2022 was for many markets a year of two halves. While the first six months saw a continuation of the post-pandemic recovery of volumes and recruitment of new ecommerce brands to the channel, the second half of the year was challenged by the fall-out from the invasion of Ukraine as energy prices spiralled, supply chains were disrupted.

Inflation was rampant and consumers felt increasingly constrained in their spending. Marketers reacted rapidly reducing budgets as caution began to dominate their decision-making. Specifically for print channels the cost of pulp and paper rose dramatically as supply following Covid had not yet normalised. There were challenges in sourcing paper let alone affording it. The uncertainty and price pressures meant even the Golden Quarter of retail in the run-up to Christmas 2022 felt muted.


In addition, the watershed demise of the third-party cookie by Google, originally slated for 2022, had been delayed as the market reacted negatively to the proposed replacement meaning the disruption in digital marketing anticipated for the year was not seen. Only now at the time of writing in January 2024 has that finally come to pass.

30 January 2024: ELMA publishes today its 13th year analysis of European door drop media spend and usage across 15 countries. 

  • Total door drop volume across 15 markets is estimated at 68 billion items in 2022
  • Total door drop media spend across 15 markets is estimated at € 2.7bn in 2022
  • Over the thirteen-year period of this study, we see a fall in volume of 31.6% and a decrease in spend of 19.4%
  • 2022 saw a modest decrease in volume of 4.3% as well as a small decrease in media spend of 1.1% compared to 2021 linked to macro-economic pressures

The largest volumes by country in 2022 remained the same as they were in 2021 i.e Germany followed by France, Italy and The Netherlands.

During 2022, 1 Scandinavian country allocated the greatest percentage of advertising spend to door drop i.e Finland at 5.92%, followed by Austria (3.8%) and then Denmark (3.7%).

For more details about our Census Report, please email mark.davies@elma-europe.com

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