What the 2018 Adspend results indicate about the jobs market

24th Apr 2019

On Tuesday, Pivotal London attended the IAB UK HQ for its announcement of the UK’s Adspend Figures for 2018. In partnership with the PwC, the IAB revealed total UK digital market adspend in 2018 hit £13.44 billion, indicating a solid increase of 15 percent YOY.

Without further ado, here's a snapshot of the results.

Key Stats

UK adspend on smartphone increased by 31.5 percent
51 percent of all digital adspend
Display accounts for 39% of all adspend
Paid search accounts for 50% of all adspend
Smartphone Is almost entirely display (50%) and paid search (49%) advertising
Smartphone display has grown faster (+35%) than search (+29%)
51% (£3,37bn) of all search spend is on smartphone
66% (£3,45bn) of all display Is now on smartphone
81% of smartphone display Is video and native
Outstream (£1,306bn) has increased its majority (57%) of total video spend (£2,307bn)
Social revenue Is now £3,04bn, 23% of all digital adspend (+27% YOY)
80% of all social spend Is on smartphone
58% of display is being served In a social environment

The year of the smartphone

Pivotal Thoughts

With smartphone usage rising and the number of companies allocating a greater percentage of marketing spend on social media advertising, it’s clear why performance marketing jobs are gaining more traction within the digital jobs market. PPC and Paid Social roles, in particular, are in high demand and will be needed to support the growth of marketing campaigns for many years to come.

Vivid video growth

It was confirmed that video is now the largest display format, and now accounts for 44 percent of display advertising spend. Video was also responsible for driving strong growth in display, increasing by 17 percent from 2017.

“Market growth remained both strong and concentrated, mainly for the same reason: the appeal of search and online video advertising for an exceedingly broad advertiser base. The flexibility and measurable performance of top online advertising platforms attracts small businesses, trade promotion budgets and big brands alike,” said Matti Littunen, Enders Analysis.

“As the quality of smartphone handsets continues to improve with bigger, better, higher quality screens coupled with faster WIFI or 4G connectivity and affordable data plans, users are spending more time consuming more video content on their phones. And the more content that is consumed the more ad opportunities they are presented with,” said Dave Foster, Dentsu Aegis

Pivotal Thoughts
To no shock, the number of display advertising roles with a specific focus on video has increased. Display advertising continues to evolve with the customer and is starting to offer a more advanced conversational ad structure, according to the Drum. This confirms that now is the right time to get your foot in the door into a video focussed display advertising position. There is a strong potential to align your career with a growing industry and progress your career, too.

The bigger picture

The UK’s continual focus to spend more on digital advertising was welcoming news to many people in the room during Tuesday’s announcement. The dominance of adspend directed at smartphones and the use of video shows that companies are very much in tune with its customers and putting their content consumption preferences at the forefront of its marketing campaigns. This is why people who have PPC, paid social, display and video experience will be highly sought after, and we further predict that companies will pay higher salaries for top talent with these specific skillsets moving forward.

To view the Adspend report, click here.

If you’re looking to make a pivotal career move or in need of expert people to help grow your business, get in touch with our dedicated Digital Marketing team here. In the meantime, browse all of our live digital jobs here.