Posted on by Raihan Hadi
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50% of media spend in 2020 to be spent on online advertising
29 May
The time has come for advertisers and marketers to face the reality of the marketplace.
According to WARC’s Global Ad Trends report, internet ad formats are set to account for over half of all media spend worldwide by next year.
In eight major markets, including the three largest, internet advertising already takes the majority of media dollars.
The US$107.5 billion spent on internet ads in America made it the dominant medium for the first time last year.
This is true across WARC’s 12 key markets – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US.
The internet is expected to account for over half of media spend for the first time this year, drawing 52.7% of combined media spend.
When the Dotcom bubble burst at the turn of the century, internet advertising accounted for three cents in every ad dollar; two decades later, it will take the lion’s share,” stated James McDonald, Managing Editor, WARC Data, who authored the report.
“While the first wave of internet growth was driven by banner ads and search keywords on desktop computers, the second phase has been propelled by social media advertising delivered on mobile devices.”
As mobile phones have grown to near-ubiquity across the world, ever more information has become accessible.
McDonald explains that these data have allowed the proliferation of programmatic ad trading, which has underpinned the internet’s dizzying growth.
The online world is now your world.
WARC’s research highlights three trends behind this growth:
#1 Internet spend has grown 5x faster than traditional media
According to WARC forecasts, when indexed, internet adspend’s growth to an expected $298.1 billion this year will represent a rate of expansion that is five times faster than investment in non-internet media since 2010.
In that time, 76.6% (or $228.3 billion) of online ad market value will have been created.
#2 Mobile is the undisputed king
Now the primary ad channel, mobile will account for 95% of internet ad growth, such that the terms internet and mobile are nearly synonymous.
Mobile adspend surpassed that for other internet channels (including desktop, tablet and connected TVs) combined for the first time in 2018.
This year mobile ads are expected to bring in 58.8% of all internet spend, equivalent to $175.3 billion.
Among WARC’s key markets, mobile is expected to overtake TV in absolute terms across this year.
Change is always good.
#3 Display formats contribute the most to growth
Display, including banner ads, rich media, advertorial and sponsorship, online video and social media (among others) are expected to draw 45.1% ($118.5bn) of internet advertising spend across 12 key markets.
These formats, combined, have accounted for over half of internet growth since 2016.
Within online display, half of this investment growth has come from social since 2015, and among the world’s three largest markets (the US, China and the UK), 47.7% ($38.8bn) of display adspend went towards social media ads last year, up from 29.2% in 2014.
In the US, social’s concentration is particularly acute: 83.4% of social spend goes to Facebook, up from 79.9% last year.
Online video is never far from investment interest, and this report shows its increasing importance, with its contribution to online display growth consistently over 33% since 2015.
This year, video content is expected to draw one in three dollars from spend in WARC’s 12 key markets.
