fbpx

SMI’s digital breakdown shows display on the wane, while social, video and programmatic rise sharply

The IAB has just released its latest quarterly update and it shows another sizeable rise in digital ad spend in New Zealand. Standard Media Index (SMI), which calculates ad spending trends based on the data from media agencies, also shows a steady rise. And its breakdown of the category shows the key growth areas in digital.  

  • Check out SMI’s ad spend split between media and industry here and how we compare to other markets here

SMI data shows that $179 million was spent on digital by agencies in the calendar year 2014, up 16.6 percent or $25.6 million and behind only TV. Display ads on content sites have increased from $40.6 million in 2009 to $85.1 million in 2014, and that sub-category still leads by a long margin, but, like the IAB figures, it shows that display has declined slightly. Social networking, video sites and DSPs/trading desks have all risen steeply. 

In a story that appeared on Mumbrella last year, global director of analytics Tristan Masters said that Australian media agencies were spending more through exchanges than other markets the company operates in (he says it groups demand side platforms with agency trading desks to compile a total agency RTB/Programmatic buying figure). 

“In the US six and half percent of all digital dollars are getting piped through these exchanges while in Great Britain it is slightly more with ten percent. But what we are seeing is, that [exchanges] didn’t even factor until the back half of 2010, now in 2014 are just shy of 14 percent of all digital dollars [in Australia].

Masters said New Zealand was broadly in line with other markets when it came to ad spend trends, but with DSP/trading desks making up 8.3 percent of the $131.6 million in the four major sub-categories, the rise has not been quite as rapid as that of our Australian cousins.  

As for native advertising, he says it doesn’t split it out from other display advertising by publisher. 

“It’s something that we are discussing with our next Advisory Board members on March 3rd, as there is definitely a large appetite to see this broken down. However, currently this is booked against generic display codes.” 

In the US, the Association of National advertisers recently released the results of a study that showed native advertising was a big growth area, but it was coming from a very low base. 

As it found: 

Almost three in five (58 percent) say their company used native advertising during the past year.  Concurrently, spending on native adverting is increasing.

Past year budgets increased for 55 percent of respondents.
In 2015, 63 percent of respondents expect to increase budgets allocated to native advertising.

Despite the spending increases, native advertising currently accounts for a small percentage of overall advertising budgets — 5 percent or less for 68 percent of respondents.

About Author

Comments are closed.