This year is projected to be a banner year for advertising spend.

The market expects continued improvement from a weak 2022 and an outsized boost from special events, including the Olympics and a competitive election cycle.

One company has serious ad ambition and prior results that show success: META.

Meta's Ad Dominance

The stock is up +41% YTD (more than +170% over last 5 years) -- despite a tough run in 2022 when the company went too far on the Metaverse, its recent cost cutting measures and advertising machine are clearly working

It is by far the largest social media company globally, touting 3.27 billion with a B daily active people across its owned apps.

The company has benefitted of late from increased ad spending from Chinese e-commerce and gaming companies targeting users here in the US (hello Temu). In the second quarter, its ad revenue grew by +22% YoY, besting Google's ad sale growth of +11% YoY and Snapchat sales growth of +16% YoY.

Last week META shares popped higher following beat across the board and stronger-than-expected guidance. Headcount continued to drop, boosting operating income +58% YoY and operating margin to 38% (from 29% a year ago).

META continues to invest heavily in AI, with cap ex spend slated between $37 billion to $40 billion for the remainder of the year. This includes hundreds of thousands of Nvidia H100 graphics cards and equivalent GPUs.

AI is critical beyond its AI assistant. Facebook and Instagram leverage AI to improve the quality of recommendations and keep users hooked on its platforms...the more eyeballs on screens and the more effectively the company can really KNOW these eyeballs), the better the ad connection with brands.Zuckerberg noted on the company's earnings call: "In the coming years, AI will be able to generate creative for advertisers as well -- and will also be able to personalize it as people see it. Over the long term, advertisers will basically just be able to tell us a business objective and a budget, and we're going to go do the rest for them."

Here's how META data shakes out looking ahead...

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