The Australian digital advertising market is in recovery, recording quarterly growth of 11.3% to $2,263m for the three months ending 30 September 2020.

Drawn from the IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER), the data suggests all advertising categories achieved growth following pandemic induced hits in the second quarter.

Search and directories now represent 45% of all expenditure and $1.06bn in the quarter ending September 2020; general display 38% and $871m; and classifieds 17% and $386m.

The general display formats of video, standard display, and infeed/native advertising all experienced double-digit quarter on quarter recovery, growing at 11%, 10% and 19% respectively. 

Video advertising is shifting towards pre-pandemic results with CTV inventory growing fastest across digital screens. 

Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia commented: “It’s been a challenging year but the growth this quarter in terms of digital formats signals the industry is bouncing back.  We are now entering what is traditionally considered the industry’s’ strongest quarter and we anticipate a continuation of the growth through to the end of the year.”

Although the Search and Directories and Classifieds sectors were still down on the previous year (-6.9% and -11.5% respectively), General Display revenue was marginally up with a 0.9% increase assisted by the strong growth in video revenue.