Triple-digit growth in mobile ads pushed UK digital marketing spend close to £5.5bn during 2012, according to IAB and PwC figures, which show the overall market rose by 12.5%.
Fuelled by the rise in smartphone ownership, mobile ad spend soared by an impressive 148%, accounting for half of the growth of the entire market.
Mobile grew like-for-like from £203.2m in 2011 to £526m in 2012, and now accounts for 9.7% of all digital ad spend compared to 1.1% in 2009 – a huge increase in share in just three years.
IAB director of research and strategy Tim Elkington said: “Mobile has reached this milestone because marketers are becoming more attuned to the ‘always on’ nature of consumers who expect to engage with content wherever they are. Consequently, advertisers are increasingly buying integrated campaigns across online and mobile rather than regarding mobile as an afterthought.
“There’s simply so much buzz around mobile. In the last 6 months, 20 more of the UK’s top 100 advertisers have produced mobile-optimised websites. 4G mobile ultra-broadband is enabling a new era of richer content consumption and tablets are being predicted to outsell PCs in 2013. This will help maintain mobile’s significant momentum in attracting both consumer attention and advertising pounds.”
The fastest growing element of mobile was video advertising, which grew 1,601% from £800,000 in 2011 to £13m in 2012. Total mobile display advertising (including video) increased like-for-like by 121% to £150m in 2012. Mobile search grew like-for-like by 164% to £365m – accounting for 69% of mobile ad spend.
The remaining £11m of mobile ad revenue is primarily accounted for by classifieds, SMS/MMS and other smaller advertising formats.
Display advertising across the entire digital landscape, boosted by the increase in video and social media advertising, grew in line with the market at 12.4% on a like-for-like basis to £1.30 billion from £1.14 billion in 2011, representing a 24% share of digital ad spend in 2012. Spend on social media ads grew 24% to £328.4m, and has increased almost fourfold since 2009.
In terms of which firms are using embracing digital techniques, FMCG brands overtook finance firms as the biggest spenders on digital display advertising – accounting for almost 16% of display ad spend in 2012.
FMCG’s share has almost doubled in the last three years – from 9% in the first half of 2009 – as FMCG marketers have realised digital’s ability to deliver brand awareness, particularly as an amplifying element in integrated media campaigns.
PwC senior manager Anna Bartz said: “The advertising market is shifting toward storytelling and integrated campaigns which give greater prominence to video and display formats with a higher degree of interactivity with the target audience. Over the past two years, the digital advertising revenue model has also changed from an emphasis on direct response to being more about branding and awareness.”
