Deloitte: Dutch online advertising reaches 1.5 billion

The Dutch online advertising market totalled €1.4 billion in turnover last year. Mobile has now broken out as an advertising medium with growth of 82% and video ads also doing well in 2014 with revenue growth of 30%, reveals a study by Deloitte and the IAB. The outlook for 2015 is also good – with the expectation that the market will break through $1.5 billion in turnover later this year.

The Dutch online advertising market has made considerable headway in recent years. Even while the traditional segments of the advertising market have seen variability in turnovers, the online market has seen considerable growth since 2010. The segment is well on its way toward making up half of the total advertising market, while advertising turnover for newspapers and magazines continue to decline. In 2014 the growth rate reached 10%, with 8% growth for the previous two years, research by Deloitte – commissioned by IAB Netherlands* – finds.

Online advertising market
The total digital advertising market in the Netherlands grew by 11.3% in 2014 relative to 2013, thereby that it has for the first time since 2011 seen ‘double digit’ growth. The total turnover reached almost €1.4 billion. The biggest growth (11.9%) was realised in search – advertising that are shown in search results – reaching total turnover of €609 million, followed by display advertising whose growth was in the order of 11.8% (+€62 million). Of the display advertising video ads showed the fasted paced growth at 30%.

Small parties in display advertising were able to win back some ground this year. “While last year the growth in display advertising could mostly be attributed to large international parties, this year local publishers have also been performing well. The big international players have again taken a bigger piece of the market, however the difference in growth between local and international parties were not as concerning as last year”, says Roel van Rijsewijk from Deloitte. Last year growth in the online advertising market was mainly driven by Google, managing €88 million in turnover for itself.

Cut out the middle man
To continue being competitive many publishers have sought to increase their margins by making less call on media firms and other middle men. Publishers have, since 2012, been increasingly approaching advertisers directly. The percentage that is placing advertisements directly, has grown from 32% in 2012, to 39% in 2013, settling at 41% in 2014. This trend is being driven by technological development that are making it easier and easier to perform advertising based activities “in house”.

Mobile
In terms of mediums most used for online advertising, there has been a strong expansion in mobile advertising. While advertising through the web-browser remains the most popular medium, the mobile market saw 7% growth in 2014 as well as a massive 82% growth in revenue. Particularly the end of the year saw strong revenue growth and particularly in in-app advertising, Deloitte found. Joris van Heukelom, chairman of IAB Netherlands, explains: “the broad acceptance of mobile as an advertising medium is the start of acceptance of mobile as marketing medium. This will open up enormous new possibilities in the coming years for new growth and will bring the digital and physical form of marketing, such as in retail, closer together.”

Prospects
Through improvement in consumer trust in 2015 and the transfer of TV budgets to digital, Deloitte projects that the Dutch advertisement market will continue to grow over the coming years. 2015 is expected to see growth of 8.4%, while in 2016 there is also an expectation that growth will continue – with a 7.8% increase in total revenue.

* IAB = the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).