LONDON: Smartphone advertising expenditure keeps growing, driven largely by smartphone video ads which jumped by 69% in 2017 according to new data from the IAB UK, making this by far the fastest-growing online ad format.

The latest Digital Adspend report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK and PwC revealed that advertisers spent £476m more on smartphone video ads in 2017, taking the total to £1.17bn.

Video ad spend overall (including phones, computers and tablets) increased 47% to £1.61bn – so 73% of all video spend last year went on smartphones.

All forms of advertising on smartphone grew 37.4% so that smartphones now account for 45% of the total digital adspend figure of £11.55bn, compared to just 9% five years ago.

And there’s room for that to grow further, since, as IAB chief digital officer Tim Elkington noted, they accounted for 59% of online time in the final quarter of 2017.

“Digital has led to a change in consumer behaviour as people use their smartphone for a wider variety of things,” he said.

“The ad community has responded to this change – particularly the growth of mobile and video – by developing dynamic ad products that fit seamlessly into their environment.”

A YouGov survey that accompanied the report revealed that, in terms of online smartphone activities, listening to a podcast has seen the biggest rise amongst smartphone users, with a ‘net’ rise in popularity of 30% followed by viewing social media ‘stories’ (up 29%), reading news articles (up 24%) and learning a new skill (up 22%).

The IAB study also showed social media spending growing 38% to £2.39bn, or one in every five pounds spent on digital ads; 83% of social media budgets now go to smartphones.

The AA/WARC Expenditure Report is published tomorrow, giving details of all advertising expenditure in the UK during 2017, including traditional media.

Sourced from IAB UK; additional content by WARC staff