New online advertising figures suggest trouble for Seek, Carsales, Trading Post
Online advertising continued to grow in the last quarter of 2008.
But growth is slowing and spending on classifieds online is already falling.
These are the headline stories from the latest official industry statistics released this week by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Google continues to dominate the online advertising landscape, as does spending on search engine advertising generally.
Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia, said the results demonstrate growing confidence in online advertising. 
“…[O]nline is now seen by a growing number of marketers and agencies as a ‘core’ advertising medium, and they are continuing to shift their investment where they can more cost effectively reach
and engage their consumers with their brand and direct response messages. “
“..{W]e expect this shift to online expenditure will continue and quite possibly surpass $2 billion by the end of the calendar year.”
Fisher’s comments were echoed by David Wiadrowski from PwC, who compile the Online Advertising Expenditure Report for the IAB.
Wiadwrowski is PwC’s lead partner for technology, entertainment and media, and said that there had been “exceptional growth” in both the search and general display areas given the general
economic difficulties of recent months.
“However signs of the economic slowdown have impacted the classified market during the quarter."
Indeed the falling spending on classified ads online is perhaps the biggest story arising out of the latest figures. That’s because they show the boom times are well and truly over for
specialist online classified advertising businesses like Seek, Realestate.com.au and Carsales.com.au.
According to the report “Recruitment continues to be the leading category for Classified Advertising expenditure, followed by Real Estate, then Automotive.”
The total online classified advertising spend dropped by around 2% in the latest quarter with the December quarter spend of $108million even less than the $111million spend recorded in
the June quarter of 2008.
However the picture for online advertising overall was much brighter, with search and directory advertising up more than 5% in the December quarter to some $224million.
General display advertising too, was still healthy in the latest quarter, growing $5million to a total of $130million.
The IAB’s report also provided an intriguing breakdown of spending on general display advertising by the different industry sectors.
It showed that car makers spend more than any other single industry on general online display advertising (i.e. banner ads and the like).
The car manufacturers bought more than $14million worth of online display advertising in the December quarter (down from $17million in the September quarter).
Phone companies were the second biggest buyers of online display advertising , spending just over $8.6million.
Banks and finance sector companies together, spent the most overall, at $27.6million, with credit-cards the main source of their spending ($7.6million).
For more information go to www.iabaustralia.com.au
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