“The online general advertising market continues to enjoy solid growth and is not only well-placed to weather the current slowdown in overall media budgets but is set to benefit from its increasing cost-effectiveness in tight economic conditions,” says Darryl Nelson, Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Manager, Digital Media, Asia Pacific.

“Advertisers continue to see the increased lead generation and sales coming from the online channel, but are also now looking online to get more bang for their brand marketing buck.  The current tightening of marketing budgets overall strengthens their commitment to their digital strategies.”
 
Growth slowed dramatically in the first half of 2008, growing by less than one percent from the second half of 2007. However, solid growth has returned and is expected to continue strongly throughout 2009, according to Frost & Sullivan's latest digital media advertising research, Australia Online General Advertising Market 2008-2012.

The market leader for online general advertising revenue remains Ninemsn which captured 21 percent market share in the 2008 financial year.
 
The study confirms that site display advertising continues to decline as a share of total revenue, dropping from 69 percent in FY2007 to 64 percent in FY2008.  Instead, growth is being dominated by next-generation brand marketing and performance marketing such as email direct marketing and cost-per-click or cost-per-action campaigns.  Amongst branding activities, the adoption of integrated content and video is expected to achieve very high growth in the next two-to-four years.
 
The research identifies that the major drivers for growth are a combination of increases in budget allocations to online direct marketing strategies and the start of budget shifts away from traditional media to online brand inventory.  
 
However, competition for marketing dollars has also increased significantly in the past year. The arrival of new portals and advertising networks delivering additional advertising inventory has worked to the benefit of media buyers but has impacted some major sites, which have continued to lose market share to network players and independent niche publishers.  Frost & Sullivan predicts that while total market growth will be solid during the next two-to-three years, there will also be considerable upheaval across media players as best practices begin to emerge for both direct-marketing and brand strategies.
 
Although a number of new industries are engaging in online advertising, spending continues to be dominated by traditional advertisers including the banking, finance and insurance industry, the automotive sector and communications industries. Together, these segments accounted for 51 percent of online advertising revenues in the 2008 financial year.