U.K. Advertisers Capitalize on Falling Online Display Costs

U.K. display advertisers were 21 percent more active during the first quarter of ’09 than during the same period in 2008, according to Nielsen Online. The main reason: Ad rates are lower, so advertisers are buying more of them.

According to data from the firm’s AdRelevance measurement product, the number of advertisers, individual campaigns, and individual creatives used in Q1 increased by 21 percent in comparison to the previous year. On average, nearly 6,000 advertisers ran online display ad campaigns per month, culminating in 11,000 campaigns and 32,000 versions of ad creative.

However, according to ad spend numbers from GroupM’s “This Year, Next Year” report released this week, actual online media spending will remain flat this year, suggesting advertisers are capitalizing on falling media costs. “Buying efficiency is rising all the time, so we can get the same for less,” stated the GroupM report.

Alex Burmaster, Nielsen’s communications director for online, conceded that advertisers were getting “more bang for their buck through falling online advertising rates.” However, he maintained that media owners could be “optimistic about the year ahead,” pointing to strong activity in the retail and finance verticals.

According to Nielsen’s numbers, those sectors accounted for almost a quarter of all online display ads in the first four months of the year, driven by big-name brands such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer, HSBC, and Barclays.