Mobile advertising spend had the highest local growth rate among the channels reported in the IAB’s latest figures for the final quarter of last year.
Mobile spending grew 73 percent to $2.19 million for the quarter, a significant jump from $0.63 million in 2011 and an advance on the 104 percent growth in the category in the third quarter of the last year.
Search directories and video were the other big movers, with 58 percent and 30 percent growth respectively.
Classified advertising also performed strongly, up 13 percent year on year for the quarter to $32.6 million.
The IAB says the New Zealand classifieds market is strong when compared with the US because of the the level of advertising in the buoyant property and jobs sectors here.
“Classifieds were the first leak from newspapers and the likes of Trade Me and Seek have done great jobs securing a strong position in the local market,” says IAB’s New Zealand general manager Alisa Higgins.
Total online and mobile advertising spend for the last quarter of 2013 was up 33 percent year on year, the biggest quarter since 2007, reaching $470.8 million. The fourth quarter results represented an 11 percent jump on the third quarter of 2013.
Despite the rapid growth in mobile spend, it remains a small part of the overall mix at $5.60 million (two percent). Search and directory spend accounted for the biggest share at $206.9 million, almost doubling the revenue achieved in 2012, followed by classifieds at $128 million.
Social media revenue (only that reported by agencies) dipped in the last quarter of 2013, from $1.72 million in the first quarter to $3.37 million in Q3 and $2.85 million in Q4.
“One reason is the chase for the forever elusive youth demographic which can be better reached via location and mobile based platforms – a lot of them already have a strong presence in NZ such as Vine, Tumblr, Instagram, SnapChat, WhatsApp and good ole’ Twitter, although that’s not to say Facebook (the current golden child) is sitting around on its hands in this area,” says Higgins.
Zenith Optimedia forecasts online global ad spend will growth at an average of 15 percent between 2014 and 2016, with display the fastest growing category.
“Since it began in the mid 1990s interactive advertising has principally risen at the expense of print,” it says. “Between 2003 and 2013 the internet’s share of global advertising rose 17 percent while newspapers’ share fell 13 percent and magazines’ share fell five points.”
