For the very first time, Manchester had the opportunity to welcome the IAB’s Digital Britain Conference, during which the full-year digital adspend figures for 2013 were revealed. It also saw presentations from leading IAB members, including Google, Quantcast, Twitter, AdMaxim and Unruly Media.
Earlier in the year, it was announced the IAB’s annual Digital Britain Conference was to be held in Manchester, marking both the first time that the IAB has not used London to reveal its Digital AdSpend results and Manchester’s growing influence on the UK’s digital marketplace.
So on April 9th, it was with great enthusiasm that the MEC Interaction team attended event, with the promise that 2013’s annual digital revenues were to be unveiled. The results were set to reveal which sectors were spending the most on digital advertising and highlight the size of the display, search and classified market across online, mobile and tablet.
When it came to the grand unveiling, it was announced the UK digital sector was worth £6.3 billion in 2013, a massive increase of £853 million (15.2 per cent) year-on-year. Given that the UK is still recovering from a recession, it’s incredible to see the exceptional growth across the digital marketplace.
It was also revealed the online industry has experienced strong growth across all the major categories:
Display - Display advertising accounted for 30 per cent of digital advertising in 2013, with £1,862 million spent across all display formats between January and Dec 2013.
Search - Paid-for listings maintained its position as the largest single category with a 55 per cent share of the market. £3,495 million was spent on search in 2013.
Classifieds - Accounting for 14 per cent of the market, classifieds continue to make up an important part of the share at £887 million for 2013.
Other - Lead generation, Solus e-mail, mobile SMS / MMS and audio advertising accounted for a one per cent share of the market
There was further special mention for Digital Display advertising. According to the IAB/PwC study, Digital Display now represents 30 per cent of the digital media mix, leading the way with the highest like-for-like growth. This was largely a result of improved revenues across social media, which increased by a staggering 71 per cent in 2013 to a total of £588.4m – 16 per cent of which was on mobile devices.
It was pointed out this increase in digital display investment showed advertisers had started to really believe in digital as a branding medium
Special attention was also paid to mobile, with adspend passing the £1 billion mark, representing a year-on-year growth of 93 per cent. Tim Elkington, the IAB’s director of research and strategy, pointed out this meant “mobile is therefore outstripping GDP by a factor of 50”.
But what is the reason for the increase in digital ad revenues? Well, according to Comscore, more people were accessing the internet each month in 2013. The average number of monthly internet users (multi-platform) in January 2013 was 46 million, which grew to 48.6 million by January 2014. Therefore, as more users access the internet, the more we advertisers have the opportunity to reach. What’s more, tablet and mobile usage is really on the up, with 51 per cent of Brits saying they own a tablet and 74 per cent a smartphone (an eight per cent increase).
While the event did cover a broad range of digital media topics, a prominent theme that was repeated again and again was the rise of mobile usage and the challenges and opportunities for engaging via this platform. This led to some surprising insights, including:
- 42 per cent of top 100 UK brands websites not being mobile optimized
- 70 per cent of top retailers’ mobile apps are not offering transactions
- 58 per cent of data capture forms are not optimised for mobile
- 10 per cent of UK finance companies are not effectively redirecting to mobile sites
There were some great insights to take away from the conference, covering a vast array of all things digital. However, the key theme for MEC was the requirement for all of our advertisers to embrace digital and to also trust in digital display as a key branding tool. Furthermore, there is clearly a growing need for agencies to implement a clear mobile strategy as this platform offers an exclusive opportunity to engage with users on the most personal of devices. Any agency that went into the conference without a clear mobile strategy, will definitely be implementing one as we speak.