The latest update to the Advertising Intelligence Index has officially been released from Turn , covering January 1st – April 30th. In this report they focus largely on the continued growth across virtually all types of digital advertising. Some specific markets seem to be starting to stabilize in terms of their digital ad spend, but many new markets are really starting to push forward with their move into the online realm.
One concern some marketers have is that, as more and more major brands begin to invest heavily into digital advertising, it will start to drive up the overall prices for online advertising. Over the past year, there has been a huge jump in the amount of ads being purchased, but the inventory has also skyrocketed due to updates and innovations from major ad networks including Facebook and Twitter. At some point in the near future, the competition for ad spots will likely begin to heat up.
For now, however, the research published by Turn seems to show that the amount companies are willing to spend on digital advertising continues to rise across most platforms. The following are some interesting highlights from the recently released report:
- Mobile ad spend is up 109% year over year.
- Brands are spending 65% more during the first four quarters of 2014 than they did during the same time in 2013
- Display ad spend went up 20% – This is significant, since display ads have been around for quite some time, yet are still showing healthy growth.
- Social advertising has climbed by 20%. This is strong growth, but some experts expected bigger numbers given the popularity of social networks. This lower than expected number could be due, in part, to the fact that buying ad space on these sites is still relatively inexpensive.
Not only are brands spending more on advertising across platforms, they are also seeing their effective CPM rates go up in all areas, except video, which dropped by 1% overall. The above numbers are from the United States statistics. Interestingly enough, the European markets are not seeing the same numbers. Some points that were made about the data from the European market include:
- Display ads are less competitive in 2014 than they were in 2013
- Social advertising saw big increases in competition, reflecting the maturing of this category.
- Video ads in the European market continue to be volatile.
- Display ads are beginning to become more volatile, especially when compared to years past
Pierre Naggar, the managing director EMEA at Turn said of the report, “Spend and competition are increasing in mature markets, leading to smarter data-drive budget allocation this year. Brands and agencies are using sophisticated audience-first strategies to drive planning for programmatic advertising, turning insights into an advantage against the competition.”
What may be interesting through the remainder of this year is how these data-driven strategies will play out over the long term. There have been a number of different acquisitions and new companies coming out that offer real time data services for ad purchases, which means a growing number of marketers will have access to these effective strategies. This will likely increase competition for the top ad spots on the net.
The report from Turn was based on an analysis of the traffic on their platform. According to Turn, this platform makes over 100 billion data-driven advertising decisions. They also analyze over 1.5 billion anonymous customer attributes, and provide instant access to billions of digital ad impressions, making them a leader gathering and analyzing digital ad information. You can see the full report HERE.
