Online ad spend on an upswing: IAB

The online ad sector fell short of the $2bn mark at the end of 2009, but the market grew by nine per cent overall, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia’s Online Expenditure Report, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Speaking on the release of the latest report, IAB chief executive Paul Fisher said despite a contraction in advertising and marketing budgets, online maintained its resilience as more marketers across industries continued to increase their investment in
online advertising.

"If you look at our market share," said Fisher, "we were gaining about two percentage point shares per year and the GFC accelerated that to four points per year. I expect that by
2013, we will see online, television and newspaper all having about a
23 per cent share of the market."

To the three months to December 2009, total online advertising expenditure was $513 million - the largest fourth quarter recorded.

Classifieds was the only category to see a decline in expenditure over 2009, with a dip of 2 per cent compared the year to December 2008, while the search and
directories and the online display categories posted significant
increases, up 17 per cent and seven per cent respectively for the year.