40% growth for online advertising in Europe
Figures supplied by Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe indicate that online advertising is constantly growing, despite the fact that advertising via traditional media (radio, TV, etc.) has felt the impact of the economic crisis. Moreover, Europe is slowly bridging the gap that separates it from the USA.
In 2007, online advertising expenses had increased by 40% in the 16 European countries featured in the report, reaching 11.2 milliard euros (7.2 milliard euros in 2006). In the USA, these expenses increased less significantly, namely by 26%, reaching a total of 14.5 milliard euros (11.193 milliard euros in 2006). Although 2/3 of online budgets have been engulfed by three major markets (UK, Germany and France), a few smaller markets however managed to reach a nice growth rate, such as Greece (91%), Spain (55%) and Slovenia (49%).
The IAB also integrated a new factor, namely « spend per user », which corresponds to the total amount of online advertising divided by the number of Internet users. The values of this factor strongly vary from one country to another: from 133.2 euros per Internet user in Norway to 36.9 euros in Italy. Belgium (49.2 €) and the Netherlands (65.0 €) are caught somewhere between these extremes.
So, it would seem that Europe is on the right track to achieve the « 10 before 10 » objective that the IAB had set, namely that by 2010, in at least 10 European countries, 10% of all advertising budgets will be allocated to online advertising. At the end of 2007, 7 European countries had already achieved this goal: the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Poland. With its 9.1%, our country finished just below the objective. So only a small additional effort is required!
In conclusion, these are the lines of business that invested the most in online advertising: entertainment & leisure, telecoms and finance & insurance, the first group being the main one to promote its products and services via interactive and social media on the web.
To put it shortly, the business model of websites that generate profit from online advertising (e.g. via Google AdWords) becomes more and more interesting.
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