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Internet advertising per capita highest in UK, Denmark, US, Australia, Sweden

Ross Dawson, June 5, 2009 2:30 AM US PT

Techcrunch has updated its analysis of the valuation of the major social networks globally, based on new usage and advertising spending figures.

As last year when I did the same analysis, the most interesting part of this for me is the relative advertising spending per internet user across countries, and the very strong differences in what are sometimes quite similar economies.

The relative ranking has changed little from last year, though the absolute figures have fallen significantly. Internet advertising spending has essentially been flat over the last year or so, while there has been a solid increase in the number of users.

Techcrunch is using a different data source for the number of Internet users (Internet World Stats instead of Comscore), however is still using the figures from PricewaterhouseCoopers' Advertising report. Because of PwC's close affiliation with the Internet Advertising Bureau in most countries, the figures are as good as you're going to get, despite some methodological problems.

I don't think there is a lot of evidence to build further on my suggestions last year as to the differences in Internet advertising spend across countries. One of the biggest drivers is both in advertiser and publisher attitudes. In each country there is an ecosystem of advertisers, ad agencies, media buyers, and publishers which together need to shift their ad spend across channels. In the countries with the highest Internet ad spend per capita, many traditional publishers have actively shifted online and introduced their advertisers to the new media.

It will be fascinating to see whether these differentials in Internet advertising will even out over time, as advertising over digital media channels eventually takes a dominant share of total ad spend.

For the most current insights and trends in the living networks, follow @rossdawson on Twitter!

1 Comments

Sydney Web Design said:

I read this article after your (more recent) Twitter statistics post. More good news for online service companies in Australia! :)

Thanks for the great stream of articles!

Nik - Big Click Studios
@BigClickStudios

June 14, 2009 5:34 AM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.