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Online Advertising in Europe Surges 40%, Closing Gap with US »
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Online Advertising in Europe Surges 40%, Closing Gap with US
The European online advertising market was worth €11.2 billion (in ad expenditures) in 2007, up from €7.2 billion in 2006, according to (pdf) final numbers processed and analyzed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and issued by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe.
Online advertising underwent an average growth rate of 40% year-on-year across the 16 countries covered in the IAB Europe report.
As a result of that growth, the European online advertising market shows signs of closing the gap with the US, where online advertising grew 26% to a market value of €14.5 billion in the same period:
Two-thirds (65%, or €7.3 billion) of European online ad budgets were spent in the big three markets of the UK, Germany and France. However, some of the smaller markets recorded very high growth rates: Greece at 91%, Spain at 55% and Slovenia at 49%.
‘10 before 10′
“We are well on the way to achieving the ‘10 before 10′ - that is, 10 European countries where online advertising accounts for at least 10% of overall ad spend by the year 2010,” said Alain Heureux, president of IAB Europe:
At the end of 2007, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland Sweden and the UK had all reached or surpassed that milestone, he said.
What am Internet User Is Worth to Advertisers
In terms of “spend per user,” the European average was €80.6; the metric illustrates the value of one internet user to an advertiser in the various markets.
Norwegian advertisers spent the most at €133.2 per person, followed by the UK at €120.8 and Denmark at €109.5 in 2007. In the US, advertisers spent €91.9 per person in 2007.
The more mature the market, the higher the value placed on the internet user by the advertisers.
Big Category Spenders
Industry category data has been included in the report for the first time and reveals that the sectors investing the most in online advertising in 2007 were Entertainment & Leisure, Telecoms and Finance & Insurance.
In particular, advertisers from the Entertainment & Leisure sector, which spends the most money at present, have taken advantage of the interactive and social media formats on the web to promote their products and services.
“Despite a slowdown in advertising spend on some traditional media, the rise of online advertising in Europe continues unabated. Not only is the growth coming from some of the smaller markets, which are seeing significant increases in their market value, but also from the more mature countries as companies move their advertising budgets online for the first time,” Heureux, concluded.
About the data: The data has been compiled by IAB Europe based on information provided by the regional IAB offices around Europe. It is then processed and analyzed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report includes market size and value information for the full membership of the IAB Europe in 2007, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK. Poland, Norway, Sweden and Turkey were new to the research in 2007, so no comparative figures are available.