Digital ad spend across Europe grew to €55bn in 2018

"IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, announced at its annual Interact conference today in Warsaw that digital advertising grew 13.9 percent in 2018 to €55.1bn, driven by strong growth in video, mobile and social spend. This is the fastest growth since 2011 and has seen the market more than double in size since 2012.
The AdEx Benchmark study is the definitive guide to the state of the European digital advertising market, covering 28 markets, and is now in its thirteenth year. In 2018, a total of twenty-one markets saw double-digit year-on-year growth
Out-stream video and mobile both dominated results in 2018, as they both grew by double-digits in all twenty-eight markets in the study. Out-stream video grew by 44.7 percent on average, compared to in-stream at 19.7 percent. Overall, video grew by 30.9 percent, to €7.6bn, accounting for 33 percent of the display market.
Search remains the largest online advertising category in terms of revenue with a growth of 12.5 percent and a market value of €25bn.
Social is fueling display growth across Europe, growing 33.7 percent year-on-year and now accounts for 49 percent of display.
Total mobile ad spend grew by 31.4 percent in 2018, to €22.8bn, and now accounts for 41 percent of all digital ad spend across Europe.
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The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study divides the digital ad market into three categories: Display, Search and Classifieds and Directories. Growth in these advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses in devices and changing consumption patterns. In 2018, Display has closed the gap with Search, growing by 17.5 percent to account for 42.2 percent of all spend.
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In 2018, the top five largest growth markets all came from the CEE region:
Ukraine – 26.9 percent
Russia – 24.9 percent
Belarus – 23.6 percent
Czech Republic – 20.9 percent
Serbia – 20.1 percent
Norway entered the top 10 in 2018, with further gains by Spain and Sweden.
Top 10 rankings (by market size)
UK – €18.4bn
Germany – €7.2bn
France – €5.2bn
Russia – €4.1bn
Italy – €2.9bn
Netherlands – €2.2bn
Spain – €2.2bn
Sweden – €2.1bn
Switzerland – €2.0bn
Norway – €1.1bn"

Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 4th June 2019