New Econsultancy Report Suggests UK Display Market Is In "Good Shape"

A report on the state of the online advertising market in the UK released this week suggests that the UK online display market is holding up well. The research – carried out by Econsultancy in association with yield optimisation speciliasts, Rubicon – canvassed opinion from more than two hundred and fifty advertisers (agencies and direct advertisers).
The headline stat from the report shows that fifty-seven per cent of advertisers have increased their expenditure on online display from last year – and only eighteen per cent of respondents had decreased their spend on online ad space.
The report is a boon for ad networks as they continue to increase their influence in the UK display market. Over two thirds of those surveyed say they use ad networks – with over seventy per cent of that figure currently using more than three.
Other key findings of the report include:

– Publisher rate card prices have generally gone down. Only 23% of advertisers say that publisher rate card prices have gone up in the last year, compared to 39% who say they have decreased and 39% who say they have stayed the same.
– On average, advertisers say that just over a fifth (22%) of online display advertising is purely about branding. A quarter of advertisers (24%) say the proportion of branding advertising has increased, compared to 21% who say it has decreased.
– Almost half of advertisers (46%) say they are working with more networks than a year ago, and a similar proportion (42%) say they will be working with more networks in a year‟s time. Only 14% will be working with fewer ad networks.
– On average 31% of online display advertising budget is spent through ad networks, and 32% of media plans include ad networks.
– 44% say that the proportion of budget spent on networks has gone up in the past year compared to only 18% who say it has decreased.
– Advertisers regard the audience (55%) as the most important criterion for judging an online ad network, followed by reach (18%) and price (17%). The most widely perceived benefits of networks are increased reach (67%), more flexible payment models (55%) and lower cost (also 55%).
– The main challenges faced by those working with networks are ‘concerns about adverts appearing next to inappropriate content’ (65%) and ‘discrepancies between network data and [their] data’ (62%).
– MPUs [multi-purpose units] are the most effective ad format, deemed to be „very effective‟ by 28% of respondents and „quite effective‟ by 52% of respondents. Buttons are deemed to be the least effective.
– The most widely employed publisher techniques for increasing the effectiveness of advertising are: demographic targeting (64%), geographic (54%), contextual-based (49%) and behavioural (36%).

One of the most of the interesting findings from the survey was how many advertisers used ad exchanges to buy display advertising. Of those questioned, only 32% of advertisers use ad exchanges. Not surprising given the threshold to trade on RMX, and the know-how and technology necessary to buy exchange inventory.
It will be interesting to see if the DoubleClick Exchange will affect this number in six months time. The lower threshold for entry, the open platform and the inventory available will definitely draw in agencies and direct advertisers.