which showed annual like-for-like spend on online display advertising dropped 4.4% in 2009, its first year-on-year fall since the post-dotcom boom fallout of 2001.
It wasn't just the UK that experienced declining online display advertising figures - France declined by 6% and Sweden by 5%.
However, while the overall online advertising market only grew at a marginal rate of 4.5% across 23 markets in Europe last year, compared to 20% in 2008 and 40% in 2007, the UK still managed to increase growth by 4.6%.
The six biggest markets, including the UK, experienced single digit growth and accounted for 76% of the European online ad market in 2009.
Spain saw a 7.7% growth rate in online advertising despite a 23% decline in its traditional ad market.
Meanwhile Italy experienced a 6.5% increase and Germany a 5.2% growth rate, attributed to fact that they started from a lower base. Online advertising in France grew by only 1.7% and 1.9% in the Netherlands.
The research conducted by Screen Digest showed the UK's increase was boosted by search advertising, which grew by 10.8%, although the rate at which it grew was down by half from 2008.
Despite the slowdown, online's share of overall ad spend continued to increase significantly across Europe, with the UK taking the highest market share at 30%.
This was followed by the Nordic markets at between 20% and 25% and France and Germany, which were close to the European average of 18-19%.
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