Today is a good day to be working in online advertising, it was announced that online ad spend now accounts for 23.5% of advertising spend overtaking TV for the first time. While this is  great news for anyone working in online its not all good, it is also reported that total ad spend in the UK is down a massive 17%.

No doubt the last 12 months have been tough for us all (especially if you are in TV) but these figures are a positive indication that online is holding its own, and actually still growing.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Internet advertising has beaten all expectations to achieve growth in the most challenging market conditions.”

TV ad spend has fallen by 16.1%, according to the figures from the Advertising Association and WARC. Historically TV has been the ad man’s preferred method of advertising, as well as the largest,  but has now been overtaken but what six years ago was the smallest.

Why is this?

Well one of the main reasons must be down to measurability, something that you still cant be 100% sure of with TV and traditional press advertsing.  With search, display and affiliate marketing traditional marketers are waking up to the level of measurability that these forms of advertising allow them. Being able to analysing the return on investment, especially in these turbulent times, is one reason why online advertising will no doubt continue to grow.