Investment in Australian Digital Advertising Bounces Back in Q3

The Australian digital advertising market is showing signs of growth, expanding by 11.3% from Q2 to reach $2,263m in Q3, which ended on the 30th of September. The data, from the IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report, shows that all advertising categories have seen an uptick since the pandemic induced declines of the previous quarter.

Search and directories now represent 45% of all expenditure and $1,006m in the quarter ending September 2020; general display 38% and $871m; and classifieds 17% and $386m.

According to the report, the general display formats of video, standard display, and infeed/native advertising all experienced double-digit quarter on quarter recovery, growing at 11%, 10%, and 19% respectively. Video advertising is shifting towards pre-pandemic results with CTV inventory experiencing the highest growth across digital screens.

“It’s been a challenging year but the growth this quarter in terms of digital formats signals the industry is bouncing back,” said Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia. “We are now entering what is traditionally considered the industry’s’ strongest quarter and we anticipate a continuation of the growth through to the end of the year.”

Although the Search and Directories and Classifieds sectors were still down on the previous year (-6.9% and -11.5% respectively), General Display revenue was marginally up with a 0.9% increase assisted by the strong growth in video revenue.

Additional findings from the IAB OAER Report from PwC for the September quarter include:

• Retailers remained the number one investment industry and FMCG advertising has broken into the top five industries for general display expenditure for the first time since June 2017

Top five industry categories for reported general display by expenditure type, September quarter 2020

• Advertisers’ buying preferences for content publishers’ inventory remained stable this quarter despite the uncertainty of the times, with 40% opting to buy via an agency, 16% direct, 11% via programmatic guaranteed, and 33% via programmatic RTB/PMP. Investment continues to trend towards Connected TV, shifting share from both desktop and mobile devices.

Content publishers’ video expenditure by device, by quarter

• Mobile now represents 67% of general display advertising and 63% of search and directories.