Advertising spend data: methodology

Source

SEC EDGAR XBRL company facts: the machine-readable values companies tag in their annual reports (10-K, 20-F, 40-F and their amendments). Only full-year values are used: fiscal period FY, covering 350 to 380 days. Each value on this site links to the filing it comes from. Values are US-GAAP facts in US dollars.

Advertising tags, in priority order

  1. AdvertisingExpense: advertising costs as disclosed. Used for 254 companies in their latest fiscal year.
  2. MarketingAndAdvertisingExpense: marketing and advertising combined. 65 companies.
  3. MarketingExpense: total marketing, which can include marketing staff costs. 17 companies.

When a company reports more than one of these for the same year, the highest in this order is used. The tag is shown on every row of each company's history table.

Revenue

Revenue is the largest value for the same period among these candidates: Revenues, RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax, RevenueFromContractWithCustomerIncludingAssessedTax, RevenuesNetOfInterestExpense, SalesRevenueNet, IFRS Revenue and RevenueFromContractsWithCustomers, and, for banks, InterestIncomeExpenseNet plus NoninterestIncome. Components such as fee income or product revenue are always smaller than the total, so the largest value is the top line. Where no revenue is tagged, the ad-to-revenue ratio is left blank.

Fiscal years and restatements

A year is the calendar year in which the fiscal year ends; the exact period end is shown next to every figure. Some retailers name the year differently: a year ending in early February 2026 is FY2026 here and "fiscal 2025" in their own reports. When a later filing restates a year, the most recently filed value wins, and the linked filing is the one that value comes from. Each company is ranked on its latest filed fiscal year: FY2025 for 252 companies, FY2026 for 84 companies. Ranking on the latest filing keeps every page, title and rank on the same figure. Periods compared can differ by several months.

Inclusion and exclusions

  • Included: companies listed on NYSE, Nasdaq, NYSE Arca, NYSE American or Cboe with $100M or more in advertising expense for FY2025. Currently 336.
  • Excluded: commercial banks and savings institutions (SIC 6021, 6022, 6035, 6036), except the large consumer brands among them, such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Capital One.
  • Ad-to-revenue ratios over 100% are held back for manual review and not published until checked.
  • Ratios from 50 to 100% are published with a note. They are typical for lead-gen and marketplace businesses that buy traffic.

Lists

  • Biggest increases: Companies whose advertising expense rose in their latest fiscal year, by percentage change.
  • Biggest cuts: Companies whose advertising expense fell in their latest fiscal year, by percentage change.
  • Highest ad-to-revenue: The 50 companies with the highest advertising expense relative to revenue in their latest fiscal year.
  • Lowest ad-to-revenue: The 50 companies with the lowest advertising expense relative to revenue in their latest fiscal year.
  • Up 5+ years in a row: Advertising expense higher than the year before in each of at least 5 consecutive fiscal years up to the latest one. Longest runs first.
  • New $100M spenders: Advertising expense below $100M in the prior fiscal year and $100M or more in the latest one.

YoY compares each company's latest fiscal year with the one before. The dollar change is derived from the two. A year tagged $0 gives no YoY.

Refresh

The dataset is rebuilt from EDGAR as new annual reports are filed. Current build: Nov 4, 2026.

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