Australia’s media agency market has set itself up for a stronger final quarter after a better-than- expected October in which total ad spend has already hit a record level after growing 0.9% year-on-year to $688.9 million.

Each of the outdoor and radio media are also reporting record levels of agency ad spend for the month, while the metropolitan radio market (+13.8 per cent to $36.9 million) reported the highest monthly ad spend ever recorded in the 10 years of SMI data.

However, those gains are at least in part due to timing issues with an extra Monday falling in October 2016 which resulted in an extra campaign loading period for Outdoor and a higher-than-usual level of week-commencing campaigns for Radio.

But SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Schulze said that irrespective of the timing issues, it was still a solid result off an already strong benchmark.

“October 2015 was also a record for month of agency ad spend having lifted eight per cent from the 2014 result so for the market to deliver even more ad dollars is evidence of a growing confidence,’’ she said.

“And this result will improve even further once late digital bookings are collected at the end of the month.’’

The solid October result has also further improved the record numbers already being reported for the financial and calendar year-to-date periods, with those totals up 1.4 per cent and 2.0 per cent respectively.

Meantime, Schulze said SMI will also soon be implementing further improvements to SMI’s Digital Category ad spend data with more granular detail becoming available for the largest-spending category of Automotive Brands and also the Pharmaceuticals market.

She said the Automotive Brand ad spend data will soon be available by the recognised industry sectors of Micro/Small Cars, Medium/Large Cars, SUVs, Light/Commercial vehicles and then Auto Brand/Sponsorship. Similarly, the Pharmaceutical Digital category data will better reflect industry groupings as follows: Analgesics, Skin/Respiratory, Supplements/Vitamins and a separate Pharma Brand/Sponsorship sub-category.

“Given the nature of the Digital media it is notoriously difficult to source accurate ad spend data and SMI’s Agency partners continue to fill that gap by providing more detail within key product categories,’’ Schulze said.

In October SMI’s category data detailed strong growth in Gambling ad spend (+27.5% YOY) and further growth in the Other Financial Services category (+40.4%). In contrast the only major categories reporting lower spend were Travel (-3.9%) and Insurance (-1.7%).