UK online advertising market is proving to be unaffected by recession. Internet advertising overcame recession mode market conditions and achieved growth as per the marketer’s expectations. As the recession is hitting the entire advertising spend, the online ad market was expected to grow slowly than predicted previously. But the recession made the ad spending to shift from traditional advertising to online advertising. The change in advertising preference helped to maintain the growth numbers even in the worst part of the recession. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising grew by 4.6% in the first half of 2009 and represents 23.5% of the total advertising market.

Performance of Online Advertising

Online advertising spend for the first half of 2009 is accounted for £1.75bn and surpassed Television category. It grew by 4.6% when compared to the corresponding period of 2008. Industry experts say that this is a record performance in an industry where it actually contracted by about 17% during the corresponding period in 2008. According to industry experts, the reason is the shift in ad budgets from traditional advertising to online advertising, as online advertising allows tracking results easily and gives better ROI.

Search Marketing Holds the Largest Share

Search advertising continued to dominate the advertising market, according to the UK Interactive Advertising Bureau. It accounted for 59.8% of the online ad spend and grew by 6.8% year-over-year. Display advertising, another main advertising category staged a poor performance by declining 5.2% over the period with 18.1% of online market share. On the other hand, Classified ads fared better by growing 10% and accounted 22% of total online advertising spending.

The Growth Will Be Little For 2009 and Set To Peak In 2011

Online advertising spending is expected to show a growth of 0.9% for the entire year of 2009, according to eMarketer. However, this is a positive sign as the other media are expected to drop by 5% to 18% during the period. Online ad spending is expected to grow by 4.7% and 9.6% respectively in 2010 and 2011. The growth streak will reach a double digit figure of 11.3% in 2011 with the help of a major spending contribution from London Olympics.

In the first half of 2009, online advertising emerged as the biggest category in UK advertising market surpassing Television. With this, UK became the first major advertising market that is lead by online advertising. The recovery from recession and increasing consumer confidence are expected to stimulate more spending on online advertising that cements the online advertising’s market leadership.