Australia’s online advertising market has again beaten advertising market trends, recording continued strong, double digit growth year on year of 18.5 percent for the full financial year according to figures released today by IAB Australia in its Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER). The Report, which is compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), showed that online advertising expenditure in Australia for the financial year ending June 30 2009 exceeded $1.8 billion and totalled $453 million for second-quarter 2009 (three months ended 30 June 2009).

For the full financial year, Search and Directories accounted for 49 percent of the total advertising expenditure, while General Display accounted for 27 percent and Classifieds 24 percent. Search and directories grew 25 percent for the full financial year; general display grew 19.6 percent and classifieds 6 percent.

Overall Q2 activity showed an increase of 9.8 percent from Q2 2008, with Search and Directories increasing 19 percent quarter on quarter, while General Display increased 10 percent and Classifieds decreased 5.9 percent.

“Given the challenges of the past eight months since the GFC impacted on the Australian media economy, any growth is welcome,” said Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia.  “The latest revenue figures demonstrate the continued confidence marketers and agencies have in online as an advertising medium both when times are good and when times are tough.

“Search continues to drive the growth in the industry, with display advertising also well supported.  Unsurprisingly, online classifieds advertising has been impacted by declines in the employment, real estate and automotive markets. 

“The continued growth of online advertising expenditure coupled with anecdotal increases in online advertising activity already this quarter, position the industry strongly.  With the economy showing early signs of recovery, the online industry is well on track to exceed $2 billion in calendar 2009.”

Finance, Computers & Communications and Motor Vehicles sectors continue to be the dominant industries using General Display advertising, and comprise 45.5 percent of the General Display spending. Motor Vehicles – Manufacturers was the largest subcategory which comprised 9.8 percent of the General Display spending for the quarter.

Government also increased its share of general display category from 2.7 percent for the six months January to June 2008 to 4.5 percent for the corresponding period in 2009.

The Q2 2009 IAB Online Advertising Expenditure Report includes data from three new contributors and the full report covers more than 1,000 websites. 

To view an executive summary of the report, click here.

The full report is made available to IAB Australia members only, in the Resources section.