It has been revealed this week in a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Internet Advertising Bureau, that online advertising spend has overtaken that on TV for the first half of this year, making Internet the UK’s largest advertising medium.
Back in 2008, it was predicted by the IAB that advertisers would spend more on the Internet than TV in 2009, so not only has this prediction come true but it has done six months before schedule.
During the first six months of this year, online advertising spend grew by 4.6% when compared with the same period in 2008, taking it’s total share of the advertising market to 23.5% just overtaking TV’s 21.9% share.
The report shows that this level of growth equates to £1.75 billion now spent on online advertising, predominately generated by paid search advertising, which accounts for £1.05 billion, a 6% increase on the previous year.
The second biggest contributor is classified advertising, which has evidently moved from print to web quicker than predicted, with an increase in share of 10.6%, generating £385 million of the £1.75 billion total.
The third biggest medium is display advertising, which has decreased in share by 5.2% when compared to last year, accounting to £316.5 million in spend.
Looking at the figures objectively, overall spend on all mediums of advertising has actually fallen by a quite staggering 16.6%, due to the economic climate, which is why online advertising’s share has risen above TV’s as advertisers are now being more careful with their money and are shopping around to find the best return on investment.
Online advertising’s growth has actually slowed down quite dramatically when compared to its growth rate from 2007 to 2008, which was a huge 21% compared to this years 4.6%, however IAB believe that online’s share could eventually reach over 30%.
