The Australian online advertising market has shown strong growth with an 18.5% year on year growth for the financial year ending June 30 2009. The data is revealed in a report compiled by PriceWaterhousCoopers (PwC) for IAB Australia. Total advertising expenditure amounted to $1.8 billion for the 2009 financial year.
It is a strong result when the effects of the GFC are taken into consideration, with the online advertising market set to grow as business confidence picks up. Digital agencies are already planning to grow in the second half of 2009.
“The latest revenue figures demonstrate the continued confidence marketers and agencies have in online as an advertising medium both when times are good and when times are tough." said Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia.
Search continues to be the driving force online, with search and directories accounting for 49 per cent of online expenditure in Q2 2009, an increase of 25 percent year on year.
Display advertising also grew, albeit at a slightly slower rate of 20 per cent, making up 27 per cent of online advertising expenditure.
Whilst classifieds revenue grew by 6% over the year, the latest quarter by quarter revenue dropped by 5.9% in Q2 2009. Paul Fisher said that this section of the market may have been "impacted by declines in the employment, real estate and automotive markets".
Classifieds are dealing with increasing competition from 'free' alternatives such as Gumtree, Cracker and Craigslist.
The Q2 2009 IAB Online Advertising Expenditure Report includes data from three new contributors and the full report covers more than 1,000 websites.
An executive summary (pdf) is available here
