Publication: CMO, 9 September 2013, Written by Director of Research, Gai Le Roy
Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia announced the digital ad market in Australia had reached $3.6 billion for the financial year 2013, a growth rate of nearly 15 per cent over the previous year.
That’s a great milestone in light of the overall weak advertising market, but it leaves hanging an obvious question from most marketers: “What does it mean for my brand and what should I be doing to keep up with the market”?
Before I attempt to answer that, I should point out it is expected 70 per cent of Australians will own a smartphone by the end of this year, and 50 per cent will have a tablet. So it’s not surprising the fastest growing sector of the digital advertising market is mobile – it actually outpaced all other online advertising formats to achieve 190 per cent growth last financial year and reached $138 million.
That single piece of data should possibly be the most important consideration for CMOs at present. The growth in mobile ad revenue shows little sign of abating, so media and marketing organisations and departments will need to start investing in resources to address mobile marketing. In turn, this increased investment will help the market grow in a sustainable way, allowing it to move beyond what we would consider the current testing phase and help marketers gain better insights into ROI on these new platforms.
