Online advertising revenues increased 4.9% year on year to reach $2.2billion in Q1 2019, according to latest IAB data.

Video (+15%), mobile (+26%) and classified ads (+7%) continue to drive growth, though the data confirms digital ad market growth is slowing.

IAB CEO Gai Le Roy said the market was "tough across all platforms" but that "bright spots" remain buoyant. She said increased government/political spend would also show in second quarter figures.

Search and directories maintained a 44% share of online advertising expenditure, standing at $977.6m for the quarter. Classifieds reached $426.2m, a 20% share of spend and general display advertising is now 36% of spend at $799m.

Video represented the largest share of general display expenditure at 46%, followed by content, native and infeed at 35% and standard display formats at 18%.  Each of these segments has a component of mobile advertising expenditure with mobile advertising making up 66% of total general display expenditure, an increase from the December 2018 quarter.

Media agencies were the preferred buying method for display advertising viewed on content publishers’ inventory with some 58% bought via media agencies via an IO / non-programmatic method. 29% of general display advertising was bought programmatically with either fixed CPM and guaranteed inventory (6%) or with a variable CPM based on real time bidding via an exchange or private market place (23%).  The share of general display advertising bought programmatically decrease  5% compared to the prior quarter.

The IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report, published by PwC, also found that 32% of video advertising expenditure for content publishers was driven by viewing via a connected TV in the March quarter, with 39% viewed on a desktop and 29% via mobile.