AdEx Benchmark: Russia and Turkey – the markets where online advertising had the highest growth

The top of countries where online advertising markets have the highest values in Europe is topped by UK  (€6.6bn), Germany (€4.6bn) and France (€2.8bn), Russia (€1.5bn) and Italy (€1.4bn). The top 10 is rounded up by Netherlands (€1.2bn), Spain (€0.9bn), Sweden (€0.8bn), Norway and Denmark (each €0.6bn), AdEx Benchmark report shows. The top sees Russia advancing from the 5th position on 4th, leaving Italy behind. Also, top individual market growths were posted by Russia (34%) and Turkey (30.4%).

The AdEx Benchmark research revealed that online was the best performer in the advertising market, showing  an overall growth of 11.5% in 2012. Europe continues its strong growth in both early adopter and emerging markets, with diversity of online advertising being a strong contributor to ongoing European growth, in spite of continuing macroeconomic volatility.

With a 15.3% growth in 2011 and continuing strong growth of 11.5% in 2012, our sector is bucking the trend in Europe. Display advertising has continued its renaissance, driven both by the recognition of online display as a branding medium and the explosion of the big data economy. Big data relies on the rich metrics delivered through the online medium

Kimon Zorbas,

CEO IAB Europe

Continued strong migration of ad budgets towards online, in order to match the media consumption patterns, underpinned the overall strong growth. Demand for online video advertising increasingly acted as a major draw for brand advertisers, growing by 50.6% in 2012, to nearly €661.9M. This is the first time in Europe when online video grabbed double-digit display market share, jumping to 12.9%.

Mobile advertising also continued to grow, by 78.3%, reaching to a total value close to €392M. Mobile advertising accounts in present 5% of all online display spends in Europe.

The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study splits the online ad market into 3 top-level segments: Display, Classifieds and Directories and, Paid-for-Search. Growth in these online advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses of devices and changing consumption patterns.

In 2012, the Display Ad market experienced a like-for-like growth of 9.1%, reaching to €7.8bn, with the growth mainly driven by mobile and online video.

When it comes of classifieds and directories, the value of the market reached to €4.5bn, powered by the strong reorientation of money for classified from print to online. Continued consolidation in the sector enhanced the scale of classifieds sites, making them more attractive for advertisers. The strong legacy position of classifieds and directories in Scandinavia also continued to boost the European market. Outstanding performances were noted in Denmark – up 20% – and Sweden – up 23.9%.

Paid-For-Search posted a 15.5% growth, reaching to €11.9bn. Dynamic results from Russia, which grew 44.9%, was an important influencing factor.

IAB Europe is the voice of digital business. Its mission is to protect, prove, promote and professionalise Europe’s online advertising, media, market research and analytics industries. Together with its members – companies and national trade associations – IAB Europe represents over 5,500 organisations.