IAB New Zealand total digital advertising revenue grew by almost 7 percent in 2020 over the previous year. (Source: IAB New Zealand Q4 2020 & FY 2020 Digital Advertising Revenue Report), however share of New Zealand Advertising Industry Turnover is now 54.8 percent compared to 45.4 percent in 2019, up 9.4 percentage points. This represents year-on-year growth in share for digital revenue of 20.7 percent.
Despite a difficult year overall, total digital advertising revenue in New Zealand continued to climb, reaching over $412 million for the fourth quarter in 2020, achieving 18.9 percent growth on the same period in the previous year. The full year 2020 reached over $1.341 billion and growth of 6.6 percent over the previous year. (Source: IAB New Zealand Q4 2020 & FY 2020 Digital Advertising Revenue Report).
The IAB New Zealand COVID-19 Impact on Strategy and Investment Survey (April 2020) revealed that 63% of respondents described their business in its current state as Pivoting (changing the business or media strategy based on the market and consumer insight). Of those respondents that described their business as pivoting, they indicated their strategy would change by increasing reliance on data-led strategies (42 percent) and leaning further into e-commerce (35 percent).
Given the surge in digital advertising share of New Zealand Advertising Industry Turnover in 2020, it is clear that those businesses that pivoted and changed their business or media strategy based on the market and consumer insight, increased their use of digital advertising to support their business goals, including emerging data-led and e-commerce initiatives.
