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IAB Adspend - WTF?

It’s a bit like the Premiership transfer window closing, a lot of talk in the run up to it and then not much after.

The IAB figures for Ireland in H1 2014 were released last month, announcing a massive increase of 40% in digital spend YOY for the same period in 2013.

Sounds unbelievable. 

In as much as you can analyse the IAB figures in their release in 2014, in comparing them with the same IAB release in 2013, it’s more incomprehensible.

Overall the IAB report a topline adspend of €130m in H1 2014 versus a €97m adspend in H1 2013.

Fine, well and good.

But there’s the rub, the devil is in the detail. What follows are the actual figures the IAB used in both releases for H1 2013 and H1 2014.

Desktop search has increased 25% YOY from €33.6m to €42m, Mobile search 159% YOY from €11.2m to €29m.

Desktop display has increased 29% from €28.6m to €37m, mobile display has fallen 9% from €8.8m to €8m.

When IAB state that growth is being driven by mobile, this raises a question – WTF?

IAB in the H1 report for 2014 quote 2 different figures for mobile adspend for 2013 of €4.9m and an ‘adjusted’ figure of €16m. In the H1 2013 report they quoted mobile ad revenue at €20.2m.

VOD has essentially doubled YOY according to H1 2014 - €5m for desktop and €2m for mobile.

Again fine well and good.

When you consider that a €7m spend would require approximately 40m streams monthly to achieve that figure (average rate of €15 CPM), that means there is an awful lot of autoplay in display ad video play outs (as it is doubtful the existing VOD media owners have that kind of traffic).

Social Media desktop revenue has fallen 2.5% from €4.1m to €4m and social display mobile increased almost 300% from €2.3m to €6.7m (calculated from total social display desktop and mobile adspend of €10.7m less reported desktop social display of €4m).

When you then analyse the mobile spend itself, it reports social media display at only €4m.

So add in the previous social media display figure on mobile of €6.7m, the mobile VOD adspend figure of €2m and you €8.7m. But IAB report the mobile display adspend at only €8m.

So another question – WTF?

It is bizarre that IAB have consistently reported desktop search over the last five years at 44% of total market, but once mobile comes into the fray it represents 77%.

SO WTF?

Well, it just makes it more confusing than ever.

Only sayin’

Internet Spend in Ireland

IAB Ireland released their latest report on internet adspend for the first half of 2013 yesterday.

           Total adspend has increased by 24% YOY from €73.2m in H1 2012 to €97m in H1 2013

o   Mobile represents over 83% of that growth

o   Of that, search represents 56% of mobile revenues in H1 2013 (up from 18% for the whole of 2012)

o   Display/MMS/SMS represents 44% of total mobile spend in H1 2013 (down from 82% share for the whole of 2012)

-          Search represents 46% of total internet spend, which has been more or less constant since these reports began in 2009 (varying between 44% and 46% per annum)

o   However search has grown 300% in 6 months on mobile to represent 56% of total spend

o   Desktop search revenue has only grown by 3% YOY

-          Mobile adspend has grown 400% in the first half of 2013 to €20.2m, where it was €4.9m in H1 2012

-          Display/MMS/SMS share of adspend on mobile has fallen almost 50% (from 82% of adspend in the whole of 2012 to 44% H1 2013)

-          VOD adspend has fallen YOY by 4%from €2.6m H1 2013 to  €2.5m for H1 2013

-          VOD share of display adspend has fallen from 11% to 9%

-          Interruptive/Rich media formats are up 400%

-          Industry confidence is down from 65% growth/strong growth to 63% growth/strong growth (YOY comparison) – although the revenue growth is beyond agency expectations

If you take out mobile spend from H1 2012 (based on IAB assumption of it representing €4.9m), then the growth in desktop display represent a 46% growth H1 2013 on H1 2012.

What Does It Mean?

The funny thing about this is that advertising agencies have not seen this growth. 

To assume that both interruptive/rich media and VOD advertising has been static and fallen respectively, leads to question how accurate this report is and can publishers/agencies and the industry stand over this. These the two most dynamic and highest demand areas.

It is also strange, that search, as a percentage of total digital spend has remained a constant (and a low one at that) for the last four years, whilst mobile search in the space of six months has achieved a higher percentage penetration/share than desktop ever achieved.

Considering that neither Google nor Facebook actually submit figures, makes the whole thing a bit of a Book of Estimates, as opposed to actual revenues. 

The statement that mobile now represents 21% of total adspend must be a world leading benchmark, considering every market has struggled to get to double digit percentage points of spend in more established markets.

In the UK, considered to be the most progressive Internet market after the US, mobile adspend represents only 14% of total digital spend. It is also curious that display is not broken out of MMS/SMS revenues as with other markets.

AdVOD and in particular, mobile AdVOD has exploded in every market - with the exception of Ireland, why is this? Is it because there is no 4G network? Hardly, considering most mobile VOD consumption happens at home over WiFi.

There are more questions about this research each and every time a new release is issued, perhaps an independent verified study is best in a small market.