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United States
Tier 1Everything a marketer needs before entering United States: economy, platforms, ad rules, payments and audience.
Economy & income
- Currency
- US Dollar (USD, $)
- GDP per capita
- ~$85,810 nominal (2024)
- For the US, PPP is essentially equal to nominal (base currency).
- Average salary
- ~$4,320 net after tax (crowdsourced avg, Jul 2026 Numbeo)
- Gross full-time mean is higher (~$6,000+/mo).
- Median salary
- ~$4,960 gross (BLS median full-time weekly earnings ~$1,192, Q4 2024)
- Median household income $83,730 (2024, Census).
- Minimum wage
- $7.25/hr federal (unchanged since Jul 2009)
- tipped $2.13/hr. 30 states + DC set higher, e.g
- DC $17.95/hr, CA ~$16.50, WA ~$16.66.
- Cost of living
- High — among the most expensive large economies
- Numbeo uses NYC=100 as global base
- Avg 1-BR city-centre rent ~$1,640/mo
- inexpensive-restaurant meal ~$20
- cappuccino ~$5.44 (Jul 2026).
Digital landscape
- Population
- 346 million (Jan 2025)
- Internet users
- 93.1% (~322M users)
- Social media users
- 73.0% (~253M user identities)
- Mobile connections
- 411M cellular connections = 119% of population (many people hold multiple SIMs/lines)
- US web traffic is roughly balanced mobile vs desktop (~50/50), unusual vs mobile-first emerging markets.
- Devices
- Roughly balanced: mobile ~50% / desktop ~47% of web traffic (indicative, StatCounter) — not reported in DataReportal 2025.
- Ad spend
- Total US ad spend ~$426B in 2025
- digital ~$317-325B (~74-75% of total), +~10-12% YoY (eMarketer)
- Largest single ad market in the world.
- Top social platforms
- Messengers
- iMessage/SMS (native, dominant for personal texting)
- Facebook Messenger (~108M MAU)
- Snapchat (~49M)
- WhatsApp (~24M — far smaller share than global)
Ad regulations
RESTRICTED (state-by-state) — online sports betting live in 38 states + DC; online casino/iGaming legal in only ~7-8 states (NJ, PA, MI, WV, CT, DE, RI, ME launching). No federal legalization; UIGEA + Wire Act govern interstate. Affiliates must operate only in licensed states, often with registration.
ALLOWED / REGULATED — spot BTC & ETH ETFs live; GENIUS Act (2025) sets federal stablecoin framework; Mar 2026 SEC-CFTC joint release classes 16 major tokens (BTC/ETH/SOL/XRP) as digital commodities (CFTC). Ads permitted but subject to SEC (securities) & FTC (truth-in-advertising); many platforms self-restrict.
RESTRICTED — legal federally but 26 states now mandate age/ID verification for adult sites after SCOTUS upheld Texas law in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (Jun 2025). Many large sites geo-block AV states; CSAM & obscenity strictly criminal.
ALLOWED — standard FTC consumer-protection rules apply; ROSCA/negative-option (auto-renewal) disclosure required; heightened scrutiny of romance-scam and fake-profile practices.
RESTRICTED — payday/high-cost lending banned or effectively capped (~36% APR) in ~18 states + DC; CFPB oversees (enforcement of 2017 payday rule currently deprioritized 2025-26); TILA disclosure, state licensing, TCPA on lead-gen calls/texts. 'Rent-a-bank' models under scrutiny.
RESTRICTED — supplements legal under DSHEA (no FDA pre-approval) but FTC requires competent, reliable scientific substantiation; disease/cure claims prohibited; FDA governs labeling. Rx DTC advertising allowed but tightly FDA-regulated. FTC actively targets 'free trial'/negative-option nutra offers.
- FTC (advertising, lead) primary
- FDA (food/supplements/drugs)
- CFPB (consumer finance)
- SEC & CFTC (crypto/securities)
- state AGs & state gaming commissions.
- Federal + 50-state patchwork with strong private/class-action litigation risk
- Key ad-adjacent laws: TCPA (calls/SMS), CAN-SPAM (email), FTC Endorsement Guides (influencer/affiliate disclosure), Negative Option/'Click-to-Cancel' rule, and state privacy laws (CCPA/CPRA in CA plus ~15 other states).
Payments & behaviour
- Payment methods
- Credit cards (~31-32% of online purchases)
- Digital wallets (~40% of e-comm, largest share)
- Debit cards (~16%)
- ACH / bank transfer
- Buy Now Pay Later (~6%)
- E-wallets
- Cash on delivery
- Negligible — cash-on-delivery is essentially not used in US e-commerce.
- E-commerce
- High — e-commerce ~16% of total retail sales (US Census, 2024/25)
- one of the world's largest e-commerce markets by value.
- Notes
- Digital wallets overtook cards as the top online method (~40% vs ~32% credit in 2024), but ~90% of North American wallet transactions are still card-funded behind the scenes
- BNPL (Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay, PayPal) growing fast.
Audience & culture
- Languages
- English (primary, ~78% speak only English at home)
- Spanish (~13% at home)
- Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, others
- Religion
- Christian majority (~62-63%: Protestant + Catholic)
- religiously unaffiliated ~28-29%
- Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist minorities (Pew).
- Median age
- ~38.9 years (US Census, mid-2020s)
- Key seasons
- Black Friday / Cyber Monday (late Nov)
- Christmas & holiday shopping (Dec)
- Amazon Prime Day (Jul)
- Back-to-school (Aug-Sep)
- Super Bowl (Feb)
- Tax season (Jan-Apr)
- Halloween (Oct)
- Valentine's Day (Feb)
- Memorial/Labor Day sales
- Cultural notes
- Affluent, credit-driven, highly consumerist audience with the world's highest ad spend and payouts, but also very high ad literacy, ad-blocker use, and litigation risk
- Balanced mobile/desktop usage
- Large, fast-growing bilingual Hispanic segment (~19% of population) worth targeting in Spanish
- Strong privacy sentiment (CCPA/CPRA) — compliance and disclosure matter.
- Where to find creators
Media landscape
Top media outlets
- 1 Fox News English cable TV news; #1 cable network & top-3 news site
- 2 The New York Times English newspaper & news site; #1 by digital traffic
- 3 CNN English TV news & news site
- 4 USA Today English national newspaper & news site
- 5 NBC News English broadcast TV news & news site
- 6 CBS News English broadcast TV news & news site
Top YouTube channels
- 1 ABC News ~19.6M
- 2 CNN ~19.6M
- 3 Fox News ~16M
- 4 NBC News ~12M
- 5 USA TODAY ~7.5M
- 6 CBS News ~7M
Creators & public figures
Top creators
Celebrities
Affiliate & traffic
- Hot verticals
- Finance (loans, credit cards, insurance)
- Health / Nutra & weight loss
- Dating
- Sweepstakes / lead-gen
- iGaming (regulated states only)
- E-commerce
- Software/SaaS & mobile apps
- Home services & solar
- Active networks
- Payouts
- Highest global CPA/CPL/RevShare payouts
- Finance & insurance leads command the most (often $20-200+ per lead)
- Compliance-heavy: FTC endorsement disclosure, TCPA (calls/SMS), CAN-SPAM, and negative-option/click-to-cancel rules must be respected.
- Competition
- Very high — the most competitive and most expensive traffic market globally (premium CPCs/CPMs), offset by the highest payouts and largest volume worldwide.
- Seasonality
- Q4 is the peak (Black Friday/Cyber Monday + holidays)
- Prime Day spike in July
- finance peaks in tax season (Jan-Apr)
- health/fitness peaks New Year (Jan)
- insurance open-enrollment (Oct-Dec).
- Traffic sources
Good to know
- Capital
- Washington, D.C.
- Major cities
- Time zones
- Contiguous US spans 4 zones — Eastern (UTC-5), Central (UTC-6), Mountain (UTC-7), Pacific (UTC-8)
- plus Alaska (UTC-9) & Hawaii (UTC-10)
- Most of the population sits in Eastern/Central
- Schedule national launches for a mid-Eastern time that still catches the West Coast.
- Android vs iOS
-
Android 42% iOS 58%
- Phone brands
- Top e-commerce
- Amazon (~35% of shopping-category traffic)
- Walmart
- eBay
- Temu
- TikTok Shop
- Target
- Peak activity
-
Feed/static content: Tue-Thu, 11am-6pm local time (Wed midday strongest). Short-form video (TikTok, YouTube, Reels): evenings 6-10pm. Sunday is consistently the weakest day.🕐 In your time zone (approx.):
- Creative taboos
- Highly politically polarized — avoid partisan politics, guns, abortion, immigration, and religion in ads
- Racial diversity & authentic representation are expected
- avoid cultural appropriation, body-shaming, or stereotyping
- Health/beauty/supplement claims are FTC- and FDA-regulated, and FTC rules REQUIRE clear #ad / #sponsored disclosure on all paid creator content — non-disclosure is a legal risk, not just etiquette.
- Also worth knowing
- The US has the world's largest creator-economy and influencer-ad spend, so audiences are ad-savvy and reward authenticity over polish
- A ~19% Hispanic population makes Spanish-language and bilingual creative a major growth lever, especially in TX, CA, FL, and NY.
Indicative reference — always confirm the current rules with the official source before you run.
