The latest data from IAB and PwC shows total online ad spend reached $4.6 billion in 2014, a 16% year on year rise according to the latest IAB online ad spend figures.
For the December quarter, total ad spend was $1.2 billion, up 7.1% year on year.
Mobile spend more than doubled – increasing 118% to reach $762 million while video grew 52% to $237 million.
FMCG was the biggest spending category with a 16% share while retail reached 10.9% share of the total display market – marking its strongest ever quarter and bringing it in line with the retail category’s 9.9% share of the total advertising market.
The finance and computers and communications categories also both align more closely with general market advertising spend.
“While we are delighted about the sustained and robust growth of online advertising, we are most pleased that the proportion of expenditure in specific categories is aligning to category shares in the advertising market as a whole. This signifies that advertisers are seeing digital categories as being a comparable investment to their traditional counterparts,” said Alice Manners, CEO of IAB Australia.
“That’s good news for the online industry and reflects the hard work done by the IAB to help establish a fair and transparent industry and to promote the digital market as an effective and valuable investment.”
See the infographic below for split outs of online channels display, classified, mobile, search and video. 
The IAB is gearing up to launch its Digital Ratings in 2016 – the blueprint will be fully rolled out by 2017 and claims the information is will aggregate will be 30 times better and 30 times more often that it currently is – helping advertising maker better, more informed decisions on how and where they spend marketing budgets.
AdNews has recently partnered with the IAB to launch a series of professional education and training sessions. The AdNews Digital Skills Series launches in March. Bookings are open and can be made here:
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