Digital ad revenues are tipped to double by 2020, with ad spend across mobile, online and wearables set to grow from $160 billion in 2016 to $285bn in just four years time.
This prediction comes from British firm Juniper Research, with the study finding that mobile and technology are the main drivers behind the growth.
One of the research's authors Sam Barker says: “Publishers, such as Facebook, are utilising its unprecedented audience knowledge to offer advertisers highly accurate targeting, thereby increasing the click through rates that advertisers are witnessing now”.
The study also notes that this growth is happening in spite of the rise of adblockers. One reason for this, again, is because of mobile with the research outlining that mobile still has a fairly low adoption of adblockers.
However, mobile adblocking adoption is expected to increase over the next five years as users bring the benefits of the technology onto their mobile devices. The research also warned that publishers will have to contend with the introduction of network level ad blocking, currently being deployed by the UK mobile operator Three.
Industry bodies are already joining forces to tackle to the problem of adblocking, with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) setting out to create a global multi-pronged approach to take on the adblocking epidemic.
Speaking with AdNews previously CEO of the WFA, Stephan Loerke says: “Clearly the online ad experience isn't satisfactory today," Loerke says. "As an industry we need to be getting our heads around what creates [consumer] frustration to create a more sustainable and fertile ground for the advertising industry to grow in the future.
“This is a very significant challenge for the ad industry, the phenomenon is global and is by no means limited to mature markets,” he added.
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