The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe has just released its annual advertising spend survey for the year ending December 2009. The research covers 23 markets ranging from the mature markets of the Nordics and Western Europe to the emerging markets in Eastern and Southern Europe. Russia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Slovakia are included in the report for the first time. The growth of the European online ad market has slowed to 4.5% but online’s total share of the ad market nears 20%.
Whilst last year’s online advertising growth rate of 4.5% shows a significant slow down compared to previous reported increases of 20% in 2008 and 40% in 2007, digital was the only advertising format to experience any increase last year. Internet advertising spending continued to grow in almost all of the 23 markets measured and had a combined value of €14.7bn. The US market totaled €16.3bn for the same period. 
Search continued to grow, posting a 10.8% increase on a like-for-like basis, although this was down from 26% growth the previous year. Display advertising was flat (+0.3%) and was down in most mature markets: France -6%, UK -5% and Sweden -5%.
Accounting for 76% of the European online ad market in 2009, the big six markets experienced single digit growth: UK +4.6% France +1.7%, Germany +5.2%, Netherlands +1.9%, Spain +7.7% and Italy +6.5%. Growth rates were higher in Italy and Spain where online advertising started from a lower base.
Alain Heureux, President and CEO of IAB Europe said, “In the first recession of the digital advertising era, we have been impressed with the resilience shown by the countries in the IAB Europe network. We are at a crossroads for the online advertising market; we have a booming search market supporting traffic and sales and lead generation, and online display is ripe for further growth due in part to the success of video and social media.”

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