Online advertising in Australia continues to boom

According to Frost & Sullivan figures, the online general advertising market in Australia grew 21 percent from June 2011 to June 2012 to reach $768 million, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14 percent until 2017.

Big players already playing​

Digital media plays a huge role in Estée Lauder’s overall strategy, as industry pioneers with these platforms: rolling out social media, advertising, and ecommerce campaigns for each of its beauty brands and regions.

Beauty behemoth L’Oréal is also ramping up its presence in digital media in order to develop closer consumer relationships and reach its target audience with its marketing startegies on the moct popular platforms.

Not to be outdone, consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble announced it is revising its multi-billion dollar annual advertising spend, and will use Facebook, Google and other online platforms to become more cost effective.

What’s good for the goose…

According to Frost & Sullvan online general advertising budgets have increased in 2012, with 39 percent of online advertisers surveyed indicating an increase of more than a quarter.

Phil Harpur, senior research manager, Australia & New Zealand ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan said online general advertising expenditure funded from diversion of funds from traditional media advertising is still high.

"This indicates that the migration from offline to online channels is a significant factor in the growth of the online advertising market… 59 percent of organisations indicated they had achieved measurable ROI from their online general advertising in 2012”​ he added.

Social media importance​

With the online advertising focus, social media also has an important role to play and organisations are acknowledging they risk failing to connect with a significant online audience if this is not implemented.

"Social media is a quickly becoming a popular advertising medium. Facebook has seen strong growth in advertising revenues and the proportion of Australian companies choosing to advertise on Facebook is growing strongly"​ Harpur shared.

“43 percent of organisations use social media to monitor feedback on company performance or provide customer service and resolve customer issues".​

Mobile growth​

Rising penetration of smartphones, and increasing amounts of mobile content available for advertising opportunities, along with growing acceptance of the mobile advertising medium by agencies and brands, will generate particularly strong growth in the mobile advertising market over the next two to three years.

Frost & Sullivan predicts strong growth over the next five years for the Australian mobile advertising market, with expenditure forecast to reach $177 million by 2017, with a CAGR of 46 percent between 2012 and 2017.