European digital ad spend rose by 10% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, reaching €25.7bn, with the full year total expected to exceed €50bn.

The figure is revealed in the half-yearly update to IAB Europe’s AdEx Benchmark study of spending in 27 European countries, produced in collaboration with IHS Markit.

The numbers also show that mobile ad spend is approaching a 50% share of the digital ad market as it crosses the €10bn mark.

In the display category, video grew by more than four times the rate of non-video display, and now accounts for 30% of this segment. Growth for non-video display was just 6.6%, while video grew by 27.9%.

The expansion of video has increased display’s share of the overall digital ad spend market. Search advertising continues to exceed spending on display, with 46% of spending, but display, now accounting for 40.6% of revenue, is showing faster growth at 12.3%, compared to growth in search of 10.2%.

Display continues to see strong growth in Central and Eastern Europe especially, growing by almost 18% in H1 2018, compared to 11.2% in Western Europe.

Spending on classifieds and directories, the other category measured in the survey, saw much slower growth, of just 3.2%. This category makes up just 13.5% of the total digital market.

Daniel Knapp, Executive Director TMT at IHS Markit, reported a slowing in the rate of growth between March and June, due to uncertainty associated with GDPR which had impacted advertiser confidence in most markets.

“Demand conditions are set to improve in the second half of the year as market participants navigate the regulatory environment,” he said.

“CEE markets recorded the highest growth as they are progressively closing the digital maturity gap with the leading Western markets,” he added.

Sourced from IAB Europe; additional content by WARC staff