Online advertising spend is expected to continue to beat expenditure on TV for the forseeable future, with search driving the boost. Photo: GETTY  The Internet Advertising Bureau’s report, jointly published with PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows that a record £1.75 billion was spent by brands advertising online in the first six months of this year, compared with £1.64 billion spent on TV.  However, out of the total 1.75 billion spent online, 60 per cent (£1.05 billion) was spent on search advertising, the majority of which is understood to have gone to Google, the largest player in the search market.  “This is a key milestone for the UK advertising market, with the success of online having been driven for the most part by money spent on search advertising,” said Ian Maude, head of Internet at Enders Analysis.  “Search advertising is much bigger here than it is in US or anywhere else. We are a nation of shoppers. E-commerce sites have taken off massively here and search advertising has rocketed. The number of search queries has really increased over the past year, with financial services and travel companies having fuelled the boom,” he explained.  Google has been a key driver of the internet’s success in luring advertisers’ money away from TV and other media sectors, and is being hailed a winner in this battle, which has been worsened by the recession.  Mr Maude added: “Google is now earning more from advertising spend than any other company in the UK. It has now overtaken ITV.”  However, there has been some criticism that the report does not fairly compare the TV and internet sectors. “The comparison is slightly apples and pears,” said media analyst, Paul Richard, from Numis Securities. “The total spent on internet advertising according to the report was calculated by adding together search, classified and display. However, the amount spent on TV, only included display and failed to include any other advertising money the sector takes, such as sponsorship.”  Lindsey Clay, marketing director of Thinkbox, the UK TV trade marketing body, agreed, saying it was “meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect of online marketing into one big figure and celebrate it”.  The change of pecking order, though, is expected to remain for the foreseeable future. According to Mr Maude, the days of TV solely dominating advertisers’ spend are over. “The big brands such as Unilever and McDonalds, are always going to advertise on TV, but the shift in online leading the amount of advertising spend is irreversible.  “This is a permanent fundamental and structural change, because advertisers are following eyeballs and people won’t stop spending time online anytime soon. The way advertisers interact with consumers has changed and changed for good.”
The UK has become the first major economy in the world where advertisers spend    more money on the internet than on TV and its all been driven by search,    according to analysts.