Digital ad spending in the UK to grow by 12 per cent this year

Mobile’s growing influence on ad spending across social media and search engines will ensure that the UK’s advertising market remains in the black in 2016 and will record double-digit growth for the second year in succession, new data published by research enterprise eMarketer shows.

Overall, digital ad spending is predicted to grow by 12 per cent by the end of the year, which suggests that the advertising industry has not been adversely affected by the potential impact of a Brexit in the coming months. When looking at net digital ad revenues, social media sites are ahead of the curve, as Facebook is expected to see its revenues grow by 31.1 per cent.

Growth at Google will be 13.9 per cent, and though that figure is some way short of Facebook’s continued dramatic rise, it is still impressive considering that eMarketer predicted back in February that its revenue growth would only reach half of that figure. Stronger revenues at Google this year have been driven by the emergence of mobile as a central ad platform.

Mobile ad growth

Google is expected to net £3.8 billion from ad revenues in 2016, which accounts for around 40 per cent of all the money spent on digital ads in the UK. Facebook is currently benefitting from the launch of its new Instagram ad formats and ads in mobile news feeds. Both of these changes will contribute to better-than-expected £1.19 billion net digital ad revenues this year.

While Facebook is thriving, Twitter has had its ad revenues downgraded compared to the start of the year. eMarketer notes that sluggish growth for the company during the second quarter of 2016 means that Twitter’s digital ad revenue will still increase by 13.2 per cent, though that figure is down on the 31 per cent predicted in February. Twitter is expected to see a net ad revenue of just over £153 million for the year.

“Across search and social media, mobile’s influence on ad spending continues to be significant,” eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher said. “This is simply a response to consumer behaviour, with the majority of social media usage now occurring on mobile, and mobile search behaviour, too, becoming more pronounced.”