The most detailed study yet of European online advertising spend shows the sector well positioned to withstand the credit crunch with strong recent growth in both search and display budgets.
The research, by IAB Europe, analysed in detail the share of media budgets spent on different online channels in 2007 and tracked the growth in spend over the previous year. It shows growth in online advertising evenly split between search and display campaigns across the region, with both channels growing at just under 40 per cent year-on-year.
IAB Europe’s president Alain Heureux said: “With a like-for-like growth rate of 40 per cent, the European online advertising market continues to amaze us with its expansion while traditional advertising remains static, or even – for some media –in decline.”
The regional figures obscured some significant local differences in the share of budgets commanded by display and search campaigns. In the UK, spend on search advertising reached €2.2 billion, more than double the €805 million spent on display campaigns. In France, these positions were reversed, with display budgets of €430 million outweighing the €310 million invested in search. Advertisers in Italy, Denmark and Norway all favoured display campaigns, whereas those in Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands committed significantly more to search.
If the UK’s figures are excluded the regional share of display and search budgets emerges as extremely even: display’s 38 per cent share of online budgets slightly outweighs that of search on 36 per cent.
The UK, France and Germany remain Europe’s dominant online markets, accounting for 65 per cent of total online spend across the region. By the end of the year, online accounted for at least 10 per cent of overall spend in six European territories: Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
Announcing the results, Heureux said that the relative share of different online channels would continue to change as new formats challenged display, search, email and classified campaigns. He argued that such innovation, and the variety of formats already available online, would help internet advertising to withstand the effects of the credit crunch.
