Worldwide Online Ad Spending

Reaching for a bigger slice of the total ad pie

Several recent worldwide online ad spending projections indicate that the medium still has a lot of room for growth.

Worldwide online ad spending will reach $65.2 billion in 2008, according to IDC's "Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast." The research company predicted 15% to 20% annual growth through 2011, when spending would hit $106.6 billion.

IDC said that online ads would account for nearly 10% of all ad spending across all media in 2008, rising to 13.6% by 2011. Nearly one-fifth of Western European ad spending will be online by that time.

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2007 Canadian Online Advertising Revenue Climbs To $1.2 Billion

Online Ad Revenue Grows 38% Over 2006 levels, Quadruples Over Just 5 Years

The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB) today announced that 2007 Canadian Online Advertising Revenues climbed to just over $1.2 billion for the year -- a 38% increase over 2006 actuals.

Publisher revenue from Online advertising in Canada has more than quadrupled over the past five years -- building from $237 million in 2003, to the $1.2 billion mark in 2007 -- and is quickly closing in on more established mediums.

Of the $1.2 billion, approximately $260 million or 21 percent of ad revenue was received by French Canadian Online properties, representing year-over-year growth consistent with the rest of the Canadian market.

In response to a variety of shifts in the industry (including a high level of merger and acquisition activity in the Canadian media market, and the continued penetration of Online Ad Networks into the Canadian Online advertising space), IAB Canada's 2007 Revenue Survey process was revisited, with the objective of assuring the elimination of any past and ongoing duplication of ad revenue from these sources.

Canadian Online Publishers obviously had no difficulty in adjusting to the revised ask, as IAB Canada's 2007 Canadian Online Advertising Survey garnered a response rate of over 90% for companies with anticipated revenue of over $5 million. "The industry can feel confident about all past and present numbers," says Martin Lundie, Partner, Technology, Communications and Entertainment Assurance and Advisory Business Services for Ernst & Young LLP (who analyzes IAB Canada's Survey data), "Firstly, because the factors we adjusted for in the 2007 Survey were not present prior to 2006; and secondly, because of the extremely high response rate. Surveys with a high response rate from respondents with the most significant size, provide a very high degree of accuracy and reliability."

Publishers applied the improved methodology to both 2006 and 2007 numbers, and as a result, the actual Canadian Online Advertising Revenue for 2006 has been revised from $1.0 billion to $900 million, with all segments revised accordingly below.

In actual millions of dollars, 2007 vs. 2006 Canadian Online Ad Revenue by Advertising Vehicle, breaks down as follows:

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Should Links Open in New Windows?

At first glance the decision to open links in new windows or not depends on the given site and the preferences of its visitors. Visitors of the sites with heavy linking are more willing to have links opened in new windows than open dozens of links in new windows manually. Visitors of less-heavy-linkage-sites are more likely to open some specific link in new window to remain on the site and continue to browse through it afterwards. However, this is not true.

Users also don’t like to deal with dozens of opened tabs and some visitors tend to quickly become angry with the disabled back-button. Furthermore, some visitors may not even realize that a new window was opened and hit the back-button mercilessly — without any result. That’s not user-friendly and that’s not a good user experience we, web designers, strive for.

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Few Shops Practice Paid Search Skills

Using paid search to market brands is so fundamental that it's self-evident. However, that's not necessarily the case when it comes to building agency brands.

Adweek found that few of the 56 agencies assessed in this year's Report Card evaluation have bought sponsored links tied to their names on Google. In fact, just five-- AKQA, Campbell-Ewald, DraftFCB, iCrossing and JWT -- have sponsored links on Google. The rest have no such links, though their Web addresses generally appeared at or near the top of each search.

Adweek also found evidence of smaller specialty shops "punching up" by piggybacking on the names of larger rivals to gain attention. For example, sponsored links for business-to-business specialists such as Stein Rogan + Partners and PJA Advertising + Marketing popped up after typing the names of better-known players such as Arnold, DDB, Young & Rubicam and OgilvyInteractive.

"Why not put ourselves out there as a viable alternative?" said Tom Stein, president and CEO of Stein Rogan + Partners, a 40-person shop in New York with a dozen clients. "It's a little bit of counter-marketing."

Of course, little guys have to do more to generate buzz, and typically on a shoestring budget. So, not unlike Alltel tweaking Verizon and AT&T in a TV spot, some smaller shops use the glare of bigger agency brands to raise their profiles. Within the sample, however, such a scrappy move was rare compared to a swath of inactivity. It's yet another example of agencies not always practicing what they preach to clients, despite the relatively low cost of buying search terms.

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