Online Advertising In Europe Grows 40% To €11 billion in 2007

In 2007 the European online advertising market was worth €11.2 billion, up four billion euros from euro;7.2 billion in 2006, according to the latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe.

Compiled by IAB Europe and then processed and analyzed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the report shows that, with a like-for-like growth rate of 40%, the European online advertising market shows signs of closing the gap on the US, which grew 26% to a market value of €14.5 billion in 2007.

Two thirds (65% or €7.3 billion) of European online ad budgets were spent in the big three markets of the UK, Germany and France. However some of the smaller markets in the report enjoyed very high growth rates – Greece at 91%, Spain at 55% and Slovenia at 49%.

The report also revealed the share that online advertising has of the total advertising spend in key markets. Alain Heureux, President of IAB Europe said: “We are well on the way to achieving the ’10 before 10′ – that is 10 European countries where online advertising accounts for at least 10% of overall ad spend by the year 2010. At the end of 2007 Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland Sweden and the UK had all reached this milestone.”

Heureux added: “Despite a slowdown in advertising spend on some traditional media, the rise of online advertising in Europe continues unabated.

“Not only is the growth coming from some of the smaller markets which are seeing significant increases in their market value, but also from the more mature countries as companies move their advertising budgets online for the first time.”

In April, the IAB revealed that online advertising in the UK grew almost 40% year on year in 2007 to a new high of over £2.8 billion (see UK Online Adspend Grows Almost 40% Year On Year In 2007).

IAB Europe: www.iabeurope.ws