IAB records slowing online ad spend in 2023
Online advertising spend in 2023 slowed to a growth rate of 3.7% year on year (YoY), totalling $14.725 billion, according to the latest online advertising expenditure report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia.
The growth rate was less than half that of the 9.1% lift recorded in 2022, reflecting the tough market conditions of the last year.
Search and directories enjoyed the highest rate of growth in 2023, growing 6.1% to $6.55 billion, while general display lifted 3.9% to $5.746 billion, and classifieds dropped 2.6% to $2.429 billion.
IAB Australia CEO Gai Le Roy said: “Advertisers continue to invest in a range of digital advertising opportunities to support what is now a $14.7b market. It was pleasing to see stronger growth in the second half of the year, but growth was mixed across categories as marketers under pressure for short term sales focused on strengthening their performance investment.”
Within general display, growth was mixed, with video up 14% ($3.78b), overall digital audio up 21% ($265.8m), podcast investment up 21.7% ($99.1m) and streaming up 20.6% to reach $166.7 million. Elsewhere, standard display took a significant hit, dropping down 22% ($569.2m) and infeed/native formats fell 12% to $1.07 billion.
According to the report, connected TV yields the greatest share of content publishers’ video inventory expenditure (50%) taking share from mobile.
Across industry categories, health and beauty replaces FMCG in the top five industry categories for general display in 2023, with retail dominated with 17.8% share, compared to 16.1% in 2022.
The IAB pointed to a stronger second half of the year, with a significant uptick in the last quarter of 2023, with online ad spend growing 7.5% compared to the same period in 2022, for $3.914 billion.
Within general display, video and audio were again the key contributors to growth (up 20% and 38% respectively) whilst standard display dropped 26%.
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