As the e-retail economy forges ahead, this month's summary of new
research reports upbeat figures for the US and UK, along with a similar
lifts in online advertising in spite of the wider concerns about the ad
market.
Opinion polls suggest a gradual change in consumer attitudes towards
some of the more advanced forms of targeting, endorsing the strong
financial results from leading media owners such as Google and Yahoo, as
well as middle tier UK publishers.
There's more on the click-throughs we've added, with deeper commentary
in our
Digital Insight Reports.
Best from all @ Digital
Danny Meadows-Klue
Founder and Chief Executive
Digital Strategy Consulting
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Advertising |
UK online adspend grew 38%
during 2007
Online adspend in the UK grew 38% last year to
reach £2.813bn - an annual increase of £797m. The figures, from the
latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/IAB study, saw online spend break £750m
in a single quarter. Search advertising grew £345m to reach £1.6bn
(57.6% of the total), display advertising rose 31% to 592m, while
classified advertising was up 54% reaching £585.3m. The study confirms
the UK's position as the largest online advertising market in Europe
with over 15% of all British advertising now online.
IAB UK:
http://www.iabuk.net
 Read
Digital's commentary and analysis of the latest IAB UK /
PricewaterhouseCoopers market study »
 Profiling
the world's leading digital ad economy
The switch to online advertising has not slowed down in Europe's
largest digital media market. Online ad budgets continued to grow
around 40% year-on-year, with the internet overtaking press
classifieds for the first time and on course to overtake television
in 2009. The sector now accounts for almost 16% of advertising spend
and has risen by £2bn in three years. This Digital Insight Report
draws upon data from the census of media owners managed by
PricewaterhouseCoopers for the IAB, and provides our commentary on
the market, both today and over the next three years.
Preview
report
Advertising budgets tighten as economic confidence falters
The following story in the FT isn't unexpected,
but it does have some uncomfortable implications for classic media and
dotcoms alike. The Bellwether survey has been a pretty solid predictor
of offline advertising trends in the past and the advertising budget
are being cut for the second consecutive quarter. Only online escapes,
with a net increase of 21 per cent.
The Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com, 14/04/2008
IPA:
http://www.ipa.co.uk
Behavioral advertising get a narrow thumbs up from consumers
Latest findings from Harris Interactive suggest
that if privacy safeguards are in place, most consumers are okay with
the ideas and models behind behavioural advertising targeting. With
15% of UK display inventory probably served through behavioural tools
today, there's a lot riding on this. This type of targeting is key for
giving a step-change in the precision of messaging for brands and an
uplift in revenues to media owners who are running advertising funded content
services. It's at the heart of the advertising models and the fact
most US adults are uncomfortable that some websites use information
about their online activity to shape web content and ad delivery will
make uncomfortable reading for many publishers.
Key findings: 59% are not comfortable when sites such as Google, Yahoo
and MSN use online activity to tailor ads or content, 25% are not at
all comfortable, 34% are not very comfortable. The Harris Poll
surveyed 2500 people in the US from March 11-18, 2008
Harris
Interactive:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com
Source: Harris
Interactive
Harris
Interactive:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com |
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Companies |
Yahoo! beats expectations with Q1 revenues of $1.35bn
Yahoo! has posted Q1 revenues of $1.35bn
(£681m),
beating analyst expectations, writes the Financial Times. Income
reached $542.2m (£271.5m) in total against $142.4m (£72m) in Q1 2007. However
profits were boosted by a one-off gain of $401m (£202m) from the IPO of
Chinese firm Alibaba.com.
It's been a busy month for Yahoo! which is still fighting off
Microsoft's takeover bid:
-
At the start of April Yahoo! joined forces with
Google in a two-week trial during which contextualised Google-served
AdSense ads were displayed next to 3% of Yahoo! search results in
the US. The two firms are now said to be close to finalising a
permanent deal which some commentators predict could raise Yahoo's!
cash flow by $1bn and operating profits by $500m (£250m) a year. (Brand
Republic)
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Yahoo! subsequently announced its new online ad
management platform AMP, which has been designed to simplify the
process behind creating, buying and selling ads. The system will
allow advertisers to buy ads across search, display, local, mobile
and video inventory over hundreds of publisher websites from a
single interface and will begin roll-out during Q3. (Netimperative)
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Following this, Yahoo! revealed it was buying
Tensa Kft, better known as analytics provider IndexTools. (ClickZ)
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Finally, Yahoo!-owned Flickr launched
video-sharing for the first time. (The
Telegraph)
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Rumours also abound that Yahoo! is in talks
with Time Warner to merge with AOL's internet assets. The
unconfirmed deal would leave Time Warner with a 20% stake in the
combined firm. Analysts however remain convinced that Microsoft is
likely to win its bid, especially now that News Corp. may join its
side to create a three-way merger.
(Reuters)
The
Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com, 22/04/2008
Yahoo! UK:
http://uk.yahoo.com
Revenues at Google up 42% year-on-year
Google has smashed analysts' expectations, with
Q1 revenues of $5.19bn (£2.6bn), writes Brand Republic. The figures
represent a year-on-year rise of 42% and an increase of 7% from the
last quarter of 2007. Earnings rose 31% to reach $1.31bn (£656m).
Google-owned sites generated $3.40bn (£1.71bn - up 49% from 2007), with
international sales up 47% to $2.65bn (£1.34). UK revenues reached £402m.
Google also had other things to be happy about during the month:
-
According to new figures from ComScore the
internet giant's share of the US search market grew from 59.2% to
59.8% during March (representing 6.44bn searches).
-
Millward Brown's annual BrandZ research again
put Google top of the list of the world's most powerful brands,
estimating its value at $86m (£43bn). The top five brands remained static
from 2007: Google, General Electric, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and China
Mobile.
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A new study from Net Behaviour identified
Google as the most popular website in Ireland with 78% of all Irish
internet users visiting the site every month. Yahoo! came in second
place (with 49%), followed by Air Lingus (with 48%).
Brand Republic:
http://www.brandrepublic.com,
18/04/2008
Google:
http://www.google.com
Source: Millward Brown Optimor (including data from
brandz, Datamonitor, and Bloomberg)
*The brand value for Coca-Cola includes the values of both
Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Diets and Lites
Millward Brown Optimor:
http://www.millwardbrown.com
AOL buys Sphere Source
AOL has bought contextual content service
provider Sphere Source for $25m (£12.7m), writes Netimperative.
Prior to the purchase AOL had partnered with Sphere to offer its
widget technology on AOL News and myAOL. AOL intends to use Sphere
to widen the content available on its own sites and to distribute
its content more widely throughout Sphere's third-party publisher
network. AOL will also gain access to Sphere's online advertising
inventory.
From
Netimperative:
http://www.netimperative.com,
17/04/2008
Sphere:
http://www.sphere.com
Quarterly sales jump 24% for eBay
eBay has raised its outlook for Q2 following a
24% year-on-year increase on Q1 results, writes ENN. The auction
firm took $2.19bn (£1.10bn) during the first three months of the year, up
$424m (£214) on the same period in 2007. Growth was mostly driven by eBay's
Marketplaces division (up 19% to $1.48bn (£746m)), Paypal (up 32% to $582m
(£294m))
and Skype (up 61% to $126m (£64m)). Net income for the quarter reached
$460m (£232m) - up 22% from $377m (£190m) in 2007).
Following the results Skype announced the launch of a range of
monthly flat-rate unlimited calling plans to fixed-line numbers. For
£1.95/month users get unlimited calls to UK landlines; for
£2.95/month they get unlimited calls to 20 European countries; and
for £6.95/month they get unlimited calls to 34 countries worldwide.
The new plans have been seen as a final attempt for eBay to make the
most of its purchase of Skype. eBay has publically admitted that it
may sell-off the internet phone service if it cannot find a better
means of integrating the two businesses by the end of the year.
From
ENN:
http://www.electricnews.net,
17/04/2008
eBay: http://www.ebay.com
Facebook Chat goes live
Facebook has started the gradual roll-out in
the UK of its previously announced instant messaging service
Facebook Chat, writes Brand Republic. The service was first launched
in the US at the start of the month. Facebook Chat is an internal IM
service which lets users have written conversations with friends who
are logged in at the same time.
From
Brand Republic:
http://www.brandrepublic.com,
23/04/2008
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
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Online retail |
Online retail on course for £45.5bn by 2012
New research from Verdict
Research predicts that the British online retail sector will grow by
over £20bn in the coming four years to reach £44.5bn or 13.6% of all
retail, writes Brand Republic. The research forecasts that online
retail will grow 32% during 2008 to reaching £19.5bn (equivalent to
6.7% of all retail). In comparison, offline sale are only predicted to
rise 1.2% this year.
Brand Republic:
http://www.brandrepublic.com, 15/04/2008
Verdict
Research:
http://www.verdict.co.uk
US
online retail to grow 50% in the next five years
A new study by Forrester
Research on behalf of Shop.org predicts that US online retail will
grow 50% to reach $300bn (£151bn) by 2013, writes The Financial Times. The
study showed that US online retail (excluding travel) was up 17%
during 2007 to $175bn (£88bn) - equivalent to 6% of all US retail sales. Sales
for this year are expected to grow about 16% to $204bn (£103bn) - 7% of all US
retail. Online clothing remained the most valuable category in 2007 at
$22.7bn (£11.45bn), followed by computer hardware, peripherals and software
with $20.7bn (£10.44bn).
The
Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com, 08/04/2008
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Trends |
Revenues for British digital publishers up 52%
UK digital publishers saw a total year-on-year
increase in digital revenues of 52% according to the Association of
Online Publishers' (AOP) sixth annual census. Online advertising
revenues were also up 33% while content revenues grew 68%.
According to the census AOP members expect business growth of 8%
during 2008 with digital revenues anticipated to rise 31%. In a
further sign of confidence 80% also said that they would be hiring
more digital staff during the year.
From Netimperative:
http://www.netimperative.com, 09/04/2008
AOP:
http://www.ukaop.org.uk |
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Mobile |
Mobile banking set to take off
Juniper Research's latest study claims that
mobile banking is set for a major surge in popularity, writes ENN. The
study predicts that by 2011, 816m customers will bank via their mobile
phones - a tenfold increase on the figure for 2007. The number of
transactions is also set to explode, rising from 2007's total of 2.7bn
to 37bn in 2011 as customers are able to carry out further types of
transactions from their phones.
From ENN:
http://www.enn.ie,
16/04/2008
Juniper Research:
http://www.juniperresearch.com |
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Broadcasting |
BBC iPlayer to launch on Nintendo Wii
The BBC is to make its iPlayer
catch-up service available through the Nintendo Wii, writes Brand
Republic. This will bring the iPlayer directly to the televisions of
the UK's 2.4m Wii owners. iPlayer usage has grown 25% each month
during its first-quarter and 42m shows have now been accessed on
demand since its launch on Christmas Day. The list of most popular
shows includes 'The Apprentice', 'Gavin and Stacey', 'Ashes to Ashes',
'EastEnders' and 'Torchwood'.
From Brand Republic:
http://www.brandrepublic.com,
10/04/2008
BBC iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer |
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Statistics |
Top UK searches: 2007 retrospective from Hitwise
Latest data from Hitwise looks
back on 2007 and firms up the most searched for terms on the web among
UK audiences. Ranked in order: 1 ebay, 2 bebo, 3 youtube, 4 facebook,
5 myspace, 6 argos (the UK retailer), 7 amazon, 8 you tube, 9 bbc, 10
tesco.
Hitwise:
http://www.hitwise.co.uk
Top
websites: Hitwise chart toppers in 50 categories (UK)
The Hitwise UK Annual Online
Performance Awards serve up a list of best in class category winners
for website traffic throughout 2007. Published this month, the Hitwise
team collate data and compare across a large number of services in the
same category. What's interesting is that it's the dotcom pureplays
who steal the show, nudging out the newspapers, magazines and
broadcast media brands that compete in key industry sectors.
Read the full list at the Meadows-Klue on Media blog:
http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/blogs
Hitwise:
http://www.hitwise.co.uk
Monthly internet usage statistics for the UK, March 2008
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online:
http://www.nielsen-online.com
Monthly top ten UK parent companies for March 2008
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online:
http://www.nielsen-online.com
Top 10 popular websites in the UK, March 2008
This list features the most popular websites based on
UK Internet usage for March 2008, ranked by market share of visits
across all Hitwise industries.
Source: Hitwise Datacentre, February 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise:
http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter |
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