified businesses with about $3.2 billion of prior-year revenue for disposal in 2026 (Omnicom 10-K) and booked $1,247.0 million of severance, real-estate and other repositioning costs in 2025, which it says fell mainly within Omnicom Advertising and Omnicom Production (Omnicom 10-K).
WPP shrank: its year-end headcount fell 8.7% in 2025, and its average fell to 103,277 (WPP). Like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs fell 5.4% (WPP). Publicis grew its workforce and reported staff turnover of 20.2% (Publicis). S4 Capital's Content practice, the creative and content production business of its Monks agency, had 475.5 million pounds of net revenue in 2024 (S4 Capital) and averaged 4,688 staff a month, down from 5,197 (S4 Capital), a drop of 9.8%.
Production units
Every big group runs its own production arm, but none reports production revenue separately. Omnicom puts content production inside its Media & Advertising discipline, which earned $10.0 billion (58.0%) of its 2025 revenue (Omnicom 10-K); the 10-K defines that discipline as media planning and buying, data and analytics, creative services and content production (Omnicom 10-K). Its other disciplines include Precision Marketing at $1,938.5 million (Omnicom 10-K) and Experiential at $862.7 million (Omnicom 10-K). WPP launched WPP Production in February 2026 as one of four operating units (WPP 20-F), a single team of nearly 10,000 creative producers and craft experts led by Hogarth's former chief executive (WPP). Filming ads and producing content for clients made up 14% of WPP's 2019 baseline carbon footprint (WPP). Publicis describes its production arm, Prodigious and Harbor, as a network of 50 integrated production studios (Publicis). In its 2024 10-K, Interpublic listed creative and production among its specialties and said it operated in over 100 countries (Interpublic 10-K).
Big agencies depend on big clients. Omnicom's 100 largest clients made up 54.2% of 2025 revenue (Omnicom 10-K), and its largest client was served by about 144 of its agencies (Omnicom 10-K). WPP's ten largest clients were 21.4% of net sales (WPP 20-F) and its top 100 50% of revenue less pass-through costs (WPP); Interpublic's top ten were about 20% (Interpublic 10-K), Stagwell's about 18% (Stagwell 10-K), Havas' 20% (Havas), and Publicis' top thirty 37% (Publicis). Stagwell serves more than 4,500 clients (Stagwell 10-K).
How many brands have in-house agencies?
Most large advertisers that answer these surveys have one, but the share depends heavily on who is asked. The most quoted figure is from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA): 82 percent of the ANA members who answered its 2023 survey said they have an in-house agency (ANA). That survey had 162 respondents, fielded in February and March 2023 (ANA). ANA counts any "department, group, or person" doing agency-type work, so a single in-house designer qualifies. Surveys of other groups give lower and higher shares:
None of these is a sample of all brands. Each is a group of trade-association members who chose to answer, and the World Federation of Advertisers' 80% (2022) and 66% (2023) come from different panels of 32 and 45 companies, so they are not a trend. ANA's own figures for 2008 disagree with each other (42% in its press releases, 38% in its Fact Book). The Observatory, which ran the 2020 WFA study, and Alchemists and CvE, ISBA's partners, sell consulting on agency models.
In-house does not mean agency-free. 92 percent of ANA's 2023 respondents also worked with outside agencies (ANA), and among them an average 61 percent of their company's work was done in-house (ANA), up from 58 percent in 2018 (ANA). 65 percent had moved some established business from outside agencies to their in-house team in the past three years (ANA), and 88 percent said their in-house workload grew in the past year (ANA). ANA expects penetration among its members to peak at 85 to 90 percent (ANA). Cost savings remained the top measure of success but fell to 62% of respondents in 2023 from 69% in 2018 (ANA), while business performance rose to 59% (ANA). In ANA's 2026 study, Fifty-three percent agreed that an in-house agency's main role is strategic partner (ANA), and respondents were five times likelier to say in-housing is growing than shrinking (ANA); ANA published no sample size for it.
Do in-house agencies make video?
Many do, though big commercial shoots still mostly go outside. In ANA's 2018 survey, 79 percent of respondents had in-house video production capabilities (ANA), and 49 percent had set up their production capabilities in the previous five years (ANA). Yet only 22 percent handled commercial production in-house (ANA). Content marketing was handled in-house by 75 percent, up from 34% in 2013 (ANA), and 70 percent had moved work in from outside agencies over three years (ANA). Ten years earlier, in ANA's 2008 survey, 69 percent of in-house agencies made internal or company videos (ANA).
Outside the U.S., the WFA and Observatory 2020 study found video production handled in-house at 73% of the multinationals that answered (The Observatory), and 94% of those with an in-house agency could create digital content in-house (The Observatory); even so, about 37% of creative output came from the in-house team among respondents that still used external agencies (The Observatory). In WFA's 2023 survey, 56% expected to move more digital production from agencies in-house within three years (WFA). In the UK, 73% of ISBA's 2023 respondents had in-house provision for content production (ISBA), but while 93% expected better cost effectiveness from in-housing, only 60% got it (ISBA). In the 2018 Forrester and In-House Agency Forum study, over 95% of in-house agencies focused on creative services and production (Forrester), and Eighty-five percent (85%) outsourced some work, mainly for capability and capacity (Forrester).
How are agencies and advertisers using AI for video?
Most video ad buyers now use generative AI on some creative, but it touches a minority of the ads. In the Interactive Advertising Bureau's 2026 survey of 360 U.S. video ad buyers, about 60% at agencies and 40% at brands, fielded February 20 to March 13, 2026 (IAB), 62% used generative AI to build or enhance digital video ad creative, up from about half in 2025 (IAB). Those buyers said about one-third of their video ad creative would be made or adjusted with AI in 2026, rising to 43% by 2027 (IAB). Large spenders, $50 million a year or more, led at 70% (IAB), while 96% of smaller spenders were not satisfied with their own AI use (IAB); 18% of those smaller spenders said third-party help would most help them use more (IAB).
A year earlier the same buyers were more optimistic. In IAB's 2025 edition, 86% were using or planning generative AI for video creative (IAB), and they projected AI-built creative would reach 40% of all ads by 2026 (IAB); the 2026 survey's one-third falls 7 points short, though the two questions are not worded alike. The most common 2025 uses were versioning ads for different audiences, at 42% (IAB). About half of U.S. advertisers were already building video ads with AI in mid-2025 (IAB). Agentic AI is next: in early 2026, 21% of video buyers were already live with it (IAB) and a further 28% were investigating it (IAB); of those using or planning it, 50% meant to use it for creative testing and selection (IAB). IAB represents companies that sell digital advertising.
Agencies report similar adoption. In a 2024 Forrester survey with the 4A's, the U.S. agency trade body, more than 60% of agency decision-makers said their agency already used generative AI (Forrester and 4A's), rising to 78% at agencies with more than 200 employees (Forrester and 4A's); 74% used it to come up with creative concepts (Forrester and 4A's), and 76% expected it to change significantly how they create content (Forrester and 4A's). The release gives no sample size. Two software vendors that sell to agencies surveyed their own audiences: AgencyAnalytics (494 agency respondents, February to April 2026) found 79% saving five or more hours a week with AI (AgencyAnalytics) and 38% already using agentic AI for workflow automation (AgencyAnalytics); content creation was the AI use agencies valued most in its 2025 survey, at 58% (AgencyAnalytics). In Productive's late-2025 survey of about 180 agencies, only 13% had lowered prices because of AI (Productive), 65% said AI was lifting revenue or profit (Productive), and 64% had cut no staff because of it (Productive). Among B2B marketers using AI in the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 survey, mostly in North America, 53% used it to generate or edit images and video (Content Marketing Institute).
Buyers are also wary. In IAB's July 2026 survey of 211 U.S. buy-side decision-makers (IAB), 38% named low-quality AI-generated content as an investment challenge (IAB), and focus on generative AI in media campaigns fell to 69% from 78% in January (IAB). Asked how they would run agentic AI ad buying, 42% of agency buyers expected a mix of in-house and outside help, against 32% of brands (IAB), and 25% of brands expected to rely on partners or agencies (IAB).
How much are advertisers spending on video?
Video is among the fastest-growing parts of ad budgets that agencies plan and buy. WPP Media, WPP's media investment unit, forecasts global advertising revenue to grow 8.9% in 2026 to $1.3 trillion (WPP Media), after 1.14 trillion dollars in 2025 (WPP Media), with content-driven advertising such as TV, streaming, social and gaming at 720.2 billion dollars (WPP Media). Alphabet, Meta and Amazon take 57.6% of the market outside China (WPP Media). dentsu forecasts 5.1% global growth in 2026 (dentsu), with online video, driven by connected TV, up 11.5% (dentsu) and digital at 68.7% of all ad spend (dentsu). Both forecasters are units of agency holding companies.
In the U.S., brand and agency buyers in IAB's Outlook survey forecast 9.5% ad-spend growth for 2026 in January (IAB), from 205 buy-side respondents (IAB), with social media at 14.6% the fastest-growing channel (IAB). By September they had raised the forecast to 12.3% (IAB), with social media at 16.5% (IAB) and digital video excluding CTV at 9.4% (IAB). IAB's video report projects U.S. social video spend, including YouTube, to grow 13% in 2026, ahead of CTV (IAB); its spend estimates come from billing data covering all six major U.S. holding groups (IAB). Targeting overtook content quality as buyers' top criterion for TV and video budgets, up +10 pts (IAB). Creator partnerships got the most new attention, from 54% of buyers (IAB).
Do brands use agencies for creator video?
Often. In IAB's 2025 creator economy survey of 453 U.S. ad buyers, fielded July 28 to August 12, 2025 (IAB), 41% of brands worked with creators through creator-specific media and creative agencies (IAB). 3 in 4 paid creators flat fees in direct deals (IAB), against 48% using retainers (IAB), and 13% named opaque payments and fees among their biggest creator-marketing pain points (IAB).
How are agencies hired and paid?
Mostly by fee, not commission. In the ANA's 2022 compensation survey, 82 percent of U.S. marketers paid agencies on a fee basis, up from 68% in 2016 (ANA), and among advertisers spending $500 million or more a year, 53 percent paid fixed or output-based fees, up from 5% (ANA). 76 percent of smaller advertisers used labor-based fees (ANA). Labor-based fees had risen from 49% in 2010 to 65 percent in 2013 (ANA). Performance incentives fell to 41 percent of marketers in 2022 (ANA), and 51 percent planned to change their compensation agreements (ANA). Media commissions came back to 12 percent of marketers in 2017 (ANA), value-based pay was used by 7 percent (ANA), and in 2019 40 percent paid commissions for programmatic media (ANA), while 84 percent used their media agency for some or all programmatic buying (ANA). The ANA represents advertisers, the agencies' clients.
Changing agencies is expensive. ANA and the 4A's estimated in 2023 that a pitch without the incumbent costs the client $408,500 on average (ANA and 4A's), and a review with three finalists About $1 million in total (ANA and 4A's). Forty-six percent of marketers (46%) used outside consultants to run reviews (ANA and 4A's). Relationships last longer than the popular figures suggest; see agency tenure below.
What do the UK numbers show?
UK agency employment is falling, fastest at creative agencies. The IPA's Agency Census counted 24,963 people at its member agencies on September 1, 2025, down 6.8% (IPA). Creative and other non-media agencies lost 14.3% of their staff (IPA), while media agencies grew to 12,304 (IPA). Staff aged 25 and under fell 19.2% (IPA). Full-time staff fell to 23,396 (IPA), turnover was 24.8% (IPA) and retention fell to 68.6% (IPA). The IPA is the trade body for UK agencies and counts only its members.
The UK government's creative-industries estimates put the gross value added of advertising and marketing at £24.3bn in 2024, provisional (DCMS), up 2.1% in real terms (DCMS). Budgets are rising: in the IPA's Bellwether survey for the third quarter of 2026, a net +14.3% of UK companies raised marketing budgets (IPA Bellwether), main media advertising reached a nine-year-high net balance of +9.8% (IPA Bellwether), video budgets a two-year high of +9.8% (IPA Bellwether), and S&P Global's adspend forecast for 2026 rose to 2.8% (IPA Bellwether).
What the popular agency numbers really say
Agency blogs, white-label sellers and video production companies repeat a small set of statistics. We traced each to the organization that produced it.
"82% of brands have in-house agencies"
It is 82% of the ANA members who answered one survey. ANA's 2023 figure, 82 percent, is a share of 162 respondents from its own membership, and ANA counts even one person doing agency-type work as an in-house agency. A MarketingProfs article now presents it as "82% of major brands" (MarketingProfs). The same survey found 92 percent of respondents still used outside agencies (ANA), and in ANA's 2018 wave only 22 percent produced commercials in-house (ANA). Other surveys of multinationals give 57% to 80% (see the table above). Use instead: "82% of ANA members who responded to its 2023 survey (n = 162) said they have an in-house agency."
"73% of agencies use white-label services"
We found no survey behind it. The line leads a September 2025 list of white-label marketing statistics by Amra & Elma, a New York marketing agency, which names no survey, sample or year: "73% of agencies use white label services" (Amra & Elma). Sellers of white-label services repeat it, citing that list, such as AgencyPlatform's 2026 guide, which says 73% of agencies have integrated white-label services (AgencyPlatform). A related line, "76% of businesses outsource video production", appears on a video production company's page with no source (Beverly Boy Productions). We searched the Census, BLS, ANA, 4A's, IPA, SoDA, the Content Marketing Institute, Clutch and the agency-software vendors' reports and found no primary measure of how much agency video work is outsourced or white-labelled. Census does show NAICS 5418 firms spending $3.9 billion on purchased professional and technical services in 2024, without saying what kind. The closest survey of who makes marketing video, Wyzowl's 2026 edition, points the other way: 59% of video marketers said they make their videos in house (Wyzowl). Use instead: no reliable share exists; cite Census's purchased-services spending or say the share is unmeasured.
"84% of B2B marketers outsource content creation"
It is 84% of the half who outsource anything. In the Content Marketing Institute's 2020 B2B benchmark, a survey run in June and July 2019, 50% of North American B2B content marketers outsourced at least one content activity (Content Marketing Institute), and among those, 84% outsourced content creation (Content Marketing Institute). Repeaters drop the first condition, for example "close to 84% of B2B marketers outsource their content development" (Spiralytics). Use instead: "About 42% of North American B2B marketers outsourced content creation in CMI's 2020 survey (84% of the 50% who outsourced anything)."
"Agency relationships last under three years, down from 7.2"
The decline traces to an undated consultancy white paper; current survey data say about seven years. The oldest form we found is The Bedford Group's "Agency Relationship Sustainability" paper (archived January 2013), which gives 7.2 years in 1984 and 5.3 in 1997 with no method and says today's average "is thought to be" under three years (The Bedford Group). Digiday listed it in 2013 as an alarming stat, with the same 7.2 years (Digiday), and a MediaVillage column later turned the hedge into a dated fact, "from 7.2 years in 1984 to just under 3 years in 2013" (MediaVillage). R3's 2016 figure of 3.2 years is known only from press coverage (Brand Knew Magazine). In 2025 the ANA and the 4A's put the average agency-of-record relationship at about 7 years (vs. 3.2 in 2016) (ANA and 4A's): 6.78 years from 106 ANA members (ANA and 4A's) and 7.0 years from 67 agencies reporting on their top clients (ANA and 4A's). That study counts only retainer (agency-of-record) relationships, and its "more than double" compares it with R3's figure, whose method is unpublished. Integrated agencies averaged 87 months (ANA and 4A's), and holding-company agencies 5.8 years against 7.3 for independents (ANA and 4A's); 60% of respondents had no mandatory review period (ANA and 4A's). Use instead: "Agency-of-record relationships averaged about seven years in a 2024 ANA and 4A's survey."
"82% of internet traffic is video"
It was a Cisco forecast for 2022, never a measurement. Cisco announced in November 2018 that video would be 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2022 (Cisco), and its white paper counts business and consumer traffic and gives 75% for 2017 (Cisco); the 82 percent was a five-year projection, and Cisco later ended the series. Agency and production pages now date it "by 2026" and say it "has been realized", as Beverly Boy Productions does with 82% (Beverly Boy Productions). Our fact-check lists the same origin. Use instead: "Cisco forecast in 2018 that video would be 82% of IP traffic by 2022."
"91% of businesses use video" and "49% faster revenue growth"
Both come from vendors, and agency pages often quote them together, as The Stacc's 2026 statistics page does in one opening line with 82% of traffic, 91% of businesses and 49% faster growth (The Stacc). Wyzowl's 91% comes from 266 respondents, marketers and consumers, surveyed in late 2025 by a company that makes explainer videos (Wyzowl). The 49% is from Aberdeen Group's July 2015 report, distributed by Vidyard, a survey of 168 organizations in March and April 2015 (Aberdeen Group): companies with video users said their revenue grew 49% faster than non-users (13.3% vs 8.9%), a correlation in self-reported data, not an effect of video (Aberdeen Group). IPV, which sells media software to video teams, reused it in a 2020 report for creative agencies, alongside a claim that 62% of creative agencies expected to make more video (ProVideo Coalition); YouGov's write-up of that report repeats the 62% (YouGov), and no coverage we found gives its sample size. Use instead: name the survey owner, the sample and the year with each figure, and do not present the Aberdeen gap as caused by video.
We started from the questions people search for about marketing agency video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 282 figures from 34 publishers.
On November 1, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: Census County Business Patterns, Economic Census, Annual Integrated Economic Survey and Nonemployer Statistics; BLS employment, QCEW, occupational wage and projections data (wage rows through the BLS data API); the SEC filings and annual reports of Omnicom, Interpublic, WPP, Stagwell, Publicis, S4 Capital, Dentsu and Havas; ANA, WFA, ISBA and Forrester in-house agency studies; IAB video, outlook and creator surveys; WPP Media and dentsu forecasts; ANA compensation surveys; the IPA Agency Census and Bellwether report; DCMS estimates; and the pages behind each popular claim. The homepage figures are our own reading of 27 company homepages in a headless browser on November 1, 2026. We left out ANA's and the 4A's member-only reports, the full IPA Agency Census, which is sold, a 4A's AI report with no public figures, and a vendor video report with no field dates.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
378 CIKs listed by EDGAR under SIC 7310/7311/7331 (7319: none) -> 41 with a 10-K/20-F/40-F filed 2025-01-01..2026-11-01 -> minus 7 exclusions (1 shell, 6 with no website URL in their filings) = 34; by SIC {'7310': 18, '7311': 14, '7331': 2}; 24 10-K filers, 10 20-F filers
12 / 27 readable homepages with video_player = true in homepages.csv; rule: video player (any: element >= 150x80, labelled click-to-play control or hidden embed)
11 / 27 readable homepages with player_element = true in homepages.csv; rule: visible video player element at least 150x80 px (strict element-only rule)
10 / 27 readable homepages with self_hosted_video = true in homepages.csv; rule: a video player whose host is a self-hosted <video> file (not YouTube/Vimeo/other platform)
6 / 27 readable homepages with autoplay_hero_video = true in homepages.csv; rule: muted autoplaying background <video> starting in the first 900 px and at least 1,000 px wide
17 / 27 readable homepages with careers_link = true in homepages.csv; rule: careers/jobs link (careers/jobs text, path or host, or an applicant-tracking host)
3 / 27 readable homepages with video_services_text = true in homepages.csv; rule: homepage visible text matches the case-insensitive regex \b(video production|video editing|video content|motion|film|production studio|post-production|content production) (leading word boundary so "promotion" does not count); only the matched term is stored
7 / 13 readable homepages with video_player = true in homepages.csv; rule: video player (any: element >= 150x80, labelled click-to-play control or hidden embed)
5 / 13 readable homepages with self_hosted_video = true in homepages.csv; rule: a video player whose host is a self-hosted <video> file (not YouTube/Vimeo/other platform)
2 / 13 readable homepages with video_services_text = true in homepages.csv; rule: homepage visible text matches the case-insensitive regex \b(video production|video editing|video content|motion|film|production studio|post-production|content production) (leading word boundary so "promotion" does not count); only the matched term is stored
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Nobody counts agency video work directly. Census does not publish agency revenue from video, and no survey we found measures how much agency video production or editing is outsourced. Our homepage count covers only the 27 readable homepages of SEC-reporting advertising companies, a small and unusual group that includes ad-tech and coupon firms.
In-house agency surveys are member surveys. ANA, WFA and ISBA survey their own members who choose to answer, with samples of 32 to 412; WFA's panels change from year to year, and ISBA and Forrester publish no sample size.
Several sources sell into the market. AgencyAnalytics and Productive sell software to agencies; The Observatory, Alchemists and CvE sell consulting on agency models; WPP Media and dentsu are holding-company units; IAB represents sellers of digital advertising; Wyzowl and IPV sell video services or software.
Holding-company figures are not like for like. Each group defines headcount and revenue differently (net revenue, revenue less pass-through costs, approximate counts), in different currencies.
Some figures are old. ANA's newest public agency-compensation results are from 2022, and the newest Economic Census product breakdown is for 2022.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics#IND-035. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Marketing Agency Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, November 1). Marketing agency video statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics
MLA
“Marketing Agency Video Statistics.” Mark Studios, 1 Nov. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “Marketing Agency Video Statistics.” Last modified November 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_marketing_agency_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Marketing Agency Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/marketing-agency-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-11-01}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Nov 1, 2026: First published with 282 figures from 34 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Frequently asked questions
How many advertising agencies are there in the US?
Census counted 15,512 advertising agency establishments with paid employees in 2023 (NAICS 541810), and 68.2% had fewer than five employees. The wider advertising, PR and related group had 38,864 establishments with employees.
How many video editors work at advertising agencies?
BLS counted 950 film and video editors on payroll in advertising, PR and related services in May 2025, with a median wage of $69,800.
What percentage of brands have an in-house agency?
82 percent of the 162 ANA members who answered its 2023 survey said they have one. Surveys of multinationals give 66% (WFA, 2023) and 79% in the UK (ISBA, 2023); none samples all brands.
Do in-house agencies produce video?
Often. In ANA's 2018 survey, 79 percent of respondents had in-house video production capabilities, but only 22 percent handled commercial production in-house.
Do marketing agencies show video on their own websites?
Fewer than half of the publicly reporting ones do: 44.4% of 27 readable homepages of SEC-reporting advertising companies had a video player on November 1, 2026, by our count.
Do agencies outsource video production?
No primary source measures it. The popular '73% of agencies use white-label services' has no survey behind it, and Census reports what agencies spend on purchased services without saying what kind.
How are advertisers using AI for video ads?
62% of U.S. video ad buyers in IAB's 2026 survey used generative AI to build or enhance video creative, and they expect it in 43% of their video ad creative by 2027.
How long do agency-client relationships last?
About seven years for agency-of-record relationships in the ANA and 4A's 2024 survey: 6.78 years by ANA members' count and 7.0 by agencies'.
