Video ad spend grows by 26% YoY in the first half of 2024

Video display continued to drive investment across the UK market, marking the fourth year in a row that digital video has recorded double digit growth in H1 - indicating that advertisers are prioritising the brand building opportunities and high impact formula offered by the format. 

Overall, the UK digital ad market saw 16% YoY growth with spend reaching £16.2bn - far outstripping UK GDP that returned to cautious growth of 0.5% YoY during the same period. 

Meanwhile, search advertising performed strongly (up 13% to £7.87bn), growing over twice as fast as it did in H1 2023. It continues to attract the largest portion of total digital ad spend, but its share has fluctuated slightly - it now accounts for 49% of the market vs 50% in H1 last year.

Other key takeouts include: 

• Mobile spend grew at almost three times the rate of non-mobile spend (22% and 8% respectively) 
• Non-video display grew by 17%, with overall display up by 22% 
• Digital out-of-home grew by 7% to £424m 

Commenting on the latest Digital Adspend results, Jon Mew, CEO of IAB UK, said: “This data shows that established trends - particularly the growth of video advertising and dominance of mobile spend - have accelerated in the first half of 2024. Advertisers are increasingly utilising digital channels to deliver across the marketing funnel and build brands, with recent effectiveness research showing that marketers believe online channels deliver more emotional impact than offline media. I see that reflected in the fact that video - a highly engaging and creative format - is leading the charge when it comes to spend growth.”

Looking ahead, IAB analysis suggests that total digital ad spend growth will remain in double digits for the rest of 2024 and H1 2025 -  with video and retail media spend both set to see strong growth. However, the impact of the autumn 2024 budget on market confidence is a notable variable that is likely to be generating uncertainty, with the latest IPA Bellwether report showing that total marketing budgets stalled in Q3. Despite this, the IPA found that main media budgets continued to grow, driven almost entirely by investment in video.