Digital advertising (ad) revenues are set to double by 2020, rising to $285 billion, up from an estimated $160 billion in 2016, despite an increased threat from ad blockers.
This is according to a recent Juniper Research report, which notes this will be driven by an average annual growth of 22% in mobile and wearable advertising spend, as brands and retailers continue to invest in mobile consumer engagement.
The report notes despite the rising adoption of ad blockers, better audience targeting will drive higher click-through rates and increase publisher revenues.
Recently Juniper Research predicted the rising use of ad-blocking technology globally could account for a $27 billion loss in advertising revenue by 2020. This loss will account for almost 10% of the total digital advertising market, it added.
However, publishers, such as Facebook, are utilising their unprecedented audience knowledge to offer advertisers highly accurate targeting, thereby increasing the click-through rates that advertisers are witnessing now, says research author Sam Barker.
Publishers who are able to offer the most efficient targeting are set to become the most popular among advertisers, he added.
PwC partner David Silverman says "Internet advertising was a disruptive innovation when the industry was formed. "Twenty years later we still see double-digit growth rates, including 20% in 2015.
The three key disruptive trends - mobile, social, and programmatic - continue to fuel this exceptional rate of growth, he adds.
Total digital ad spending will increase 15.4% this year, to $68.82 billion, says eMarketer, adding mobile continues to drive growth within overall digital ad spending.
"As consumers continue to increase engagement with mobile devices for daily activities and content consumption, marketers will further integrate all marketing activities including advertising - to the mobile category."
The McKinsey and Company Global Media report predicts that by 2019 digital spending will account for more than 50% of overall media spend.
Within this, digital video spending will overtake physical spending by 2018, two years earlier than it had previously forecast, it adds.
Digital will become the largest advertising category by 2017, surpassing TV one year earlier than forecast, and mobile will more than double its share of the digital ad market, notes McKinsey.
This rapid digital shift is being driven in part by the growing number of connected consumers, the expansion of mobile telephony, and elevated mobile broadband adoption, it adds.
According to Juniper, increased ad revenues will be further driven by faster real-time bidding processes from exchanges such as the Rubicon Project and Fiksu.
Last year saw ad revenues from mobile platforms surpassing those from online platforms, offering publishers the opportunity to capitalise on a sector that is both growing and has a comparatively low adoption of mobile ad blockers, says Juniper.
However, mobile ad blocking 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.
Share