Los Angeles – September 30, 2011 – Online advertising is growing around the world according to research conducted by Econsultancy. Sponsored by the Rubicon Project, the advertising technology company, two thirds of the advertisers and agencies polled in the US (68%) and 57% of those in Europe (including the UK) said they had increased their investment in online display advertising in the last year. Nearly a quarter (23%) of the advertisers say they have moved budgets from search to display advertising in the past year.
The growth of Real-Time Bidding and the rise of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP)
“The shift in dollars from search to display comes as no surprise; we’ve seen this trend rapidly increase over the last year with the increased availability of automated, easy-to-use buying tools that make spending in display as easy as search. The rise in RTB spend represents another milestone in this trend toward more programmatic buying, as the overall buying strategies of agencies and trading desk gravitate in that direction,” said Kara Weber, SVP of Marketing at the Rubicon Project. “Yet, it’s not all about RTB. The research also shows that ad networks play a predominant role – clearly illustrating that the buyers are using multiple channels to maximize ROI, not yet placing all bets on the RTB marketplace. We’ll be watching this trend carefully through 2011; we predict the shift to automated buying channels, including but not limited to RTB, will be dramatic in 2012.”
Performance and audience targeting remain key concerns
Linus Gregoriadis, Research Director at Econsultancy, notes, “The survey results reflect the huge transformation of the online display advertising environment since we last carried out this research two years ago. Advertisers and agencies have more opportunities than ever to target the right audience. Ad networks and exchanges continue to prosper, while real-time bidding is having a major impact on the industry and is fuelling the growth of demand-side and supply-side platforms.”
Online advertising networks continue to command significant spend
The main advantages of RTB are listed as improved performance, reduced media wastage, better targeting capabilities, and lower cost per acquisition. Performance is also seen as the main advantage of ad networks with 79% of advertisers citing this as one of their top three criteria for rating an online ad network. The importance of reach has declined since 2009 however, when 67% of survey respondents highlighted it, which could be because of the growth of DSPs providing near total reach of the available inventory in key markets.
This is Econsultancy’s second Online Advertisers Survey Report, produced in association with the Rubicon Project. The study, supported by the IAB UK, IAB France, IAB Europe and AOP, follows a similar piece of research carried out in 2009 and is based on a survey of over 1,000 online advertising professionals carried out in August and September 2011. This report is specifically focused on results from more than 400 advertiser and agency respondents. A copy of the full report can be downloaded here.