Australian online advertising spend has reached $14.7 billion for the 2023 calendar year as total advertising expenditure increased 3.7% year-on-year, according to the IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER).
The report, prepared by PwC Australia, showed that this was a slowdown from the growth of 9.1% reported in 2022. However, a positive trajectory in a tough year for advertising, with stronger growth experienced in the second half of the year.
The report noted growth in general display 3.9% ($5.7 billion) year on year, as well as search and directories 6.1% ($6.6 billion). Meanwhile, classified listings dropped by 2.6% ($2.4bn), impacted by slower property and job market activity.
Within general display advertising (up 3.9% year on year), growth was mixed. Video was up 14% ($3.78 billion), and overall digital audio was up 21% ($265.8 million), with podcast investment up 21.7% to almost hitting $100m ($99.1m) and streaming up 20.6% to reach $166.7m.
However, standard display was down 22% ($569.2m), and infeed/native formats were down 12% ($1.07 billion), the IAB report noted.
Connected TV yielded the greatest share of content publishers’ video inventory expenditure (50%), taking share from mobile.
Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia, said that continued investment from advertisers in a range of digital advertising opportunities supports a market that is now $14.7 billion.
“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.”
Across industry categories, health and beauty replaces FMCG in the top five industry categories for general display in 2023, with retail.
December 2023 Quarter Data
• $3.914bn, up 7.5% compared to the 2022 December quarter
• Search and directories grew 9.4% ($1.69bn) and general display grew 9.3% growth ($1.65b). This offset a 2.0% decline in classified listings.
• Within general display, video and audio were again the key contributors to growth (up 20% and 38% respectively) whilst standard display dropped 26%.
• In December 2023 $0.36 of each dollar of expenditure on content publisher’s general display was captured by retail and automotive.
• In terms of methods of buying for content publishers inventory the overall picture is similar to the previous year, but there are some shifts within programmatic guaranteed: its share of video buying has increased from 26% to 27% but for standard display it has decreased from 10% to 7%.