Online Ad Spend Eclipsing TV By End of Year, Video Leads the Way

The online ad world is growing at a much faster rate than anyone anticipated, and video advertising is a big part of that.

Research company eMarketer had previously predicted that digital ad spending would grow larger than TV ad spending by March 2017. This week, the company revised that: The eclipse will happen by the end of this year.

At that time, U.S. digital ad spend will be a $72.1 billion market, while TV will be a $71.3 billion market. In percentages, digital will be 36.8 percent of total U.S. media spending, while TV will make up 36.4 percent.

The biggest driver of digital ad spending is interest in video and mobile, eMarketer said in a blog post. Video ad spending is growing by double digit percentages, and its share of total digital spending is increasing. Online video ad spending will climb to $10.3 billion this year; it will make up 14.3 percent of all digital spending, then 15.1 percent next year.

The mobile ad space is far larger: Mobile ad spending will reach $46.0 billion this year, making up 45.0 percent of the digital ad market. And mobile is growing fast—by 2019 it will make up over a third of total U.S. media ad spending.

The big player in mobile advertising is Google, which owns 32.0 percent of the market. Facebook comes next with 22.1 percent.

To help brands decide what to share to capture online viewers, Yahoo offered fresh research at this week's DMEXCO conference about succeeding on social platforms. Surveying U.K. and German Tumblr users about brand content, Yahoo learned that 68 percent are more likely to buy from brands that share content they enjoy. Additionally, 74 percent said brands sometimes come up with the most entertaining content, and 70 percent said the source of content doesn't matter as long as it provides value and is something they enjoy.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net