Findings from other areas of UK digital advertising include:
Mobile
Mobile has been booming, fuelled by smartphone ownership hitting 58%** of the UK population in June 2012, growing like-for-like by 132% to £181.5 million in the first half of 2012. Mobile now accounts for 7% of all digital ad spend. Display, video, SMS and MMS advertising on mobiles increased by 91% to £49.9 million whilst mobile search grew by 152% to £131.6 million – accounting for 72% of mobile ad spend.
Display
Display (includes mobile display) was boosted by the increase in rich media and by the use of banner ads in social media, and grew 10.6% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to £590.9 million from £534.7 million, representing a 23% share of digital ad spend in the first half of 2012. Although the report doesn’t mention it, it seems likely the continued growth of RTB and private exchanges have heavily contributed to this growth.
FMCG has joined finance as the biggest digital display advertiser – accounting for nearly one third combined. Despite the difficult UK economy, advertising on the internet and mobile phones increased, like-for-like*, by 12.6% to a record six-month high of £2.59 billion in the first half of 2012– up by over £294 million from £2.30 billion in the first half of 2011, according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) advertising expenditure report, conducted by PwC.Search
The IAB says search advertising’s transparency and measurability is making it even more popular as budgets are squeezed. Year-on-year, search increased 15.9% on a like-for-like basis to £1,527 million from £1,318 million.
Classifieds
Classifieds grew 7.2% like-for-like to £427.1 million from £391.5 million – accounting for 16% of digital ad spend in the first half of 2012. If recruitment classifieds bear any relation to the success of the economy, things are starting to look up as the IAB says recruitment classifieds showed particularly encouraging growth, at £149.8 million in H1 2012 compared to 135.4 million in H2 2011 – up 11% – their highest level since the first half of 2008.