In what has become something of a tradition, the IAB likes to point out which medium it has surpassed - last time it was national press, this time the notch on its bedpost is direct mail. TV is, no doubt, being lined up for notchdom somewhere around 2009.
At almost 15% of adspend, the UK gives the highest share to online of any market in the world. Incredibly, its growth rate has accelerated over the past six months.
As each period builds on a bigger base, the rate of growth had been expected to slow. But in the first half of 2007, the figure is 41.3% up on the same period last year, when there was a 41.2% year-on-year increase.
This growth was fuelled by classified advertising, which enjoyed a remarkable 72% surge during the first half of 2007 to account for 拢1 of every 拢5 spent online. Search grew 44% and now takes a 57% share of online advertising.
But while the strongest growth came from the more direct end of the business, there are signs that the internet is starting to be recognised as a powerful brand-advertising medium.
Traditionally, finance and travel - both intangible products ideally suited to online selling - have dominated web advertising. But the automotive category, which just three years ago languished as one of the smallest categories online, has overtaken finance to account for 12.5% of online spend.
This is important, because while few cars are sold online, it has long been known that the internet plays an important role in the purchasing process for cars.
Ten years ago, I set up the website for a well-known car manufacturer. Like many marques, it wrestled with the channel conflict that the web potentially represented. Dealers held the customer relationships and all the data relating to ownership, and they guarded them jealously. To them, the web felt like a real threat. Would manufacturers use it to go direct, centralising customer relationship management and disintermediating the dealer?
In the event, the dealers were delighted. Online sent them fewer Saturday tyre-kickers and, if anything, their challenge was to be as well informed about the product as the web-prepared consumer.
Websites quickly became a vital component of automotive marketing, but online advertising took much longer to establish itself in the sector. That has changed, and online brand advertising has become a core part of the car marketer's toolkit.
This is encouraging for the online ad business, which has been trying to persuade FMCG advertisers of its ability to deliver brand messages for five years. If cars can make use of brand advertising online, they argue, why not soap powder?
There is no doubt that the audience is there, nor that the medium can be used to reach them. But FMCG marketers remain unconvinced. While direct marketers have more accountability than ever, brand marketers are less supported. Case studies abound into the brand impact that advertising online can bring, but what is lacking is an effective planning toolkit to implement these findings.
The most fundamental of these tools is an accepted planning currency. The industry has been moving forward on this, but progress is pitifully slow.
Many in online think that FMCG marketers are applying double standards, calling for greater accountability in online while continuing to invest in TV. Online practitioners are unwilling, as they see it, to drag their levels of accountability down to those of traditional media.
But TV sets the standard by which other media are judged, and the online ad business needs to get to grips with this. The success of the automotive sector should be the spur the industry needs to address the issue - if it wants to add TV to its bedpost, a planning currency has to be its first step.
- Andrew Walmsley is co-founder of i-level
30 SECONDS ON ... IAB RESULTS
- With a 14.7% share of UK adspend, online has now overtaken direct mail, which has a market share of 11.8%.
- Classified online advertising has grown 72% year on year to 拢277.7m, with a 20.8% share of all internet adspend.
- Internet display ads, including banners and skyscrapers, climbed 33% to 拢287m and a share of 21.5%.
- Paid-for search was 44% up year on year to 拢762.3m - a share of 57.1% of the online total. In July, web users carried out 1.4bn search queries.
- 52% of adults in Britain have a broadband connection at home, according to NOP. This compares with 13% three years ago. Nine out of 10 home internet connections are via broadband and 38% have used a wireless connection in the past month.
- Average daily web use has risen 158% over the past four years. The over-50s account for nearly 30% of time spent online; 25- to 34-year-old women spend on average 20% more time online than their male counterparts.