Study Shows Online Ad Spending Up

A new study out from the International Advertising Bureau shows that online advertising spending is up more than 40% in Britain for the first half of 2006.

by Kristina Knight

At 917.2 million pounds ($1.72 billion) the online market share has grown about 10.5% over 2005 numbers, this despite an overall depressed market. In contrast national press advertising comes in with only an 11.4% share. The IAB is projecting that online ad spending will overtake national press advertising in Britain before the year is out.

In a statement to Reuters, Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB said, “This has been a very tough market, marked in most media by loss of confidence and declining advertising expenditure."

Some other interesting results from the study show that paid search was up about 57% from 2005. This accounts for a nearly 58% share of the online ad spend. Online display advertising was also up from 2005, at 32%. This market segment accounts for about 23.5% of the spend.

The IAB says this online growth is because more and more small brands are turning to the Internet as an advertising resource rather than higher priced traditional advertising outlets. The ability to target their audience and get a cheaper price allows smaller companies to get a bigger bang for their buck.