Online advertising spend has broke the $1bn barrier in the September quarter, putting digital on track to account for 30% of the total ad market by the end of 2013.
It is the first time the online ad market has exceeded $1bn in one quarter alone, with the market up 25% year-on-year from September 2012 and 4.6% on the prior quarter.
The growth is largely thanks to a 41% boost in display advertising the IAB Australia study found.
Australia’s Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER), produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), found display advertising hit $295.6m in the September quarter.
Six percent of that display spend came from the Government/Political sector as political parties embraced digital advertising during the Federal Election.
Search and display advertising ($527.4m) now represent 52% of the total online ad market while general display accounts for 29%.
Video advertising has doubled yoy, reaching $43.1m in the September 2013 quarter it now accounts for 15% of the display advertising market.
Mobile advertising ($110.7m) now accounts for 11% of online ad expenditure. The majority (58.4%) of mobile ad spend is in search with 41.6% for general display. Looking at devices the split between spend on smart phones and tablet was almost equal at 51.4% and 48.6% respectively.
Alice Manners, chief executive of IAB Australia, said digital advertising is on track to take around one third of marketers’ total budgets by the end of 2013.
“We expect that by the end of this calendar year the online advertising sector will exceed 30% of the total advertising market,” Manners said.
A recent IAB study found online advertising overtook free-to-air TV in spend, reaching $3.6bn.
The Online Advertising Expenditure Report found mobile grew 190% yoy while spend on video display ads grew by 56%.
Gai Le Roy, director of research IAB Australia, said: “Today’s PwC Report shows that mobile and video continues to captivate advertisers and we expect to see the growth in these sectors maintained for some time to come.”
