IAB Study: Online Advertising Spend Reaches $14.7 Billion

The Australian online advertising market reached $14.7 billion in total spend across the 2023 calendar year according to data released today in the IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER) prepared by PwC Australia.

Total advertising expenditure increased 3.7 per cent year-on-year. This was a slowdown from the growth of 9.1 per cent reported in 2022, however, a positive trajectory in a tough year for advertising, with stronger growth experienced in the second half of the year.

General display grew 3.9 per cent ($5.7bn) year on year, search and directories grew 6.1 per cent ($6.6bn), whilst classified listings dropped by 2.6 per cent ($2.4bn) impacted by slower property and job market activity.

Within general display advertising (up 3.9 per cent year on year) growth was mixed. Video was up 14 per cent ($3.78b) and overall digital audio was up 21 per cent ($265.8m) with podcast investment up 21.7 per cent to almost hitting $100m ($99.1m) and streaming up 20.6 per cent to reach $166.7m. However, standard display was down 22 per cent ($569.2m) and infeed/native formats were down 12 per cent ($1.07 billion).

Connected TV yields the greatest share of content publishers’ video inventory expenditure (50 per cent) taking share from mobile.

“Advertisers continue to invest in a range of digital advertising opportunities to support what is now a $14.7b market. It was pleasing to see stronger growth in the second half of the year, but growth was mixed across categories as marketers under pressure for short term sales focused on strengthening their performance investment,” said Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia.

Across industry categories, health and beauty replaces FMCG in the top five industry categories for general display in 2023.

December 2023 Quarter Data

$3.914bn, up 7.5 per cent compared to the 2022 December quarter
Search and directories grew 9.4 per cent ($1.69bn) and general display grew 9.3 per cent growth ($1.65b). This offset a 2.0 per cent decline in classified listings.
Within general display, video and audio were again the key contributors to growth (up 20 per cent and 38 per cent respectively) whilst standard display dropped 26 per cent.
In December 2023 $0.36 of each dollar of expenditure on content publisher’s general display was captured by retail and automotive.
In terms of methods of buying for content publishers inventory the overall picture is similar to the previous year, but there are some shifts within programmatic guaranteed: its share of video buying has increased from 26 per cent to 27 per cent but for standard display it has decreased from 10 per cent to 7 per cent.

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