Innovative Future Web Design

An interesting new statistic & another boost to those looking to build a site for their business-and indeed an big incentive for those who hadn’t been looking to start thinking seriously about an online prescence.

Internet advertising grew almost two-thirds last year & was the only advertising medium to record positive growth in the UK.  Total UK online advertising spend for 2005 has surpassed all initial expectations, growing a massive 65 % from around £825million to £1.3billion.

Internet advertising’s market share is now up to 7.8% & could break the £2billion barrier in 2006 according to Guy Philipson, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau’s bi-annual study which is carried out in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).  The online advertising market would be bigger than adverts placed in the national press for the first time if this “real possibility” is achieved. 

Search recorded the biggest increase last year - 79 per cent or £338.7 million - of all online ad formats, as advertisers recognised the benefits of search and used it both for direct response and brand-building initiatives.

Display advertising, which increased by 44 per cent (or £103 million year on year) reinforces the strength of search as advertisers take advantage of the increased connection speeds of broadband and create powerful rich media campaigns.

Online classifieds also continue to be recognised as an immediate and convenient tool for buyers and sellers in 2005 increasing 62.4 per cent or £100.8million year on year. A large part of this growth was driven by the Recruitment and Automotive sectors and at the expense of traditional press classifieds, which fell 5.1 per cent in the same period.  This is borne out by Recruiters accounting for 22 per cent of the total market, followed by Finance & Automotive and then Accounting, achieving 17.4 per cent and 12.4 per cent respectively.

However the Entertainment sector recorded the most significant growth in the second half of last year up to 10.2% of spend in 2005 from 6.2% in 2004 no doubt driven by broadband powered video-streaming and music downloads.

The always-on nature of the audience and instantaneous results were billed as central to the mediums unprecented growth by all online advertisers, thanks in part to wider consumer adoption of high speed broadband.  “To see such a massive increase yet again is testimony to Online’s strengths as a medium to reach mainstream audiences,” the Bureau said.

This article is an extract from Freelanceuk.com’s article Advertisers shun print for online formats :: Freelance UK