Digital display ads make strong recovery

London: The popularity of Facebook is leading a revitalisation of the digital display advertising sector in the United Kingdom, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau.

The report found that UK online display advertising grew by 6.4 per cent year on year to £381 million in the first half of 2010, an impressive recovery from the 4.4 per cent year-on-year fall in spend in 2009. Digital display advertising accounts for just over 19 per cent of the £1.97 billion spent by companies on all UK internet advertising for the period. Within the online display sector the IAB singled out the increasing desire of companies to target users on social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn and the boom in advertising around online programming for the recovery and growth.

Paid-search advertising, the stalwart of UK internet advertising dominated by Google, remains a juggernaut with ad spend increasing by 8.9 per cent to £1.18 billion year on year in the first six months.