New research from Zenith reveals that advertisers are not being deterred by poor viewability, brand safety or ad fraud, as figures show that businesses will spend 40.2% of their marketing budgets on online advertising in 2018, up from 37.6% in 2017.
The March 2018 edition of Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts also shows that in 2017 online advertising grew by 13.7% to US$204bn, and already accounted for more than 55% of adspend in three markets (China, Sweden and the UK).
Meanwhile, further proving that advertisers are not shifting their budgets away from digital, Zenith also predicts that by 2020 online advertising is expected to account for 44.6% of global adspend.
“We are observing sustained ROI from digital transformation,” said Vittorio Bonori, global brand president at Zenith.
“And we are now at the forefront of a transformation as brands shift budgets along the consumer journey, benefit from powerful algorithms and advanced machine learning techniques, and invest in new e-commerce solutions. This transformation is at the heart of driving brand growth.”
Globally, Zenith also put through its biggest upgrade in global adspend forecasts for seven years, raising them from 4.1% to 4.6% for 2018 due to improved growth in China and Argentina.
By region, Eastern Europe and Central Asia will be the fastest growth areas at 10.4% with North America expected to grow at 3.4% and Western and Central Europe at 2.8%.
“The global ad market grew by 4.0% last year,” said Jonathan Barnard, Zenith’s head of forecasting and director of global intelligence. “After a jump in confidence, we now expect it to grow substantially faster this year, boosted by the Winter Olympics, football World Cup and US mid-term elections.”
