Internet advertising is continuing to be the leading source of advertising revenue in 2018. Online advertisers are expected to outspend TV advertisers by $40 billion this year. This is a significant increase from 2017 where it was leading by $17.9 billion.
Therefore, a whopping $22.1 billion increase in internet ad is expected by the fall of the year 2018. That means 40 percent of the world’s ad spending is expected to take place online in 2018, according to new forecasts from advertising measurement company Zenith.
It was only last year when online ad spending first beat out TV as the biggest ad medium. Research has shown that Internet ad growth is being driven by social and video display ads, like those found on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Video Games etc. Globally, social media ad spending is tipped to rise by 21 percent to $58 billion while video ad spending is rising 19 percent to $32 billion in 2018.
At 42 percent of total spending, search ads like those on Google remain the biggest form of online advertising and are expected to reach $95 billion this year.
Online search and classified spending are expected to grow less than 10 percent. What’s worth noting, however, is that all of this growth is taking place on mobile, which grew 25 percent this year to 60 percent of internet ad spending and 24 percent of total ad spending.
On the other hand, desktop ad spending declined nearly 4 percent. The advertising measurement company, Zenith predicted the global ad spending to rise about 5 percent, reaching $579 billion at the end of the year.
That growth was revised upward from the 4 percent Zenith predicted in December and represents the biggest quarterly upgrade the company has made in seven years, thanks to upward momentum from markets in China, the Philippines, Argentina and Ireland.
“The internet penetration rate has been consistently increasing in line with the growing number of active internet and data subscriptions. Demand for internet and data services in the country is expected to continue growing as the internet coverage, variety of services and the availability and accessibility of devices improves,” noted Potraz.
The growth of internet penetration in Zimbabwe over the past 7 years has grown by 24% showing that an online ad is a tool a lot of companies should start investing in hence a lot of people in the country are spending most of their time on Social Media and other online platforms.
