The latest quarterly report from the IAB Australia shows further growth in online advertising expenditure in Australia. Another record quarter of $571.75 million in spend reflects a 23% year on year growth, up by $105.5m.

The Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER) shows that there was annual growth in all the categories tracked - general display (26%), classifieds (30%), search and directories (18%) - for the July-September period compared to 2009. The classifieds category showed the strongest growth for the quarter, following some declines in expenditure over the previous year, whereas search and directories is showing a slower level of growth in an already strong sector.

General display advertising and classifieds advertising accounted for 26.5% and 24.6% respectively of the total advertising expenditure for the third-quarter 2010, while search & directories advertising comprised the remaining 48.9% (a slight decline in share compared to the previous quarter).

Within the general display category, email based advertising comprised $7.6m of advertising expenditure, while video based advertising comprised $8.4m of advertising expenditure, slightly down on Q2 2010. CPM based pricing continued as the dominant expenditure type with 75% of advertising expenditure on a CPM basis, and 25% on a direct response basis.

A report by MediaPost claims that 45% of consumers in the US don't have a specific business in mind when conducting a local search online. According to recent research by 15miles, more local business searchers begin with general keyword terms in search queries. They have products and services in mind, but they are not sure where to make the purchase.

On the other hand, 56% of social and 60% of mobile users are more likely to search with specific businesses in mind because they are already outside the home looking for a nearby business to fill a need. As a result of this activity, the study points to a lack of sophisticated search functions in social networks for the differences in behaviour.

Additional research by comScore identified the power of local, mobile and social search among consumers, with 70% of survey respondents using search engines, online Yellow Pages or social networks as their primary sources of local business information. Local search engine queries continued to increase at a strong rate with 9% year-over-year growth.

By measuring consumer behavior and the impact on decisions, the study reveals insights that are necessary to influence marketers' search strategies. Key factors included:
* Online search is the preferred method for information about local businesses, with 70% of consumers citing online sites as their primary source.
* Search engines are most popular, but they are not growing as fast as other media.
* Local searchers are more apt to buy.
* Print is declining, but it still holds value for today's consumers as a secondary source.
* With emerging media on the rise, a diverse media mix must now include social and mobile marketing.

Consumers who use social networks and mobile smartphones are more likely to use and write reviews. More than 40% have submitted between 2-5 reviews in the past 30 days. In addition, 78% of social networkers and 71% of mobile users consider consumer ratings and reviews important in making their purchase selections.

Of those participating in the survey, 81% believe it's important for local businesses to respond to questions and complaints on social sites; 78% want special offers, promotions and information about events; and 66% believe that company photos are important.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Australia (IAB) has announced that they are searching for tenders from companies to develop an online audience measurement (OAM) system. The successful company will then be endorsed as the sole and exclusive preferred supplier for the planning, buying and reporting of OAM for an initial three year period.

Paul Fisher, the CEO of IAB Australia, said that the Bureau had "liaised extensively with our IAB cousins in the US, UK and EU to learn from their experiences regarding OAM technology, models and partnerships. It is clear that a standard OAM currency is one of the most significant contributors to the growth of online advertising and we have been working hard to assist industry to arrive at such a result."

Audience measurement is becoming increasingly vital in the expanding online advertising market and the hope is that Australia will benefit from more robust ratings, readership and audience data so that advertisers will be able to make better media-buying decisions. However, as has been seen in other markets, any primary measurement system for online usage will never be perfect and have detractors, but it is still needed as an industry-wide tool.

OAM companies must register their interest in participating in the process by Friday 8th October 2010 and the deadline for final submissions will be 17th December 2010. The winning bid would then be announced in the first half of 2011, with the new measurement system expected to be in place during the second half of that year.

The Wall Street Journal reports that research company Nielsen is working on a new measurement service that would offer advertisers and website publishers a new stream of data to improve audience measurement for online advertising. As with TV ratings, the new service requires the participation of media outlets - in this case Web portals and other sites - and the firm has reportedly lined up Facebook as a participant. Other websites are expected to join as it moves out of the testing phase.

The new stream of data would be an "online GRP," which is short for Gross Rating Points - a formula that measures the reach and frequency of an ad, a method that has been used by the TV business for decades. To get the new data, Nielsen will blend its demographic panel data with information from participating online companies about the people seeing a particular online ad, according to people involved in the research.

Information will vary from website to website, but in general it might indicate the age group and sex of a particular web surfer and maybe even location. However, only anonymous data will be given to Nielsen for the service, according to several people involved in the process.

Marketers often use site traffic as a gauge when they decide to buy Internet display ads - the ads that include graphics and text and appear alongside the border of the page. But traffic alone isn't a perfect indicator of an ad's effectiveness. When people click on the ads, their specific actions can be tracked. But display ads are clicked on just a fraction of the time. That leaves room for an additional layer of measurement.

Media buyers say having an online GRP has the potential to give marketers a way to do apple-to-apple comparisons of media. Having the information, they say, could lead to advertisers shifting more of their ad budgets to the Internet from other media like television.

The ClickZ website reports on a recent study in the US into the "like" activity of 42.6 million Facebook users on 32,000 of its customers' Facebook posts, focusing on the pages for consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and quick serve restaurant (QSRs) brands.

For QSRs, they showed 62% higher engagement rates per post - which were calculated by combining likes, comments, and shares - than other brand sectors. Meanwhile, CPGs have garnered 41% higher engagement than the average brand.

In all sectors, images/photos outperformed video and text on Facebook by 22% and 54%, respectively, in terms of engagement. For CPGs in particular, the advantages to images are more dramatic, as they outdid video by 204% and text by 86%. For QSRs, the study showed that images got 136% more engagement than video and 182% more than text.

Other figures reported by the research showed that posts made before noon get 65% more engagement than ones posted in the afternoon. CPGs get 21% more engagement in the morning, while QSRs attracted 12% more.

In addition to this, data for all brands showed that the best day to post is Friday, with Sunday and Saturday being the worst. For CPGs, Thursday generates the highest engagement rates, while Wednesday creates the lowest. However QSRs should post every Wednesday apparently, which is the most successful in terms of response.

The Media Post website has revealed the results from a new comScore survey for August that shows Facebook gaining top position amongst major sites in terms of time spent, with a total of 41.1 billion minutes, with Google second with 39.8 billion minutes. Yahoo dropped to third, with 37.7 billion and this portal / search engine also saw its share of time spent in the third quarter drop to an all-time low of 9.3%.

The comScore report also says that Google's number of global users passed 1 billion for the first time last month, although Yahoo reportedly edged out Google to become the top site in monthly traffic, with 179 million unique visitors. Google had 178.8 million, followed by Microsoft with 165.3 million.

Facebook remained the fourth-ranked site, at 148 million, which was up from 145.5 million recorded in July. These figures of rising traffic combined with increasing time spent on the site bodes well for Facebook's efforts to monetize its vast inventory and user base.

Facebook has said it is adding new metrics to help advertisers measure the social context of ads by tracking the proportion that include endorsements from friends on the social network. That means telling advertisers what percentage of their ads people "Liked" or used to engage with a Facebook Page, event or application. Research company Nielsen reported earlier this year that people are 68% more likely to remember an ad and twice as likely to remember what it said when they see a friend has interacted with the ad on Facebook.

In a separate article by The New Yorker, a detailed profile on Facebook's co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg provides a fascinating insight into his background and the rise of this social networking phenomenon, in advance of a new Hollywood film that is soon to be released about the early days of the company.

The latest quarterly figures published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Australia mark another milestone as the $2 billion barrier has now been passed by online advertising expenditure over the past 12 months. Using data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), total expenditure of $2.043 billion is shown for the 12 months ended 30 June 2010.

The latest report also shows that online advertising expenditure reached $552.5m in the past quarter (April-June) of 2010, which is another record quarter and a 22% increase on the same period in 2009.

Looking at the yearly figures, all three of the categorised sectors of the market saw growth in the past 12 months, with general display advertising increasing by 11%, classified advertising by 9% and search and directories advertising seeing the highest growth rates again with an increase of 16%. For the past financial year, general display advertising accounted for 26.8% of the total online expenditure, with classifieds reaching a 23% share and search and directories advertising taking the majority share at 50.2%.

Some other categories covered by the report show that email based advertising reached $33.8m during the past 12 months and video based advertising comprised $25.3m of advertising expenditure. In the past quarter, spend in this category was up to $9.6 million from $5.7 million in the previous quarter (Jan-March 2010). The dominant pricing method is still Cost per Thousand (CPM), with 75% of general display advertising based on CPM while direct response accounts for just 25% for the past year, however year on year comparative data is not yet available for these two advertising sectors.

Although these figures are impressive and continue to demonstrate the strong growth area of online advertising compared to other forms of advertising expenditure, the quarterly report still lacks accurate data from some of the main sectors - notably Google, who refuse to provide their income data from search and video advertising, so that this remains an estimated figure. Also Facebook does not participate in the survey so this growing area of advertising is also an estimated figure in the overall results.

The MediaPost News website has reported on new research by comScore which indicates that paid search rankings purchased by brands helps to improve product sales on retail sites. The results show that after searching for a product on a retail website, most shoppers will click the top results on the page and about 94% of shoppers click on the first 10 products to look for lower prices, key product features and preferred brands.

The article reports that the study aimed to determine whether search-ranking position secures a higher percentage of clicks. Since paid search through AdWords supports the core of Google's business model, the research wanted to discover if that business model carried through to retail site search and whether premium positions in search rankings drive a higher percentage of click share.

It turns out that consumers are twice as likely to use the site search box to find additional product category, brand or model information as to browse the initial landing page. While shoppers tend to vary the order, retail websites and search engines are typically either the first or the second step in the shopping process. The study suggests that retail websites are used as a source of price and brand options, promotions and sales. Many purchases also look for customer and expert reviews, price, and recommendations.

Landing listings at the top of the search ranking make it easier for consumers to find information about a company's products and services, and two-thirds of shoppers compare product and price information or read product descriptions on retail websites before making purchases. But while many begin the shopping process online, nearly half still purchase offline.

Although more consumers are beginning the process online, shoppers still want to see, touch and interact with the products in a physical store prior to purchase. Consumers turn to the online channel for ease of comparison, 61%; breadth of information, 47%; and convenience, 51%, while 62% of consumers admit that the physical stores provide the tactile in-person experience.

Of those shoppers who purchase offline, 57% say pricing is one of the main motivators for purchasing online, followed by free shipping at 57%, promotions and discounts at 50%, and item availability at 32%.

The new quarterly report from IAB Australia shows that the national online advertising market continues to record strong growth with expenditure for the March quarter 2010 growing by 17% year on year. The figures have been compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and record online expenditure for the first three months of 2010 at $512.5 million, although this is the same level as the fourth quarter of 2009.

The classifieds and search and directories categories delivered significant growth in comparison with the prior quarter, however, this was balanced by a reduction in the general display market, which reflects the usual seasonality of the first quarter of each calendar year. However, the decline was less than the historical average, which indicates the strength of the general display market and the ongoing strength of the online market in general compared to other forms of advertising.

Classified advertising and search and directories advertising were the key growth drivers during the quarter, growing by 9.4% and 2% respectively, while general display declined by 11.1% on the prior quarter. Search and directories advertising continued to account for the largest share of total advertising expenditure, representing 51.7% of the market or $264.75 million. General display accounting for 24.6% ($126m) and classified advertising accounting for 23.8% ($121.75m) during the quarter.

An article on the Forbes website says that Facebook, the largest social networking tool in the world, is dominated by women.

Using data from a number of recent surveys and advertising tools, the report says that the 400-million member site is 57% female and attracts 46 million more female visitors than male visitors each month. Women are more active on Facebook, having 8% more friends and participating in 62% of the sharing activity. Women are also seen as the majority of users on many of the other large social networking sites, such as Twitter, MySpace and Flickr. In contrast, men are most active on sites like Digg, YouTube and LinkedIn, which are more content-oriented and promotional than discussion-based.

The article explains how data shows that women don't just visit different sites from men, they also use social media differently than men. While women often use online social networking tools to make connections and share items from their personal lives, men use them as means to gather information and increase their status.

Recent figures published by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Australia show that the online advertising sector continued to buck the trend seen by the wider advertising market and recorded further healthy growth in 2009, with a 9% year-on-year increase to reach $1.87bn to the end of December.

The results from the quarterly Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER), compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), also showed that for the three months ended 31 December 2009, the total expenditure was $513m - the largest fourth-quarter recorded and an increase of $50.5m, or 10.9% from the fourth-quarter of 2008.

The IAB says that the continued growth of online advertising expenditure comes at a time when the industry is expecting a decline of up to $900m in the Australian advertising marketplace for 2009 due to the impact of the global financial crisis.

The general display advertising and search sectors both performed well for the full year, with search and directories advertising accounting for just short of $1bn or 50.5% of total expenditure, representing a growth of 17% year on year. Display advertising grew by 7.2% and accounted for almost $500m or 26.6% of the total expenditure for the 12 months. Classified advertising continued to lose share and saw a slight decline of 2.3% year on year, accounting for 22.9% of total expenditure for the year.

Within the general display figures, email based advertising comprised $9.3m of advertising expenditure for the last quarter, up from $7.9m in the previous quarter. Video based advertising increased its share of advertising expenditure from $4.7m to $5.3m for the same period.

Little change was reported in the pricing methods for online advertising expenditure, with the Direct Response pricing method comprising 26% in General Display advertising and CPM 74%. CPM pricing is based on a straight Cost per Thousand pricing methodology, sponsorship, or CPM-like Pricing, while direct response based pricing is based on a non-CPM display methodology. This may include any pay per click, pay per sale, pay per action or pay per lead.

Some new research published by comScore shows that display advertising appears to be more effective at influencing users' online behavior in Europe than in the US. A summary of the study has been published by ClickZ, and reports that display ads in the U.K. and Europe drove substantially more traffic to advertisers' sites and promoted a greater number of trademark search queries than in the US.

The comScore study suggests that users in Europe are 72% more likely to visit an advertiser's website, having previously been exposed to display ads, compared with a 49% lift in the US. The research also found that European users are 94% more likely to conduct a search query on an advertiser trademark after seeing an ad, compared to 40% being more likely to do so in the US.

The results seem to show a good level of impact in both markets, despite the decline in clickthrough rates from this form of advertising. comScore suggest that the differences in behaviour could be the result of lower average levels of exposure to online adverts in Europe, compared to the US, which helps drive higher response levels. Also search activity is higher in the UK, meaning that driving users to search could be easier. There is also some evidence that creativity in Europe, and in particular by UK advertisers, means that awareness and clickthrough rates can be higher.

New research by Forrester claims that social marketing will become more strategic and planned in 2010 with companies taking tools such as Facebook and Twitter more seriously. As reported by Media Post News, the new research contains a list of social computing prediction for 2010 and suggests that companies who are taking this media seriously will create social councils - cross-functional teams aimed at sharing ideas about social media - and allocate budgets and planned structures for these groups.

It also suggests that an increasing number of companies will adopt 'listening platforms' to monitor social media, that Twitter will become more profitable or get acquired and also Facebook will take a more proactive approach to protecting members' privacy in the light of increasing demands from users.

In another report - the 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report from MarketingSherpa - the No. 1 objective targeted and measured by marketers was said to be an increase in website traffic, followed by an increase in lead generation, increase sales revenue, improved search engine ranking and improved brand or product reputation.

New research prepared by Google AdWords specialists, Web Search Workshop, estimate that up to 20% of all AdWords advertising spend is wasted, due to poor campaign planning and management. This provides Google with extra income that gives little benefit to the advertiser and reflects some basic principles of effective AdWords campaigns that are not being followed by some companies.

New research by US company Round2 Communications says that 72% of advertising companies will increase their online marketing spending in 2010. A summary of the results have been published by Media Daily News and explain this trend towards online spend because 33.9% of respondents said that ROI (Return on Investment) for new media is "somewhat" better than traditional advertising, and 28.2% said new media's ROI is "significantly" better.

As a result of this growth in spend on digital media, the more traditional channels (such as TV, radio, newspapers and magazines) are expected to lose out, with 86% of respondents saying that they expect their spending to remain even (45.7%) or decline (40.3%) in 2010. However, print still remains the most dominant media channel with 47% of respondents saying this is their single biggest media investment, well ahead of email marketing (13.4%) and interactive advertising (10.2%).

Media Post has reported on new research in the US by eMarketer that shows online advertising declining by 4.6% in 2009 - the first drop since 2002 - although this is expected to grow again in 2010. The two areas that saw growth in 2009, however, were search and video advertising.

The eMarketer report identified a move towards 'non-advertising' marketing, such as social media and building websites or brand 'microsites'. This means that spend is being channeled into other areas not previously tracked by the research, so that the annual decline in figures may be misleading. The use of social media is also having an impact on how online advertising is being used and how communication channels are changing.

The search marketing sector is shown to be taking a larger slice of the online budget, as it is in Australia as well. The US figures show spend under $11 billion in 2009 growing to nearly $16 billion in 2014. This will make the sector about three times as big as banner or video campaigns. However, although search advertising will see the largest annual increases through to 2013, according to this research, by 2014 it is expected that more new dollars will flow into video advertising than into search.

This expected growth in spending on video ads will far outpace any other online format, running between 34% and 45% from 2009 through 2014 and is the result of video ads moving to a position as the main form of brand advertising online. By 2014, it is estimated that US advertisers will be spending 46.5% of the online advertising market on search and 38.7% on a mix of banner, video and rich media display ads.

With much talk recently around the future of newspapers and online content, and whether these should now starting charging users for access, Media Week has reported on some new research by Forrester in the US which found that while a minority of consumers is willing to pay for online content, not all pay models are considered equal.

Using a mail survey of just over 4,700 consumers, the responses showed that 80% said they wouldn't pay for access to online content if the publisher erects a pay wall. Then 8% of respondents said they preferred an online subscription, with the same percentage also preferring a multichannel subscription. Only 3% said they would prefer to use micropayments, which is one of the options being considered by publishers.

These results are therefore not good reading for publishers and suggest that they should keep offering free, ad-supported products to the vast majority of users who won't otherwise pay for the content, while giving those who will pay a choice of payment methods for access to premium products.

How people would want to access content online also varied, with 37% favouring a website, while smaller percentages preferred portable devices like mobile phones (14%), laptops and netbooks (11%). Another 10% favoured getting their former print publication via an emailed PDF and only 3% favored e-readers like the Kindle, although this reflects the early reach and acceptance of this new technology. Notably, 44% said they preferred none of those options!

When it comes to predicting who will pay for online content, the study found that people who are college-educated, 'technology optimists' and higher earners are more likely to pay for online newspapers than those who are unwilling to pay. Age was barely a factor in willingness to pay, however, but this did become a bigger factor amongst those who are willing to pay for online magazines.

MediaWeek reports on a new survey from third-party ad server Eyeblaster, which suggests that online video ads placed on social networking and gaming sites don’t have the same success in terms of 'user engagement' compared to content sites and email.

The company examined data from thousands of campaigns that had been run for brands over the past year and specifically focused on two key metrics - Dwell Rate (which measures the proportion of ad impressions that resulted in a user engaging with an ad, such as mousing over it or clicking on it) and Dwell Time (which measure the amount of time users spend engaged with a particular ad).

The results showed that overall, online video increased both Dwell Rate and Dwell Time when compared to other forms of online advertising, but also that online video tends to perform better when adjacent to content or email than in social media and gaming environments. This probably reflects the reason for the different types of site usage in the first place, although video sharing is becoming a more important component of these type of sites.

Eyeblaster found that people tended to browse social networks really quickly and so auto start video ads often didn't have a chance to actually start, plus people have few opportunities to stop and linger like they do on content sites due to the different browsing habits on the social networking or gaming sites.

The latest quarterly figures on Internet advertising in Australia have just been released by IAB Australia and they show that the market has recorded continued growth during the tough economic period. The total spend for the latest quarterly period, ending 30th September, reached $466 million, the highest total recorded to date.

The new Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER) has been compiled for the IAB by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as usual, using available data or estimates of advertising spend in the period covered. Although the latest quarterly figures have reached new highs, the year-on-year growth against the same period in 2008 was only up by 3%.

The Search and Directories sector, which is dominated by Google AdWords, is continuing to show healthy growth, despite actual figures from Google being unavailable, so the trend is largely based on market estimates. In total, this sector accounted for 51% of the total online advertising market in Q3 of 2009, and an increase of 12% on the same period a year ago. General Display accounted for 26% of the market and Classifieds 23%, although both of these sectors showed a decline in value compared to the same period a year ago, down 3.8% and 5% respectively.

For the first time, the latest report also captured the online advertising expenditure within the General Display category for the specific media of video, email, CPM (cost per thousand, often referred to as ‘brand’) as well as direct response (often referred to as ‘performance’) advertising. Online video advertising which represented 4% of the General Display category, is on par with figures seen in the US and UK, and is expected to increase sharply in future quarters. Email advertising was 6.5% of General Display whilst CPM advertising (mostly banner advertising) made up 75% of the category, with only 22% reported for response and 3% for a hybrid classification that combines these two forms of advertising.

Overall the online advertising industry is continuing to show healthy growth compared to recent declines of other advertising markets in Australia, so that the online share of the total market of the $13 billion Australian advertising industry continues to grow. However, this continued growth, although slowing against the previous year, continues to come from search advertising sector and particularly Google AdWords in Australia, as more and more companies enter this market to promote their businesses through targeted search marketing.

A spokesman for IAB Australia said that "With continued industry developments in online audience measurement, research demonstrating the effectiveness of online advertising in influencing consumers' purchasing decisions and behaviours, and maturing self-regulatory standards and best practice guidelines, online is now a trusted, core and essential component of effective marketing communications."

A report by MediaPost claims that the highest-priced keyword in the US during September was $99.44 per click on Google. This data comes from the AdGooroo Search Engine Advertising Update, which has begun to track the click costs for search terms for the first time. According to their analysis, the term 'mesothelioma' was the highest-selling keyword, which was also sold on Yahoo! for $60.68 per click to get the top ranking position. The search term 'auto insurance comparison' was the highest-cost phrase on the Bing search engine, at $55.20 per click.

Of course, the search engines themselves will know this data but keep the information confidential, and it's not clear how the figures revealed by AdGooroo are obtained, other than by estimates and market feedback. It seems that the term 'mesothelioma' has become highly expensive due to legal firms pursuing new lawsuits related to the asbestos-causing lung cancer.

The report also says that the search engines served up on average between five and six ads per keyword during September. In the US market, Google moved to 5.45 adverts in September 2009, up from 3.06 a year before. Yahoo! dropped to 5.35 from 7.53 and Bing also saw a decrease to 3.10, from 5.12.