Internet Ad Prices
As of July 2026, the producer price index for internet advertising stands at 133.3, up 1.6% from a year earlier. This is the closest thing to a public CPM series that exists — the official measure of what sellers of internet ad space actually charge. The long-run story is the one the industry rarely says out loud: internet ad prices trend down, because supply of ad inventory grows faster than demand.
What sellers of internet ad space actually charge, as measured by the BLS producer price index — an economy-wide average transaction price, explicitly not anyone's CPM.
Internet advertising prices since 2009
Ad prices by medium — the longest view
Newspaper ad-space prices reach back to 1980 — the longest free ad-price history anywhere — and rose for decades even as circulation collapsed: publishers priced a shrinking audience upward until the market broke. Ad agency prices climb steadily; internet prices fall. Three different industries wearing one label.
Are prices firming or falling faster?
Falling internet ad prices are the structural norm, so the level chart alone cannot tell you whether anything has changed. The tradable read is deviation from that trend: sustained readings above zero mean marketing budgets are outrunning the supply of new inventory.
Why traders and investors watch this
Platform ad revenue is price × volume, and this index is the only public read on the price leg. When GOOGL or META compound ad revenue while this series falls, impression growth is doing all the work — a different quality of growth than pricing power, and worth knowing before extrapolating margins. It is also a monthly demand thermometer that arrives well ahead of quarterly earnings: internet ad prices trending down is the structural norm (supply of inventory grows faster than demand), so the signal is deviation — prices firming against that trend means marketing budgets are running hot. One discipline: this is an economy-wide average transaction price, not anyone's CPM, and levels across the by-medium series use different base periods — read shapes and YoY rates, never cross-series levels.
How this is computed — and what it can't tell you
The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys sellers of advertising space and time monthly for its producer price indexes. The internet series required a splice: the original index (WPU365) was frozen in December 2022 when the PPI converted to NAICS 2022 — it still renders plausibly on FRED, a trap for the unwary — and its successor (WPU366101) starts at that same month. We chain the old history onto the new series' level at the overlap month and mark the junction on the chart; the definition widened slightly (the old code excluded print publishers' internet sales).
Limits worth knowing: a PPI measures average transaction prices for a defined product, not your CPM — mix shifts (video vs display, premium vs remnant) move it in ways a single campaign never sees. And index levels across series are not comparable — each has its own base period; read the shapes.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-07-01 · Open ↓Close ↑
What sellers of internet ad space actually charge, as measured by the BLS producer price index — an economy-wide average transaction price, explicitly not anyone's CPM.
How Internet Ad Prices Works
- 1A survey of what sellers actually chargeThe BLS surveys sellers of advertising space and time every month for its producer price indexes — average transaction prices for a defined product, from the sellers' side. It is the only official, public, monthly price series for internet advertising.
- 2The mandatory spliceThe original internet-ad index (WPU365) was frozen in December 2022 when the PPI converted to NAICS 2022 — it still renders plausibly on FRED, a trap for the unwary. Its successor (WPU366101) starts that same month. We chain the old history onto the new series' level at the overlap month and mark the junction on the chart.
- 3Media side-by-sideNewspaper ad-space prices reach back to 1980 — the longest free ad-price history anywhere — alongside the all-media index and the ad-agencies PPI. Base periods differ by series, so compare shapes, not levels.
- 4Monthly cadencePPI releases land mid-month for the prior month; the page updates the same day through the daily pipeline.