Middle East, Africa see 35% ad spend growth in Q1

Online advertising segment sees the largest spending growth globally

Online advertising may not result in the biggest returns for the amount paid but according to the latest Nielsen numbers, it is a growing segment of advertising that saw 12.1% more spending in Q1 than the same time one year ago.

Nielsen took a look at TV, radio, outdoor, magazine, newspaper, Internet and cinema advertisements in its Global AdView Pulse report and found that magazines were the only ad medium that saw a a reduction in ad spend over last year, going down by 1.4%. Each of the other categories saw a rise in consumer confidence and the improved data of various audiences across various platforms.

Earlier this year, Nielsen projected that Internet advertising would be worth $98.2 billion worldwide, representing 16% of all advertising spend, especially now that advertising is more personalized, targeted and precise to personal traffic, needs and interests.

 
Dollars devoted to TV advertising grew 4% in North America. However the big growth area in TV ads was located in the Middle East and Africa where that segment grew an impressive 33.8%.

Online ad spend grower substantially across the globe -- 12.1% in Europe, 31.8% in Latin America and 35.2% for the Middle East & Africa.

Advertisers will likely see these numbers and push forward with their ad campaigns confident that the waters are inviting more innovation and changes in their segment, especially since real-time feedback is so readily available. 

Advertising access has gotten a lot easier

Just over a month ago Ace Metrix raised $8 million to fund real-time television analytics for advertisers to test different options.

The financing came from WPP, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Leapfrog Ventures, and Palomar Ventures. Ace Metrix plans to use the new funds to further accelerate its growth, continue its focus on innovation and product development, and expand into new markets.

Founded in 2007, Ace Metrix has been building a platform where advertisers are able to develop, deploy and target their television and online advertising.

CEO Peter Daboll, previously worked as Chief of Insights at Yahoo and CEO of comScore Media Metrix, and sees the crucial need to evaluate the effectiveness of digital advertisement and targeting to stay competitive as the method of television consumption evolves.

Previously, the time it took to put out and survey and ad to see how audiences responded was in the four to six week range, now Ace Metrix can deliver survey data about an ad’s effectiveness within just a couple days.

Now that audiences are very quick to respond on the Internet and small groups of people are able to be very vocal about their feelings regarding video content, advertisers have to be able to cut through the noise and know when something is effective and resonated for the right reason, or is causing more problems than solutions -- and wide-spread audience responses are a key component to that.

With around $71 billion going into TV advertisements and emerging video, there are a lot of people making very pricey decisions who can afford to spend a few days getting feedback, rather than going in blind or eating up more resources with a one to two month survey.

Daboll said, in a statement, that his company is on track for 100% growth rate through 2012 and that Ace Metrix is interested in offering services to key adjacent markets in the near future. 

Currently, Ace Metrix has more than 16,000 scored television and online video ads across 75 categories, each with more than 12,000 quantitative and qualitative data points.